2014 年 4 月 23 日
School of hard knocks. Today is the drop dead deadline day for us, getting our visa to enter back into mainland China. I say back, because all of our stuff is still there. It's quite a difficult process to figure out on your own when you're with your whole family and small children. In fact, I wouldn't recommend it. But we are doing it. Yesterday was a particularly difficult day because we didn't succeed in getting a visa and were turned away. IT. WAS. DEVASTATING. like nothing I had felt before. I was stunned, could not think, looking straight, like a zombie on the streets. My poor kids must have been so worried about their dad. Here's what happened:
The lady behind the glass in the Consulate didn't give us enough time to explain our situation, and for reasons unknown to us, didn't seem particularly concerned over our plight. It was, in fact, a confusing process. She didn't know that we just lost a 1000 dollars already on a flight that we couldn't take back to China today because the Consulate was closed yesterday for a holiday we didn't know about, and so our tickets went POOF on Tuesday. No way to reschedule, just lost the tickets.
Christa realizing that she was MISSING some of the Hong Kong residence permits, NEEDED for our VISA app. She had to scramble back to the Hotel to find them. She did. Or else?The lady behind the glass didn't know that we had to book more expensive hotels to stay longer than planned (such short notice). She didn't know our bank account was wastefully draining away as we spoke to her. She seemed busy, impatient, and even annoyed, and so we could see the writing on the wall and there was nothing we could do about it. To her, it was late in the day, almost closing time. Even after Christa bravely navigated the Hong Kong transportation system to go back to the Hotel from the Consulate to find the Hong Kong entry permits (needed for Visa application, but we didn't know that, nor did the website make that clear), she had to find her way back. She had no map, could not speak or read Chinese, if the Lord didn't help navigate her, she would be lost and time run out. But she made it, miraculously, and I don't use that word loosely, we had miracle after miracle, but a roadblock was just around the corner. We now thought we had everything we needed to get this done for the lady behind the glass. We were wrong.
We didn't know what was coming down our way, in the form of a young woman behind the glass, showing no mercy or understanding, or even listening to what we were trying to say. Cutting us off when we spoke, even curt and dismissive... this was not going good.
Our time at the Consulate was coming fast to a close for the day, after 6 hours of waiting inside, and one early morning hour outside that day in a line that spanned two blocks. We were tired, hadn't eaten all day, it was 4 pm now, and maybe a little impatient ourselves, definitely on edge considering the stress. All of our plans and preparations and airline reservations wasted (you have to make reservations in ADVANCE and pay for plane tickets before they will even consider your tourist visa application seriously, so it is very risky) I don't think I have ever been so frustrated at a "process" to this level before in my life. It was pretty amazing. CA DMV x 10, and especially with our language barrier which was not their fault, it was ours. We just had no idea of this process. So she pushed the papers back out to us through the curved silver tray under the thick glass, and I took it and my mind had NO WORDS. Just shock.
I did exclaim how harsh the decision seemed to me as we walked away. We were turned away without any advice. I had so many questions. Calming my temper, trying to calm down my oldest teenager on the spot who realized her Beijing youth conference trip was in jeopardy now, and my wife looking completely bewildered, we walked out of there, tail between our legs and trying not to create a scene. The place was packed full of people. Who knows what their days were like?
Our "stuff" including our very expensive music studio equipment and multiple computers was still in our ChongQing, apartment, and we did not know how we were going to get it now, or if it would all just fall to the Landlord of the apartment.
Unknowns abounded!
For over a half an hour we (my family) tried not to get upset at each other out on the street just outside the Consulate, we aimlessly wandered. I had no words, I could not even think, the stress on my brain pretty much shut down all ability to think or solve. Christa was busy with her phone trying to contact some friends in China. The kids were hungry, but I wasn't hungry, after that. I was supposed to find some place to eat as we wandered.
The little kids were not cooperating and grouchiness (murmuring?) was setting in fast. We hadn't eaten all day and it was now about 4:00 pm. Wandering down the street sidewalks for some time, finally, I spotted a Burger King door after some long bewildered walking, a welcome sight, and we went up four flights of stairs to order one of the biggest meals we could, ...for everyone. Take that adversary. Ha! No really, it did cheer us a bit as we tried to forget and forgive whatever happened to us back there. Ice cream too. Food helps sometimes. We realized we were in some big big trouble at this point. With someone being able to have that kind of power over you, and you have no rights whatsoever, it is a pretty tall order to ask someone to remain calm when so much is at stake. But remain calm we must, or forever lose ANY hope of getting back into China. Don't want to rock the boat that you need to get back. We have to abide by their rules, even if we don't agree with them or if one person was completely unfair. I mean, OUR STUFF was back there in China for crying out loud. 10's of thousands of dollars worth of stuff. Didn't she know that? Actually, no, she didn't know that, because she didn't even listen to our story. In the meantime, Christa took the kids back to the hotel.
I wandered around with my iPhone Google Map App to find an HSBC bank. I had to buy plane tickets fast! I had cash in hand, a big wad of. it, but you can't buy plane tickets that way. It needed to be in a bank and you needed to use a CARD to book online.
Time was ticking. I needed to get money into the bank FAST. I needed to buy plane tickets online so I could both print them and bring them to the Chinese Consulate the next day. This was our LAST possible day to get this fixed in ONE day, or we lose airline tickets again that we already purchased for Friday. We have to leave Friday morning. SO I am walking, and find an HSBC bank. CLOSED. Just missed it by a few moments. Now how do I get the money into my HCBC account so I can use the master card on that account to buy the tickets? The HSBC card account has been recently depleted of cash flow because of our many airline and hotel purchases, etc., for this trip, and filling it up is done from the United States side, as we can't access it in China except to merely transfer money online. I could get money out of my China Bank account, and I did, and had thousands in cash to put into HSBC, but the bank was closed. They were all closed.
So I tried the ATM inside. I had an HSBC card. I put it in the machine. It then clicked and whirred, and finally kicked it out... and gave me this message: Your card is not accepted
by this machine.
If you are wondering why I took a picture of all this, well, I was having one of those amazing days where EVERYTHING was
going wrong, not a thing went right, and
it was amazing to me !!,
So I thought I would begin to try and document this strange experience of all planets NOT aligning.. See if more things might go wrong. Try and make a memory of what a most horrible "GO WRONG DAY" could be like. This was indeed one of them.
WIT'S END.
Out of Options. Now what? I was at my wits end. I couldn't logically think of anything else I could do to solve this, My engineer problem solving brain was frying. I needed help now. So much for my independence and preparations.. I can't buy tickets on Travelocity, etc. online using a China Bank card, it just doesn't work. So I had cash in hand, and no way to buy tickets with it. We sometimes live in a very tricky world, hard to anticipate all the possibilities of opposition in all things. Opposition in all things reached a peak last night, and this is how I felt when I had no more answers >>>>>>. NUMB and Deflated. When I got back to the hotel and had a lot of time to ponder about it and analyze what had happened, I had a lot of time to think about the significance of our problem, or rather (softening heart a bit...) the insignificance of it when compared to what others have gone through. I thought of people in history who have been forced out of their homes or persecuted in times of war, etc., and it made my problems seem so insignificant. My situation here has caused me to reflect more deeply on those kind of situations, and to appreciate it much more. I truly appreciate much more what others went through. The kids knew something was terribly wrong, we were in trouble, and they knew they too had to sacrifice and pray, even fast without food. We did. We knew we might have to spend another 7 hour day at the Consulate, and we would definitely be missing Disneyland now. They didn't cry, but even said things like "we will fast."
NEXT MORNING.
So we missed breakfast and went straight to the Chinese Consulate at about 7:15 am. Got there at 7:50 am and got in line. We were like, 5th in line, out of hundreds behind us!! So far so good. We got in right away and there was a man who in just a moment or two, approved our applications after looking them over (he is the first filter in the first line before they will give you a ticket to wait to go see to the lady behind the glass).
We immediately got tickets A003 and A004 (first ones!!), and got right to the lady behind the glass, only it was a different lady. Thankfully. First blessing. We were absolutely the FIRST ONES to arrive at a glass window that morning. Another very young lady. Its an amazing power given to people so YOUNG. As I stood there in front of the glass, I looked at her and was actually worried for her and other souls like her because of what that kind of power might do to a person who can wield it over people so much older than her and who have children to care for... I know, this sounds dramatic, but such is the atmosphere there. A glass wall. The flexible decision point. I say flexible because of what happened, and I know that what happened today was because of our prayers and our fasting. I know what happened the day before was because of my doubts or my skepticism over process... expecting the worst, and getting it! The day before, the lady behind the glass wanted to inspect everything, asked only a few questions she thought of, looked at our flight tickets, the itinerary, the filled out application forms, etc., and then rejecting it.
But the different young lady today looked at my application first, wanted to see my photo, which we gave to her, and then she was about to turn us away with some reason, but we remained very calm and gentle, and then we showed her our letter of invitation from a Chinese National who sent that to us the night before (last night our Chinese National friend Crescent Fu emailed to us a formal letter of invitation to come "visit" her, and took responsibility for us in that letter, as per the China rule for a visitor, you need to have an invitation and a responsible Chinese entity).
Rather than panic or worry, I turned slowly towards my children behind me, and whispered "now would be a good time to pray."
And they did. They were all saying prayers in their hearts. They were also fasting. While that went on, the children's prayers as well as our own, it all changed. Suddenly. Another person, a man, probably a supervisor, took over being behind the glass and sat down to look all of the paperwork over and make sure everything was in order, and then he began to stamp everything, sort all the papers by person, got it all stacked together, and indicated that we had passed. And he gave us tickets to come the next day to pick up our completed passports with new VISAs in them. A Tourist VISA for a limited time, but we were going to be able to get back IN to China where we lived, where all of our things were.
So we got every application stamped, stapled, and stacked and then got a slip of paper pushed out to us through the silver tray under the thick glass, which we dubbed our Golden Ticket meaning, that I can bring it back in the morning and get our passports back complete with VISAs installed on a back page of each (after we pay the hefty fees, of course).
You know what's strange? We didn't even have to show our plane tickets to the man behind the glass for some reason, which we had just bought specifically for this morning. We also didn't have to show birth certificates! All the things the lady behind the glass said were necessary the day before, this new lady (and supervisor man) didn't even ask for! It shows that this process can be subjective, which would explain yesterday. But you know what? The Lord works in mysterious ways in our lives, giving us opposition and roadblocks, because it gave us the opportunity to turn fully to HIM, which we did, and we FASTED and PRAYED with faith believing that we would see a miracle, and we did. A complete opposite experience. Like the skids were greased, and somehow, they were. It was STREAMLINE and processed so quick today!
This miracle change of events brought such happiness and RELIEF in the end, we literally rejoiced!! ...knowing our Visas were granted, and that WE ARE IN to mainland China on a flight tomorrow, we considered the complex process a miracle because the ONLY one helping us was the LORD. Nobody else had any answers for us. There was no help desk. Just prayer and faith. It could have gone the same way as yesterday. But it didn't.
We found out in that process a few things. First, that the ladies behind the glass really DO have complete and total discretion and power to make the decision and make it final. They are there to not mess around or argue (they don't argue), but to get to a decision quick preferably in the favor of China. We needed this decision to go our way or reap a consequence so harsh as to make it a challenge to ever overcome our feelings towards process. The Lord was merciful, and so was the second lady behind the glass. Here's some happy pictures of the aftermath of that decision, the answer to our prayers, and we give God the credit. He did it. We know He did it because we had the previous day with which to COMPARE our experience. We walked out of the Consulate only a half hour after we got in. Amazing. Had the Golden Ticket. And now we were looking for breakfast. McDonalds came to mind and so we hunted for one. Only two blocks down the street. Feeling so thankful, so happy, so relieved. And now DISNEYLAND came to mind, and we realized, we didn't have to miss that opportunity after all. We are going tomorrow. Today actually wouldn't have been good for that anyway, because it rained all day. Tomorrow will be clear. What blessings. Feeling thankful...
Girls are realizing that THEY ARE GOING TO YOUTH CONFERENCE in BEIJING FRIDAY!! Flying out on a non-stop from Hong Kong to Beijing to meet up with dozens of youth and leaders there for a three day youth conference and TREK. YESSS!!The trip out of there was like we had just been blessed exceedingly, and it felt like we had. Because, we had.
Time for a FAMILY SELFIE just outside the Chinese Consulate.
Walking the streets now, looking for a place to celebrate.
I was feeling a little giddy now. Really happy at how things finally came together. The pressure of this situation was extreme for me, so much was riding on it. Or so it seemed to my limited understanding. All I know is that the Lord did bless us this day and it was in stark contrast to the day before.
We found the place we were looking for!
And last but not least, the final reward to our joy was a trip too Disneyland the very next day.
When we rode the tram out to Disneyland there in Hong Kong, can you imagine HOW MUCH MORE FUN our day was there ?? When you are bouncing back from opposition in all things, your joy is GREATER. Everything is better.
SO FUN!!
RESULTS OF THIS EVENT:
Now we had visas promised!! (had to pick them up the next morning)
Now we could go take the kids to Disneyland after all !!
Now the older girls could go to Youth Conference in Beijing after all !!
Now we could get back into China to get to Chongqing after all !!
Now I had another chance to work out my job situation over here, after all !!
Miracles still do happen. This was our miracle, just one in a long line of them, actually.
Initially recorded 23rd April 2014