We landed in Southeast Asia for our squad debrief and were on our way to a city well known for its palaces. We arrived at our hotel around 1 am, where our host greeted us with a smile. To my surprise, it seemed as if it was no bother to him that we had arrived late! Praise God! I woke up and spent time with Jesus this morning to prepare myself for the day ahead. Supposedly filled with meetings and finishing up my logistical tasks. So I began attempting to reset myself into a peaceful mood and relaxed spirit to prayerfully and effectively be able to receive the content for the day.
Our morning squad meeting consisted of innuendos of why we were in this city. Our leadership team seemed quite uncomfortable and were censoring their words. As I watched our intended teaching time close in under 10 minutes with no teachings, someone asked if we should close in prayer and this was swiftly shut down. I began peering around, something seemed off and so I started to assess the broader situation we were in. Behaviors I didn’t fully understand from people I trusted and believed filled with the Holy Spirit, I was confused. Quickly, I observed the man who was standing on the balcony arching over us. I noticed him before, however, I honestly paid little attention. I felt as if I just played ‘the dumb card’ I’m just here. I had subconsciously presumed that if I acted as if I was innocent, nothing could happen to me. So in terms of why we were here, I played the ‘dumb’ card.
Missions are banned in this area of South East Asia. We cannot visit this place under the pretext of missionary activities, and so our visas claimed ‘tourism’ as our reason of stay. We entered the country in 2 groups of 8 to avoid suspicion at our border crossing and were advised from our leadership to not share the gospel during travel days. Frankly, the good news is most effectively shared and communicated if there is presently a strong enough relationship, which is hard to establish during travel days.
Further, in South East Asia, however, especially around the palaces, is a predominantly Hindu and Muslim community. Just to the north, the fundamental Hinduist government is actively kicking out Christians from their country and has banned the sharing of the gospel.
And as the many palaces are an Islamic style of structure, many muslims spent their lives building these. Mosques, where muslims do their 5 daily prayers and the community gathers, were built right next door to allow for ease of prayer during the work days. This massive monument took many years to build, and because of this, many muslims lived in the nearby surrounding area. Many of these families have not moved far over the generations. Leading to a strong loyalty to the Islamic faith, who would likely enforce these strict rules on a group of foreigners coming to their country.
I began to notice the man attempting to listen into our squad gathering was a muslim and the neighborhood we lived in was very muslim as well. I even noticed men with orange dye in their beards and hair, which symbolizes a strong dedication to their prophet Muhammed and potentially strong beliefs against Christians.
Our coaches, mentors, and squad leaders pulled Adrianna and me aside, the logistics team.
“I am sorry to say this to you guys, but we are going to have to move to another place, it’s just not safe for our team to be here,” our coach said.
“Did you see the way this man was paying close attention to us? Nonetheless, we do not feel safe here. Did you see the locks on the outside of our doors? We need you guys to look into a new place for at least us to stay in… Do you feel safe in y’alls place?” They asked us.
Adrianna and I motioned towards each other, each taking a moment to jog our discernment, had we picked up anything?
“I feel okay at our place” I said. I mentioned how our host even seemed accommodating and hospitable. I even had a thought of sharing the good news with him, Lord willing the opportunity arose.
It would not arise, actually the opposite would be blatantly true. Our leadership team discerned well and we would need to leave tactfully this night.
We had further conversation, decided it would be good to move our entire team to our second option on the other side of town. We wanted to stay close together with our coaches and mentors. Along with the potential concern of our hosts, living just down the street from one another already being friends. Perhaps this man I met who appeared hospitable would quickly turn on us.
Adrianna and I jumped into our roles, this country is also a place where women were not advised to travel without a man, at least while we were settling into this new location, and certainly not alone. We went to our new lodging option and met a man named Michael. Presumably in his late 20’s, beared but well maintained man, owner of his hostel ‘gypsy house’. We talked to him and he remembered how we had chatted on the phone and was glad to now be accommodating us. We checked out the dorm rooms he had available, most of the hostel was empty. ‘We had the place to ourselves!’ I thought. As we checked out the rooms the beds were made, but well used. The bathrooms with showers had grime and rust, even potentially mold in the women’s bathroom, it was certainly our B option, however, that’s exactly where God wanted us to be.
We paid him the 34,000 Rupees and told him how we were going to move in tonight, he was joyful and also arranged transport for us from our other hotel to ‘gypsy house’.
We still tried to keep our tight debrief schedule the best we could, so I had a meeting with my men’s team to debrief our time in Nepal. Different team dynamics, bringing up any beef, addressing patterns we saw in each other. It was intense and important and I admittedly had a hard time taking my logistical hat off during this, although it turned into a very fruitful time! Praise God!
Before this meeting, our leadership team, Adrianna, and I had a chat about how we should try to get refunded for our time and not pay the full amount at our old location. Through an insight of the Holy Spirit, I mentioned to Adrianna how I, or at least any man, should be present during this discussion in case anything went sideways. Boy was the Holy Spirit correct.
During my team’s meeting, we had people pack their bags and our bags and wait in the hotel. We planned to quickly move out all at once to avoid any of the girls getting caught up in having to explain why they were moving out without any of the men present. Once we arrived, I approached the front desk with Adrianna and explained how we were leaving and no longer felt comfortable to stay here.
He asked ‘Did we do anything wrong?”
I said “no, we just no longer feel comfortable staying here. We would like to pay for the night we stayed here and even half our stay here.” We thought we were being generous.
“If we did nothing wrong then why don’t you pay us the full amount?”
I explained how we were on a tight budget and would like to pay for the inconvenience, but felt the full length of 6 nights was unfair to us, and thanked him for letting us stay in his home. (His family lived on the first floor).
He stopped, called his brother (the owner) in front of us, then we continued our ‘conversation’. Yet he was no longer interested in talking to us, he stood completely indifferent and extremely dismissive to our willingness to pay anything less than what we would for the full duration of our stay, totaling almost $1000.
They did not claim any refund policy, nor had any paperwork of it, and so my mentor was being pretty adamant about paying the time we had stayed and being generous enough to pay for half of our duration even though we were not going to be there. He still ignored anything we said and waited for his brother to arrive. He called again and I could hear his brother on the phone even though we were standing 6 feet away.
At this same point, the 8 tuk tuks we had waiting outside were ready and trying to leave asap. So our group of 16 began filing down the stairs with all of their giant 6-year-old human-sized packs. The brother went to close and lock the door on us. Claiming we couldn’t leave until we have paid the full amount entirely. The sun had also set a few hours ago and it was getting quite dark.
The Tuk Tuk drivers were claiming they were going to leave if we don’t leave soon. And we were able to get the door open and get people moved out into the tuktuks. Loaded with all our stuff to the brim, to the point where people couldn’t even look out, they were ready to drive off, and then the owner arrived.
He wasted no time. Commanded all the Tuktuk drivers, not to leave. We met him outside where he began yelling and berating us. Wagging his finger he said “I can’t believe you’re doing this! You have to pay the full amount.” He seemed to have something more on the line than just money. “You’re acting like Indians! I thought you were Americans!”
We were trying to explain how we didn’t see any cancellation policy and therefore didn’t feel it was fair to make us pay the full amount. He was too angry to try and understand anything. I don’t know what his brother told him, but the owner came in very hot headed.
I had already been scouring, looking for the cancellation policy, it was buried. While I was looking, the conversation just got more heated until.
“You’re acting like Donald Trump!” He said to us.
My mentor and I looked at each other and couldn’t keep from laughing. Honestly a very bonding moment and a nice break from the tense environment.
I found where it said there were no refunds after the booking began and we quickly conceded to pay the full amount. As I showed him the cancellation policy on my phone, he continued to yell at me again for another 10-15 seconds until he calmed down enough to read it.
“Yes! Yeah! You must pay!”
“Yes we will.” We said.
Not thinking we had this amount of cash on us, we decided to hand him one of our credit cards, which he ran away from us with. We stayed right with him as he tried to get on a motorbike with it and I was right behind ready to hop on and head wherever this man was trying to go. I couldn’t let our credit card get away, I thought. (So ride away with an angry man to an atm with your credit card? Bad idea.)
Someone heard our other mentor yelling while she was buried underneath luggage in a tuktuk.
“Use the emergency cash!”
We carried emergency USD with us in case of situations like this. We settled it and left.
After we had moved into our new place we got well acquainted with our host Michael. He grew up with some Christianity taught to him and prayed to God, but didn’t know exactly who God was. We got to witness to him about Jesus Christ and revitalize some faith roots that had been there from long ago. After our busy schedule, one day I got to talk with him more in-depth.
“You know, I had a bill the morning you guys moved in here. I didn’t know how I was going to pay it, but I know that God takes care of me.” He had such confidence in God being a provider. Even unable to pay this bill, he knew everything was going to work out, which it did.
“The bill was the exact amount you guys ended up paying me for staying here.”
Dumbfounded my friend Jackson and I were looking at each other and praising God.
When we were coming into debrief I knew that God had a plan. I knew that Jesus was trying to do something miraculous and desiring to do something to me in this process. And caught in the middle of a stressful encounter, and forced to go to another place had me reflecting upon how I booked the place. I had been fighting for my squad to have a cleaner, better debrief and it so ‘back-fired’ on me. For trying to love them, the more effort, I got wacked!
I realized I had the concept I had of ‘back-firing’ so wrong. You’re going to get closer and closer to God, all He is asking of you is to fight for your relationship with Him. I had to fight the unwillingness I had to give my team an ‘okay’ debrief and give them something more because I loved them. And God is faithful and going to give me so much more than the effort I have given Him. Sometimes I have to deny the unwillingness I feel to enter into God’s presence and enter into God’s presence anyway, cause God’s going to give me a hundred times back.
I’ve been given the chance to witness and make friends with a man, give a family money when their daughter needed it in the hospital, and give my team the debrief Jesus intended. Thank you Jesus for this front seat experience you took me on.
Matthew 13:8
“Still other seed fell on good soil, where it produced a crop – a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.”
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