Brother Nee was wise to flee and escape from Shanghai. Otherwise, he would have been arrested by the Japanese military police. He went to the interior of China and carried on his pharmaceutical factory in Chungking, the capital of China during the war. Brother Samuel Chang was a great help to Brother Nee in that pharmaceutical factory. Due to the great turmoil in the church in Shanghai, Brother Nee had no other choice but to stop his ministry. His ministry was stopped for six years. There was a rumor that he was too occupied with his pharmaceutical business and did not have the time to minister. This was false. He did not minister because of the rebellion. This was the last and greatest suffering which Brother Nee had to endure before his imprisonment.

In 1948 a big revival was brought in among us, and Brother Nee returned to his ministry. Through that revival nearly all the rebellious ones repented to him. Though many had become rebellious toward Brother Nee, they were not against the church. It was a real testimony that almost everyone stayed with the church and did not go back to the denominations. During the time of the rebellion, some went to Brother Nee and encouraged him to set up another meeting. He said that this should not be done. He told these saints that regardless of whether the church was against him or for him, it was still the church, and they had to continue in the church.

When Brother Nee returned to his ministry, there was a bigger revival. The church then decided to buy a big piece of land for a meeting hall that could seat three thousand inside and two thousand outside. The price of the land was about one hundred thousand dollars, and the price to build the meeting hall was about the same. I was bearing the responsibility in these financial matters. One day Brother Nee's wife told me that he wanted me to go to his home that night. When I went to his home, he handed over to me thirty-seven gold bars at ten ounces each. This was three hundred seventy ounces of gold at fifty dollars an ounce at that time. He said, "Take this and use it for the payment of the land." He told me he got it from the pharmaceutical business.

After the revival brought in through the return of Brother Nee to his ministry, he began to have a training. Later the Communists took over his training center. He was arrested in 1952 and was imprisoned until his death twenty years later.

According to my view and knowledge of Brother Nee, he did not have much peace in his life. He suffered his entire life. He was really a suffering person. In all his sufferings, he learned to deal with his natural life and self. The last lesson he learned through being put aside from the ministry for six years was the breaking of the outer man and the release of the spirit. He learned this one lesson in those six years. During this time he would not minister because so many were rebellious toward him, but some of us had many times of fellowship with him. He always talked to us about the breaking of our outer man and the release of our spirit. Those six years of suffering helped him to learn the lesson of having the natural man broken. When the natural man is broken, the release of the spirit is possible.

He did not merely pass on teaching and doctrines to people. All of his teaching had the backing of real experience learned through sufferings. He was not just a Bible student, who learned doctrines and passed them on to others. Whatever he ministered, he himself experienced. He learned so much through all his sufferings. Praise the Lord! Today we are the ones who inherit all the lessons. The sufferings I saw with Brother Nee and the lessons he learned through them helped my life very much. I can never forget what I saw in him. All the impressions I received of him became the greatest help to my Christian life. This is also a great help to the churches. Today we have such a heritage, which was built up by one who paid such a great price. The price was the sufferings. Brother Nee was a man of suffering. He did not have any children, and his wife went to the Lord about seven or eight months before he died in prison. There was no need for him to write a will because he had nothing left when he went to the Lord. However, he left much with us. Today we have the churches and such a rich heritage.