Ben Fielding is a successful American businessman, working high up in a multinational corporation that does a lot of business in China. As a publicity stunt, his corporation sends him to China to live with a normal chinese family for six weeks, and the family they choose is the family of his former friend and roommate from college, Li Quan. Ben remembers Quan as a brilliant historian, and assumes he has gone back to China and become a respected professor, but when he arrives, he finds a different story. Quan, a Christian, was never allowed a teaching post because of his faith, and thus his lack of allegiance to the communist government and its values. So he is now a locksmith. As Ben spends time with the family, he comes to understand their underground life, attending church in the middle of the night in a near-by home, and the risk that comes with being a Christian, even in the new "open" China. Ben has assumed that all he has been hearing form the Chinese government about religious tollerance is true, but he comes to see the full picture, of government limits on what sanctioned churches can preach, where they can meet, and who can be a pastor. These limits are such that Christians are still forced to go underground, a move which makes them enemies of the state. Quan has been in prison many times, as had his father and his father's father, and endured much persecution, abuse, and harrassment.
Ben had turned from his faith, as his own life and its success took center stage. But as he is confronted with the depth of the Li family's faith, he slowly realizes his own need. Quan returns to prison, and is held for many months. Ben does all he can to get him released, but all he can successfully do is arrange a few visits. But he continues to stay with the family, and to keep working on Quan's behalf. During this time, he continues to learn more about the underground church, and the missionaries that work around China spreading God's word to a people who is hungry for it. Through all of this, he comes to realize that he has been turning his back on God, and cherishing his own view and perception of reality, and he comes to believe again and anew in God.
Despite Ben's best efforts, Quan's time in jail, though it has been fruitful in that he has been able to minister to others, finally ends in death. For him, this means joyful reunion with his family and with his Lord, and for Ben this means a return to the States, where he reenters his life with renewed vigor, working toward reconciliation with his former wife and his kids, and seeking to reenter his career with a new focus and outlook. No longer is his own advancement the goal, but instead, he works toward making their company a force of reform especially in China.
The book ends with a glimpse of heaven and with the final victory of heaven and the King over all the earth, the time when there will be no more martyrs, when God no longer stands by, but when all things are made new.
Safely Home is a worthwile story about the persecuted church in China. It gives the reader a glimpse of what faith can cost, and of what it means to stand up for Jesus in the face of opposition. In America and the West, faith is often a relatively easy road, but taking a close look at a place where that isn't the case is a powerful call to revisit our own faith, and see where it will take us. I have been encouraged and also challenged to think more about persecuted Christians around the world. It is a source of sorrow that people must endure such things for their faith, but also a source of joy that people do. It is a worthwile endeavor for us to "borrow" their faith, in a sense, to draw strength and encouragement from it, and to hope that that same faith emerges more and more within us.
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