When Andy & Angie were students at University in Manchester, England, they met an old man they knew as Uncle Alfred.
When Uncle Alfred was a young man he wanted to be a missionary. In 1922 he moved to China and worked in Guizhou Province. He became known as Bo Fuli, which means "Hand of God". In 1931 he married another missionary, Rose Piaget. Three years later, while returning from a prayer conference, Alfred and Rose and some other missionaries were captured by soldiers of the Red Army led by General Xiao Ke. Rose was later released, but Alfred and the other missionaries were taken as prisoners of the Red Army. They were forced to walk 2,500 miles for more than 500 days. This journey later became known as the Long March.
The Red Army did not like the imperialist foreigners, and when they got to each new city they would hold a mock trial and execute some of the foreigners. At one of these trials the judge asked, "Why did you come to China?" Alfred replied, "I came to tell you of the one true God and to call you to repentance." When the soldiers beat him with bamboo rods he remembered that Jesus was beaten and died on the cross to save him from his sins.
Alfred knew that Jesus told us to love our enemies and to pray for them. So he used his medical skills to heal the soldiers. He also sewed clothes for the General’s new baby. Alfred was the only foreigner to walk the full Long March and survive.
Later Alfred wrote a book called "The Restraining Hand: Captivity for Christ in China". In the book's Chinese edition, General Xiao Ke praised it as the most accurate account of the Long March ever written by any foreigner.
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