A Story I Never Wanted- Leaving Asia part 1

“You need to be where they can find you. Go to school and be prepared to be taken in and questioned.”

Those are words that we will never forget.

The week leading up to our departure from Asia, the week that our lives were turned upside-down, was full of intense moments. Monday morning October 22nd 2018, the day that changed all our lives forever...

It was just a normal Monday morning. Our Children had already left to go to our homeschool co.op. I was sitting at my desk when my phone rang.

Our teammate A was on the other line. I noticed right away that she sounded strange as she told me that she needed to cancel our lunch plans together.

“You know how we were going to meet for lunch today? Well, we aren’t going to be able to meet today.”

“Okay.” I responded.

There was a pause.

“A, are you okay?”

“No. So, I just wanted to let you know that we can’t meet, so don’t come by the house today.”

I thanked her for letting me know and hung up the phone.

And in that moment I just knew in my heart what was happening.

I hung up feeling panic rise in my throat. I raced to the other room where Bill was and told him that something was wrong with our teammates.

An hour later A’s husband D called Bill to ask him if we could have their kids come to our house after school, because they needed to “talk to these guys”, and they didn’t’t know how long it would be.

Our teammates had been taken from their language classroom by twelve armed provincial security officers and escorted back to their home, where their house was searched and items were confiscated. They were then taken to an undisclosed location to be questioned for 9 hours. Later that night when they were released to go home they came to our house to pick up their children. When they arrived we all switched off our phones, left them in a room and the four of us went behind a closed door to whisper to one another. We were only given a few brief details. They weren’t allowed to say much for fear of being punished or imprisoned. They told us that their passports had been taken, and they were told by the interrogators that they would get them back after the investigation was over. We were told that our names were on a list that the government had, and that they knew what organization we were apart of, and that we should expect to be questioned possibly as soon as the next morning.

Tuesday morning came, but the police did not come for us. We went to our language class at the university the same as every day, only there was nothing that felt normal about it. We waited with bated breathe, every noise in the school sounding ghostly and vibrating the nerves throughout our bodies. That afternoon we heard of more friends being taken in for questioning, and not just from our city but in other places in the country… all of whom were with our organization.

Tuesday evening we got together to have a movie night with the kids, but it ended up with all of us adults in the back room discussing the news we had just received that one of our friends who had been questioned on Monday was told He had to leave the country. Hope started to slipping.

It felt so surreal. Time felt like it literally stoped moving forward. We walked around in a dreamlike state. How could this be happening?

Wednesday morning we turned our house upside-down searching for any documents that could be incriminating. I spent the morning burning documents in the toilet. I rearranged books on my book shelf in order of what books I might take with me in case we had to leave quickly.

Throughout the week we continued to wait for the authorities to come, but also in the meantime we were meeting with people who had been questioned, gathering as much information about what has happening as we could, trying to make sense of it.

Thursday evening we went out to dinner with our Teammates and had hot pot for the last time. It was at dinner that we received news that another friend had been told he could no longer be a student and he had to leave.

By Friday morning it became apparent that we would no longer be able to stay in country. Our teammates were told that morning that they would have to leave. Because of the type of questions people were being asked, it posed a security risk to national believers, other workers, and our org. as a whole around the globe.

We were told we needed to leave before they had a chance to question us.

Saturday we began the overwhelming process of packing up our belongings. How do you quickly decide what goes and what gets left behind?

That afternoon our language tutor decided to stop over to bring us some food. She walked in and saw all of our boxes and asked with a startled expression what we were doing. I had dreaded this moment. I dreaded having to tell her. She had spent 5 days a week in our home for the past 2 years teaching us, teaching our kids, teaching me how to cook, laughing with us, telling stories, sharing life. I wept as I told her what has happening. Our tutor wept as she told us that we were like family to her and she didn't want us to leave. She told me how much she loved our family, over and over. It was the most gut wrenching goodbye we have ever had to do. (9 months later and it still brings me to tears.) This was the beginning of our emotional journey of saying goodbyes to people and places we love, some of which we may never see again.

Monday night, just a week after this whole nightmare started we had a final dinner with our tutor and then we gave her the key to our apartment. We told her to take anything she wanted from our home, and to give anything to her friends and family. Our teammates also came over that evening and helped us finish packing and buy plane tickets to fly out the next morning.

Early Tuesday morning we stood in our apartment with 11 trunks packed and 2 bike boxes waiting for our van driver to arrive. As I stood there looking around for the last time at an apartment that was still fully furnished, would still look like we lived there when we walked out the door, I realized Claire was not waiting with us. I walked back to the girls bedroom where I found her sitting in the chair that sat in the corner of the room. I told her it was time to go. She looked up at me and said quietly but firmly, “I’m not going. This is my home. Asia is my home not America.” It is one thing to have your own heart feeling broken and full of grief, but to see your child’s heart in the same state is a level of hard that you can never prepare for. Bill and I had to literally carry her out of the house because she could not make her feet walk out of our home.

We left early for the airport hoping that if we sat at the airport all morning (our flight wasn't until 1pm) we would avoid the authorities who might wish to speak with us. Thankfully we were able to successfully leave the country without any detainment.

The entire week leading up to our leaving I didn’t sleep. Once we were safely on the plane I found that sleep still evaded me. In shock and filled with overwhelming grief I just sat there, not able to process what happened. My heart was shattered into a thousand pieces. I could not wrap my mind around the fact that all the years it took for us to get overseas… and this was the end.

Our 2 and a half years overseas were filled with a lot of really difficult things… however we never doubted for a minute that we were where God wanted us even though we walked though some really horrible things. In fact, we absolutely loved it there, and despite the stress we really were thriving. It was home. About 6 months prier to our having to leave Asia, God made it very clear to us what people group He wanted us to work with. We had joined a team that was focused on taking the Gospel to the unreached, unengaged Deaf in our city. It seemed like finally after all the years of struggle, all the years of wondering , all the years of waiting to actually get overseas, then the junk that we had to walk through for the first 2 years in Asia… all of it led to hope… all of it had led us to that exact moment, and we were at the beginning of something good, something exciting. I had prayed for years that God would provide us with teammates that we would love and get along with, and even like. The Lord had answered that prayer.

And then it ended. Just like that. No warning. No good reason.

There was much anger, confusion, and hurt aroused in me.

All the possibility. All the hopes. All the dreams. Gone.

To be continued...