In March of '03, I was given the task of *exploring more than a dozen towns and cities in the central Chinese province of Hubei. I have already written briefly about my eye-opening time in Wuhan, the capital and largest city of Hubei, and now infamous because of the Wuhan Flu (COVID-19). This was just the beginning of a wonderful season in my early missionary life (only the second full month I spent in China), but was not without many challenges and surprises. What follows is my attempt, seventeen years later, to put down on paper some of the most interesting experiences from that particular month of travel, most of which I have only ever shared orally down through the years. 

We were expressly told by our leaders not to be so overly zealous in our personal evangelism that we got into trouble and put at risk the future missions trips that were being planned in these target regions. However, a few of us struggled with these orders. Indeed, it was hard not to want to do something - ANYTHING! - to reach the millions of unevangelized Chinese I encountered traveling around the countryside on trains and buses, and on foot in the never-ending expanse of streets and alleys. But it was also impractical to carry enough Bibles and tracts in my backpack to last more than just a very short time. I was to be in Hubei for about a month, so I loaded up as many Chinese tracts and New Testaments as I could fit in my bag, knowing I would have to make due for the duration of my time there.

So I resisted the riskier methods of tract distrubution  usually reserved for short-term teams (sneaking out at night and canvassing large portions of a city), and instead went about my evangelistic duties in a more subtle, refined way. I would discreetly leave tracts in shops and restaurants, where they were likely be found, but not until some time later, or at least until I was out the door and in a different part of town. I would also give New Testaments to local restaurant workers after chatting with them over bowls of hand-made noodles. These methods had the advantage of reaching many people with the truth of God's Word without drawing too much attention to myself, and without running out of materials too quickly.

"You know... Mah-ding Lu-dah?" 

But let me tell you, I was shocked at what I saw. First, I heard a commotion of some sort on the other side of the little park. Then a guy pops out of a stairwell that led to an underground joint of some sort, probably a bar. He looked terrified, and immediately took off running as fast as he could. Then another guy came careening up the same stairway and out into the park, with a broken beer bottle in his outstretched hand, screaming and cursing at the top of his lungs and chasing the first guy down the street at full speed. 

This is what Xiangfan looked like back in 2003, before the skyscraper boom took over China.

It was already light outside when I started to wake up. Before I even opened my eyes I remembered that someone had been let in late the previous night. I immediately rolled over in bed to see if the other guy was still there. I was surprised to see he was not! And as my focus moved from across the room back to my own bedside table (which was in virtually the same "line of sight"), a sickening feeling came to my stomach. My backpack, lying flat there on the little table next to my bed, did not look right. It seemed too flat, or somehow not "full" enough. I quickly reached over and patted down on the top of the backpack, and my fears were confirmed. My passport case, which was about 6 inches long and nearly an inch thick, and also contained $200, was gone from the outside pocket where I had been keeping it.