And Now: A Word from Jeremiah
This was all in the Spring and then Summer of 2002. We had just moved to a beach village on Lantau Island. Moving out of a 48-story high-rise into a small three-story ‘village house’ in a rural Chinese ancestral village surrounded by forest with a mountain in back and the ocean in front felt like I was being released from prison. I had a new company, new partners, was doing real publishing work and had a bright future, or so I thought! Within just those few short months I had lost two magazines, one of them twice, and was now more than broke. I was broken. Defeated. And I started to have panic attacks.
My assistant at the magazines came home and stayed with me three days to help lessen the shock to my wife of the magazines being stolen from me. God provided this miraculous support and I didn’t even ask Him for it; I know having my friend stay those few days saved my family life.
I was never far from divorce, and I knew now I was in real trouble. My in-laws from India were visiting for a few months and somehow we kept things together. But I was trying to hold on to nothing. I had no more hope for myself. It was just one disaster after another.
I went to the private beach in our village, my heart beating out of control what I now know were panic attacks and I decided I needed to just leave Hong Kong.
I decided I would just go back to the States and just get any job and in a few months, maybe less than a year I could bring my wife and daughter over … although I knew it would never happen. Leaving meant I would lose my daughter, Tiara, the greatest and most precious thing in my life.
I asked God for help and all I got was a verse from the Bible, but it was enough. It was from Jeremiah. I was no longer prophesying enough to hear God speak to me, I had no friends who were Christians and I had no one to call for prayer even. I just took out a Bible and said I think I need to go back to the US and asked God to speak to me through his word. I opened up the Bible randomly and it opened up to Jeremiah 42, I immediately saw verse 10 which reads:
If you will still remain in this land, then I will build you and not pull you down, and I will plant you and not pluck you up. For I relent concerning the disaster that I have brought upon you.
The verse continues:
11 Do not be afraid of the king of Babylon, of whom you are afraid; do not be afraid of him,’ says the Lord, ‘for I am with you, to save you and deliver you from his hand. 12 And I will show you mercy, that he may have mercy on you and cause you to return to your own land.’
13 “But if you say, ‘We will not dwell in this land,’ disobeying the voice of the Lord your God, … ‘If you wholly set your faces to enter Egypt, and go to dwell there, 16 then it shall be that the sword which you feared shall overtake you there in the land of Egypt; the famine of which you were afraid shall follow close after you there in Egypt; and there you shall die. 17 So shall it be with all the men who set their faces to go to Egypt to dwell there. They shall die by the sword, by famine, and by pestilence. And none of them shall remain or escape from the disaster that I will bring upon them.’
What I understood in my heart as a paraphrase was, “Stay and I will prosper you, but if you leave you will be destroyed.”
But I had totally bottomed out … again. And had to pick myself up. Again. I got work in a few weeks as a government English teacher, but at a discounted salary, but since it was such a light work load for me I wrote my first and very autobiographical novel, grew a beard and started wearing colorful shirts again. Since law school I only wore white or maybe light blue button-down office shirts—at the government school constantly surrounded by several hundred children I started wearing brightly colored tropical flower print shirts, what you would call Hawaiian Shirts, but what we know as a certain vibrant style from Thailand. I was de-stressing and loved working with the grade 2 and grade 4 children. It was super easy, I was super popular at work, but felt my marriage was in super trouble. That’s when the frequent divorce threats became regular demands.
The irony of the illogical arguments about leaving me for not having a job when I was at school working in a year contract! But anyway you’ll lose it eventually so it’s the same as you having no job now! It was just like the Nubble Lighthouse car drive, so I was ready for it in a way.
I remember once my phone was very low battery, I was leaving school for the one-and-a-half hour trip home and she called: it was final. I reasoned with her but knew I was doomed. My phone had maybe five minutes of power left before it died. I just kept saying, ‘Oh, just hold on,’ and I just prayed in tongues, rebuking everything, ‘OK, I’m back’ … it was already 20 minutes and my phone didn’t die yet … then 45 minutes: talking, praying in tongues, calming her down … over an hour and I was almost home and she finally acquiesced and calmed down. Then my phone finally died. No natural way to explain that! Thank you Jesus! The God of Cell Phones and Battery Life! And with his help we were still holding it together …
But then SARS hit.
SARS 1
SARS was scary because people caught it and sometimes died within 24 hours. It was a type of pneumonia but very serious. Everything in the city changed. I heard God say it was a preparation for Hong Kong, but a preparation for what I didn’t know—until Covid, often called SARS 2!
My school was the first in the City to close in fact since we had the first student who got pneumonia that month—it wasn’t SARS he caught but just normal pneumonia, but which is still quite lethal, but I just broke down in tears … and then the whole city shut down. I had no work to go to but a full salary from the government for about two full months. Many friends of mine lost jobs, companies, some left Hong Kong altogether but I was on paid leave! Who’s getting paid now!!!
I don’t know what would have happened if I still had the magazines that were built on advertising sales but it made a kind of sense to me why God let me lose the magazines before SARS hit … it would have ruined me but with much higher stakes! Imagine if I had dozens of staff to pay and a huge office to rent … but later that’s not what God told me was really the reason he let this fail.
He said he allowed the magazines to be taken from me because I was not yet ready for the success it would bring; but second, he said he wanted me to work on this project at that time so I would have a boost in confidence. Oh that’s for sure, I said to Him! I now know I can create and run a world-class professional magazine for lawyers; I can do that! But the success it would bring He said I was not yet ready for—not yet?
So SARS hit Hong Kong in 2003 and by the end of that school year anyway I had to leave my job as per my contract, and I next found work at a tutorial school teaching university classes for American universities hosting extension branches in Hong Kong.
I then had two prophetic dreams: one about generational problems in my family back in the States and another about writing a book on modern prophets covering all major modern prophets and their prophecies. It was a large book I saw in my dream. Maybe I need to write that next?
By the next Spring I had very little work, a very light schedule and wrote a lot on my second novel, quite a bit better than my first, but for some reason I could not set it in a modern setting. The most modern I could make it was the 1930’s and in a rural farming area of Pennsylvania. I made an outline for a third novel, set in the early 1800’s.
What was going on? It didn’t occur to me that God had already explained this problem to me and had given me the dream in 1995, which I called Barns on a Hillside, where I was typing on a keyboard and everything I typed in the valley of my future was only a barn or a silo because my wife was not “with me” and I could not write anything more modern than barns and silos without her help and companionship.
I had put all that behind me, putting it out of mind because, well, I was already married. I already had a ‘mate.’ But it was still literally coming to pass—but it could not be true also. How could this be!?
Also in the dream the next thing was three scenes with my old pastor’s daughter. If you recall, first, it was me and her and her mother who was interfering with our relationship. I left and there were two more scenes. After I calmed down I went back to her but didn’t recognize her and she was so sick, just skin and bones; and then the third scene was when we got along so well we had a supernaturally prepared intimacy and companionship.
By this time in my life I had heard the pastor’s daughter I liked so much before had also gotten married and I had no desire or consideration to go back to the States to try to make it work out! But, but, but maybe she’d get divorced, right? And then I can get divorced too, right? And then … no, no, NO! Just STOP it! That’s just crazy talk! So to me this dream just made no sense, even less sense now. How could it be true anymore? But inexplicably the first part where I could not write anything more modern than old farmers’ things was clearly playing out and literally happening to me right now.
I just threw up my hands! I understood in part, only in part, but for the rest of it I was totally falling apart!
An Expat Enclave
Anyway, our side of the ‘Blessed Village’ was mostly foreigners, which in Hong Kong are called ‘expatriots,’ or just ‘expats,’ and our little street had 14 different nationalities in only 10 or 12 houses. SARS had given us a lot of free time to spend together hosting BBQ’s and parties and we all became very close friends. We had a Scottish engineer who was married to a Filipina lady. We had a German cargo broker. A German chef, in fact the head chef at Cathay Pacific Airlines, where my wife worked, no less. His wife was Chinese and played piano in the lobby of the Shangra La hotel. Michael was also Scottish, a construction Arbitrator who was a Christian and was healed by God of heart cancer, was the world’s longest survivor of that condition in fact. His wife was British, a close friend of mine and often offered me work. Their daughter and my daughter were best friends. The third little one in that group of giggling girls was the Filipina daughter of JP and Malou, who were both Filipino; he was an aircraft engineer. Then there was Tom, who was British and a construction engineer with the KCR or maybe it was the MTR, I forget which one, but those were the two subway (I mean underground train) operators in Hong Kong, and his wife was also Filipina! One of my direct neighbors was an Air Traffic Controller from New Zealand, but he left and a pilot from Chilliwack, BC, Canada moved in, and then when he left the owner of his house came back who was also a pilot from Canada with a lovely, sweet and kind wife from Thailand, one of the nicest people I knew, Mimi. Nice kids, such a nice family! I was an American, still am, but there were no other Yanks in our village at that time. My wife was Indian, and there were two other Indians, one also a flight attendant also at Cathay, and her husband, a Sihk, only he cut his hair! That means he could no longer be a Sihk! They both later became Christians. My other neighbor was local Chinese, Nora, one of the few actual Cantonese in our whole street. She worked at the Airport in administration. Then there was Patty Kavanaugh, an Irish military pilot who now worked in Cathay Pacific in management and his wife was from England. The house at the end had Julia and Grace, both Filipina flight attendants at Cathay. Grace, from Cebu, was married to Jun, who was unquestionably the life of the party. Julia, a real sweetheart Filipina from near Bacolod was always trying to get us to go to her church and evangelized and prayed for everyone. She lives now in Seattle! There were two families from England who were construction engineers. One was married to a Filipina and they had such good looking kids! And for a time there was a family from Switzerland who were in town on a contract to build the cable car to Hong Kong’s Big Buddha. They were also Christians, such genuine and nice people who had very nice children as well!
Leo and Jane were musicians with the Philharmonic, and both had quit during the shakeup at that time. Jane was British and played violin and her sister was a Christian and Leo was full local Chinese and played the cello I think.
Oh and I can’t forget Boz! Craig Boswell was a Kiwi, a Government English teacher obsessed with surfing and had a Filipina wife and a cute daughter. He was a Christian but was so heavily into yoga as an instructor a few years before that it messed up his walk with the Lord I think. He died recently from a brain tumor. Oh, and Felipe, a French Vietnamese film maker who looked handsome and dashing and his wife was, you guessed it, also a Filipina! Oh, finally the Argentinians. Again, such nice people. Xavier was a pilot and when the economy crashed back home he became very affordable to Cathay Pacific, as did several of his friends. Three Argentine pilot families moved together to Hong Kong and lived on our street, but Xavier and his wife and kids were the center of any barbecue party—tenderloin and chimichurri! And she was a real hostess! One of the three married pilots freaked out and ran off with a Chinese flight attendant, another was quiet and withdrawn but Xavier and his family were likable in every way.
SARS brought us together like a real neighborhood and I really miss their company. Spiritually however it was probably my lowest ebb and we were drinking every day—I would normally have a double scotch every day as a minimum when I got home. My British friends of course drank beer every day and during SARS we had eight barbecue parties in 10 days and set a trend that was hard to break.
Then I started consciously coming back to my spiritual foundations. Julia helped me so much by praying for us, and I started having more dreams again over that season. Then … I finally saw Jesus.
Jesus, Take the Stage
That’s right. One night I actually saw Jesus.
He delivered me from anger and alcohol!
It was the first time I ever saw him, except that time I saw Jesus in Bill’s face when I was delivered from purple hair.
My wife and I were never on really good terms and I don’t know if I already said it but I would routinely endure three-hour long lectures that were not only circular and illogical but also factually wrong and very emotionally draining.
Sometimes they would coincide with local pagan holidays and of these there were many; other times with her period. I began to watch the calendar to prepare myself beforehand. But other times it was totally unpredictable.
So I would just wait them out, get some chocolate, wait for her to tire herself out after three hours, and I’m not exaggerating, and then she’d fall asleep crying, so I’d give her chocolate, a headache tablet and water, apologize in the middle of the night when she was too tired to argue, and that was how I lived.
This one time however, I decided to actually discuss her accusations and it was a big fight. So I went to bed in the small office / storage room and was just fed up with this life when I fell asleep … and saw Jesus.
First, it looked just like a stylized cartoon actually in the style of art I can compare to the illustrations in the Good News Bible maybe. But when I saw him I began to have convulsions! Not only could I not look at him—I was electrified, rather electrocuted and I could not look away from him either—I shook and shook uncontrollably watching a cartoonish play as He was just standing on a stage and things were upside down and then they turned right-way up—it was terrifying and painful to look at him but also impossible to look away, even though he only looked like a cartoon in appearance. But finally I broke out of the dream and sat straight up in bed—but I felt like I was now totally empty, hollow, vacated. I was delivered of both my anger and my taste for alcohol in that encounter and their presence leaving me left me feeling swept clean, empty but in a good way, like having been cleaned out of clutter and trash. I also always had a knot in my stomach—I felt that knot for years and years, but now it too was gone and I was yes, empty. Empty but free.
I felt in a way like I was on a diet or a fast or something. Why was that!? But I knew my anger was gone, and from then on I never drank alcohol again. I went back to my own bedroom and apologized for being angry and we both slept soundly.
A Career Move
By that Summer I had two good job offers. One, very close to my house on Lantau Island which was a two-year contract to work again as a government English teacher but in two small local junior high schools. They were too small and rural in the mountain and beach areas of Lantau Island to have their own government teacher each, so they had to share one! It was a choice position: teaching English to children by a tropical beach and forested jungle only a few minutes away from my home! The second offer was from a University about an hour away and they wanted me to teach English, and I felt it could also be a great step forward. Done with magazines for ever! Only during the interview they kept asking me about my experience with publishing, especially with graphic design. I told them yes, I did all that, but I had moved on. Well, they said what they were really looking for besides an English lecturer was someone to replace the recently departed graphics design teacher! They called me in for the interview not for English but mostly for teaching graphic design!
The University really pushed to convince me that their offer was a career move for me, and I could apply for tenure by the second semester. Even though the pay was less than the government English teacher job and they were an hour away from home, it was the best opportunity for me. How kind of them to explain it to me like that. It was also a very mediocre University and to get to it you had to walk through the new mega mall in Kowloon Tong. Funny, my first summer in Hong Kong I took classes at that school for my overseas law program before the mega mall was even built! The architects were Ove Arup and they had a swanky office in it in as well—you’ll hear their name come up again soon as well. Hong Kong is a small town after all.
So … I decided to take the real job, the University job. It was great. I had a few hundred students who wanted to learn graphic design software and even though I was self-taught I really knew the stuff better than I thought I did. The English I had to teach was English for construction engineering students and was very easy for me. I was also super popular with the students, easily the most popular teacher in my department. So I decided, what a relief this was! I was done working for myself and this was a place I could settle in for the next 10 to 20 years, write more novels, and the offer of tenure was really a draw. I could be tenured in four months! I did the best I could and probably out-shone most of my colleagues. I went the extra, extra mile any chance I could and just jumped into the role with my whole heart.
No wonder I got fired!
My colleagues were less educated, less intelligent, less hard working, especially since for me it was like being rescued from drowning, so I did all I could to be the best instructor I could … so it was very easy to fire me before the next semester began—this was a common pattern in Hong Kong jobs. People who worked too hard were commonly singled out and removed. An American proverb is ‘the early bird gets the worm.’ The Chinese equivalent proverb is, ‘the bird that flies above the flock gets his head chopped off.’ Being an overachiever makes life harder on everyone else around you who are just trying to survive. If you go and raise the bar like that, you’re going to get the chop! It’s like what they call the Tall Poppy Syndrome in Australia. I had friends who warned me. And I did, I got the chop.
But it was also because the guy I replaced, the guy who quit and took half the department with him, negotiated to return to his old post, but with a higher salary! It was an academic blackmail tactic for him to get a pay raise; it worked. So they fired me saying I didn’t fit into their department because my Ph.D. was not an academic doctorate but a professional doctorate, so I was not qualified to work in their department actually. But you knew that when you hired me! I said. The same guy who tried to convince me this was the best job for me, a proper career move, was now trying to justify why I was fundamentally ineligible to hold that position in the first place! But it was just their excuse. How ironic that just as I had decided I could settle down, be safe, secure, take it easy—Bang!—there it was again, the open door. Freedom—horrible, horrible freedom!
