(Not) Alone in Hong Kong

I should be sleeping right now, but I can't. I am lying here thinking about the whirlwind that this past two weeks has been. I just came back from New Zealand and absolutely loved every minute of it. I am frozen thinking about God's faithfulness and protection over the past 72 hours in my life. I just can't get over his hand of protection over circumstances I found myself in, and perhaps it will be somewhat therapeutic to put this down in words.

I travelled to NZ alone, and it was a fantastic journey. Traveling alone can be nervewracking at times, especially as a female. I did have some moments where I wished I was with other people, but overall it was an amazing experience and I felt very well taken care of. That was until I started my journey home. Being at the end of the trip, I felt like the trip was done and my adventure had ended. Little did I know that the adventure was just about to begin. I spent the night before my 8am flight "sleeping" at the Auckland airport. I didn't end up sleeping and boarded my flight rather exhausted. I have always been really bad at sleeping on planes and was once again unsuccessful at sleeping on this flight. So there were another 12 hours that I did not sleep. This made me one tired girl when we landed in Hong Kong. In retrospect it was probably not a good place to be in when landing in a foreign country where English is not the primary language. I was so exhausted and could feel myself just wanting to burst into tears. I needed to find somewhere to sleep, because my connecting flight was not until the morning. I quickly got the feeling that I was not going to be allowed to sleep in the airport so I started asking about places to stay. The airport endorses places that are a minimum of $265 US dollars per night, so that was completely out of the question. They referred me to someone who had a list of hostels and cheaper accommodations. I started phoning and either a) they did not have room, b) their english was atrocious and I had no idea what they were saying, or c) they were multiple hours from the airport. After phoning the entire 3-page list of places I was so frustrated and wanted to curl up into a ball on the floor I was so tired. Finally I had to ask for more help and I was referred to a place that had a spot open. She told me I needed to get there before 6, and I wasn't sure if that was feasible. I explained to her that I was coming from the airport and didn't know anything about Hong Kong or how long things took, and asked if that would be ok. She insisted that i needed to be there by 6, and told me I might make it. Great. That was really re-assuring. At this point I don't know how to even get out of the airport (it seemed massive and so confusing) and after asking about 6 people and being entirely confused about how to leave I proceeded to have a breakdown. I finally made it to a taxi and was on my way. About an hour into the taxi ride I looked down and realized it was past 6pm now. Shoot. I am now in a taxi heading to somewhere and I am not sure if they will be there/if I am going to be able to stay there. I can't explain this to my taxi driver and can't ask him to wait because I can't even say hello in his language. My taxi driver finally (after about an hour and fourty minutes in the taxi) drops me off and simply points. I am in a massively busy area and don't see the name of my hotel anywhere. He is pointing down an alley, and when I get out he is gone.

It took a long while trying to find out where I was going, and eventually I was lead to an elevator and had no idea what floor I was going to. Seeing as the buildings are all about 40 floors high, I guess I was lucky that after going through floor 1-12, I finally found my destination on floor 12. I checked in and was told by the woman at the desk who spoke broken english that I needed to follow this other woman to my room in another building. I followed her and found myself being led back outside and through the busy streets of Hong Kong. She did not speak English and wasn't even looking behind her to see if I was still there. There were so many people and I was scared I was going to lose her and not know where to go. We were taken off the main street and down several smaller streets and finally made it to this other building.

This building was the sketchiest place I have ever been in. She took me to the lift and it took 15 minutes for it to finally come. We waited and I tried to take in my surroundings. Just generally terrifying, and I wondered what I was doing. She took me up to the floor and then through several doorways and led me to an area that had three rooms. She pointed and I guessed this was mine. It was miniature and gross. It was also freezing cold and the room was not heated, which was great when I had no luggage with me and am used to the heat of Thailand. The blankets on the bed covered about half of me, but there were 2 beds so between the two miniature really thin blankets I was able to cover myself.

I had to wake up at 5am to be able to get the bus back to the airport to make my morning flight. I had been given instructions of where this would be, so I thought I would be ok. I usually do not like to go out anywhere at 5am, let alone a place that seemed so sketchy and strange. I made my way back to the hallway where the lift was and waited for it to come. After 10 minutes of it not coming I started to think that I would need to find the stairs, but everything around me was scary and I didn't really want to look around anywhere. I waited another 5 minutes, and in fear of missing my flight because of it, I proceeded to search for a staircase. I found it and when I opened the doors to the stairs I cringed. It was a terrifyingly creepy staircase. I braced myself and told myself if I hurried down it would all be over soon. The stairs were dark and very dimly lit. As I went down there were some very shady characters around the 3rd floor. They were burning something and smoking, and they looked at me and laughed and starting speaking Chinese to one another. I quickly passed by them and picked up my pace a little. I felt like you could hear my heart beating out of my chest at this point, so i wanted to leave before they could hear it.

I finally got to the door that said 1/f which I assumed meant 1st floor. I was a little relieved to finally be there, and would soon be out onto the main road. I went to open the door and it was locked. I tried again because I was certain this must not be happening. It sure was. Locked. Going into a slight panic attack I walked back to the second floor in hopes that it would be open and I could maybe get the lift from there. Locked. All of the doors had locked behind me and I was stuck in the sketchiest stairwell I can imagine. Trying not to pass out because I was so terrified, I thought about my options. The shady men were at floor 3, and I was now back to floor one. I was not going to pass them again, but I couldn't get out floor one or two. At this moment I felt like I might die. In all seriousness I feared I was being led into the sex trade or something awful was going to happen to me. I prayed to God and asked for protection and tried not to fully freak out. At the 1st floor there was another set of smaller stairs from there that presumably led to a basement. No part of me wanted to go down them because they were small and dingy and it was darker down there than the other places. I thought about my options however, and had no choice. I think God moved my legs, because they felt like jello. I felt like I was walking on a cloud as I walked and froze with fear. As I entered the basement area my surroundings were a lot grosser and sketchier than the main stairwell, which I had thought was the ultimate in sketchy. As I came to the bottom it was dark and I couldn't see anything. I walked a few feet and started to see a light. I walked towards it and prayed that it was some sort of exit. As I proceeded I could feel a change in temperature and knew that it was an exit to the outdoors. I had to clear out construction equipment and some odd things to unblock the door, but I was able to exit from there. I walked out and was in a back alleyway and had no idea where I was.

I was still terrified and in a state of panic. I didn't feel safe yet, even though I had made it out of the building. To make it worse, there was a police vehicle making circles around the street. I already knew something was sketchy with this area, and the police vehicle parusing the area kind of confirmed that. I stood stunned and absolutely terrified and confused. Alone in Hong Kong at 5:30am with no idea where you are and no ability to communicate in their language to ask where to go. Please God, HELP! I finally had to wave down the police vehicle and ask if anyone spoke English. There were 3 police men in the vehicle and one of them spoke broken English and pointed me in the right direction. Thank you, God. I proceeded to have the most terrifyingly lonely walk through the back alleyways to the main street. Every noise made me uneasy and every person seemed untrustworthy at that moment.

I got lost and confused again, because the directions were unclear that he had given me. I had to ask so many people before I finally found someone who could speak English and help me. I was going in the wrong direction and was helped to the bus stop.

I finally made it to the airport and was able to decompress as I waited for my flight. Slightly traumatized I checked my email with the free wifi available at the airport. I was shocked to see the number of people who had said they were praying for me. I am so so thankful for all of these people because I know that the prayers were heard and God definitely has his hand of protection over me that night. The strangest thing was this, however. I had a facebook message waiting for me when I checked my emails. A girl I went to camp with and haven't talked to in over 5 years had messaged me. I had no idea she was a Christian when we went to camp, and still to this day had no idea she was a Christian. She sent me a message to say that she had woken up and checked fb and saw the trouble I was in overseas and told me that she knew she needed to pray for me. She wanted to know if I was alright. I completely broke down when I read this (yes, now the Hong Kong airport staff have seen me break down twice....awesome!), because it was just confirmation to me that I was being prayed over and protected. God alerted someone to wake up and pray for me and had people thinking and praying for me all over the world. Feeling like I actually really needed the prayers when they were happening, but not knowing until after the fact that people were praying for you is a really comforting feeling.

It hasn't been long since this happened (probably only 48 hours or something) and I am still slightly traumatized by the whole thing. I am so unbelievably thankful for God's hand of protection over me and am absolutely floored when I think about how covered I was by God's hands in this situation. I can say that I was alone in Hong Kong and many times that night I felt completely alone, but looking back it is so clear that God was with me every moment of that night and covered me as I went. I still can't really get over how awesome that is. Traumatized, but SO so thankful.