I was the spy who danced and sang in prison, gave names to my interrogators and saw God do miracles.
Julia Garratt and her husband Kevin were arrested by Chinese authorities on trumped up charges. They endured over two years of detention and imprisonment. Julia shared recently a part of her experience. 
Hope
I was taken by police dressed in black, in a black sedan and driven off in the middle of the night to a black prison in the middle of nowhere. The place was called a black prison because it was not supposed to exist
I carried a great treasure into that prison. Hope in my heart.
My residence was an isolation cell. I left only to go through interrogation, six hours per day for six months. The cell to the interrogation room became my daily fitness lesson. There were two female guards with me 24/7, rotating in eight-hour shifts. They came with me to the bathroom. I was born in England, raised in Canada, and was kind of shy about that experience.
I had something my guards didn’t. Hope. 
Valuable Lessons
The guards were also captives. They had to stay out in this isolation compound. It was on an island in the middle of a river between North Korea and China. For three months I didn’t even know my husband Kevin was also there. There were 30 guards for him and 30 guards for me. A big wall between us. looks like overkill When I look back it feels like I was in a movie. I can hardly even believe that this was my real life.
I learned valuable lessons. There were things I believed but in suffering they became self-evident in a way that couldn’t have known if I hadn’t had that experience.
I understood what it means that love is poured out into our hearts. I learned that hope doesn’t disappoint, and that love is contagious.
Dancing and Singing
In my room, my guards would see me every day. I was the spy who danced, the spy who sang. I was definitely not their typical criminal spy which is probably why they decided that six months is enough of her, and they released me to house arrest. For the next 18 months they would call me on a burner phone to set up another interrogation in the back of a sedan.
Love was undoing them. My guards were women. They weren’t allowed to talk so they just sat there. I told them, “You might as well learn some English words while you’re sitting there for 8 hours.” So, we had lessons every day. And they started to like me but they couldn’t show it. But when one went out to the bathroom the other one would whisper, “Thank you.”
Steven, Benjamin, and John
There were three men who interrogated me daily. I was sitting on a chair for six hours every day and they’re firing questions at me to undo me. But God was undoing them. I just kept saying to them of course I can say the same answer in one month, two months, three months, four months because I’m telling you the truth. They said to me, can you just do it without saying the word Jesus. I said yes. He is a loving king, the almighty father, and I can use as many words as you want because his character so multi-faceted. One day I decided to give them all English names because it offset the fear. I didn’t learn to do this as a strategy before prison. God gave me this strategy that now they teach the military. I went into my interrogation room and these three men sitting so I went in I gave them English names. “Hi, Steven. Hi, Benjamin, Hi, John.”
As I started to do this, they began to seem just like my kids. In my heart I was feeling something for them. This began to undo them.
Healing
One day God said to me, ask Steven how his back is. This experience happened a number of times and I called them “God prompts”. They were little things that came into my heart. So I asked, “How’s your back Steven?” He looked at me and said, “I have had it back problem for eight years.” He tells me his story quickly. I just sat there not saying or doing anything because there’s cameras everywhere and the feed is going up to the leaders and up to Beijing. As I sat there, he says, “Are you doing that praying thing?” The next day he came back and before I even sat down for interrogation I said, “Hey, how’s your back?” He whispered, “Thank you.” I whispered, “Please don’t thank me, thank Jesus.”
The other interrogator heard this. Later, as we walked to my room, he said, “I’ve been having nightmares ever since I came to this place.” Just like me, he was stuck in the middle of nowhere. I prayed silently and after that he had no more nightmares. He told me about a month after that when he escorted me to one of my embassy visits. When were alone in the hall at the embassy he flips up his phone and say, “Here’s my kid.” And he showed me a picture of his son holding chopsticks. That’s what the love of God does.
Love
Matthew 5:44 records Jesus’ words to love your enemies and do good to those who persecute you. That doesn’t mean grit your teeth and try to love them because it’s like so hard to love them. it means let that love that is poured in our hearts work in us to reveal the truth. I don’t go around trying to convert people. I try to be a genuine Christian that really cares about people and lets that love do its work. Love is a relational thing. It breaks barriers. Love is healing. Love is genuine.
Real love comes from the hope that does not disappoint.
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