UPDATED: After arrest in Bangkok, the “Mayflower church” leaves for America.
Update (April 11):
Nearly all 63 members of the Shenzhen Holy Reformed Church (SHRC) will celebrate Easter in the United States. A week after the Bangkok police arrested the congregation’s 28 adults and 35 children, 59 of the members are flying to their new home in America. One pregnant woman and her family will stay in Bangkok until the baby’s birth, which is expected to be April 20. They are also released and staying in a hotel now.
The Wall Street Journal confirmed the group’s departure from Thailand through a spokeswoman for the United Nations’ refugee agency and a Thai police official.
Thai officials had intended to deport church members who they had detained for overstaying their visas, according to the Journal. The congregation had relocated to the country after they were unable to gain asylum in South Korea, which they fled to in late 2019 and early 2020.
Now, the community will arrive in Dallas on Good Friday and then travel to the city of Tyler, where religious persecution advocacy group Freedom Seekers International has been working to resettle them. US activists credited the State Department for ensuring that the community arrived in America, rather than China.
SHRC members had long hoped to resettle in the United States, an outcome that had secured the backing of former Representative Frank Wolf, head of the US Commission on Religious Freedom, and ChinaAid’s Bob Fu.
As early as last year, churches in Texas had agreed to sponsor the congregation after their arrival, including providing housing, living expenses, and help settling in. The US has often provided resettlement or humanitarian parole for people facing persecution from the Chinese government, including formerly detained Uyghurs, …
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