I grew up in Hong Kong in the 80s and 90s. I was a missionary kid. I have a ton of memories.
But probably the scariest memory I have from my early childhood is something I remember happening in our high-rise neighborhood. I remember the staggering height of the twenty-story apartments in my neighborhood. I remember long bamboo sticks that protruded from open windows with clothing hung out to dry. And I knew little kids aren’t supposed to look at things that might make them scared or traumatized.
My brothers and I were being ushered either to school or from school. Someone was with us, trying to shield our eyes from a horrific scene. Perhaps it was my eldest brother, shuffling us on our way, instructing me to turn away and not look. Of course, that just made me want to look and see what was going on. I didn’t get a glimpse of much, but I understood that a lady had fallen from a higher apartment and died right there on the hard concrete.
“Dear Friends,” my missionary father wrote that fateful day.
“Just as I sat down to write this prayer letter a few moments ago, I heard a loud explosion and several screams. I looked out my window to see a woman lying in a pool of blood. It was obvious the woman had plunged to her death from ten to twenty stories above our apartment here in Mei Foo.”
I was only five years old. I remember walking a safe distance from the scary scene. Then later with my brothers, I remember going closer to look and see if there were any signs of the accident remaining. How do I remember this? Why? This was not a personal tragedy. My family and I had just been made aware of the horrific death of someone who had lived in close proximity with us. I remember how those buildings stood so tall, tightly placed and unmovable. Windows all up and down each home; some open, some shut. Things fell from windows sometimes, not people. Why had she fallen out?
How was I to know anything about suicide or the fact that jumping from a height was, at the time, one of the most common methods for females in Hong Kong? All I knew was that something inside me felt sad for this person now crushed and gone. I wasn’t thinking about heaven or hell– her eternity. I did think about those windows though. They let in sunshine and breezes. They offered a place to hang your laundry. They let us see out into our world. What was God teaching me, so young and naïve, about the harsh pressures of life all around me?
Dad continued his writing:
“Right now, they are cleaning up any visible trace of the tragedy that has just taken place. I suppose it is very human for us to try to forget as quickly and painlessly as possible that death is real and inevitable and, without Christ, hopeless. I hope that I will not forget. I hope that you, my fellow laborers in the Gospel, will not forget. The harvest is white unto harvest; let us not allow it to rot in the fields.”
Obviously, dad saw his lesson from the day’s events. A truly impactful lesson no doubt for a young and brand new missionary. To think that he actually saw the horrible end of this woman’s life from his window. God knew where He placed us. He knew we wouldn’t be able to reach into every home, every hurting soul in need of real Light and Love. Yet there we were, right in the middle of tens of thousands of windows either open or shut to the Good News of Jesus. And there I was, my window about to be thrust open as my spiritual understanding awoke to my own personal need of a Savior. It was through these events, as well as my parents, siblings, that urban environment, era, neighborhood, and Cantonese-speakers that God used for his purposes in my life. One random young missionary kid who would grow up and write about the good and the bad, the scary and the awkward, the mercy and the goodness of a Father who knew her by name.
Faith grew up an MK in Hong Kong, then moved into mainland China to teach ESL the summer she turned 19. She spoke Cantonese and Mandarin fluently. She returned to the US to complete college and eventually married into the USAF. She has published a memoir of her experiences and shares devotionals to women’s ministries.
Book: Unraveled: A Memoir
Find her on Instagram.
