Feeling Lost in China

To all those who are curious to why I haven’t posted anything for awhile it’s because we recently moving to a new apartment with no internet and when I do get internet sometimes my VPN doesn’t work or it is really slow. It took over a half and hour to upload these three photos in this post. Readers if you recommend a VPN that works better than HMA please, please leave it in the comment box below. Thanks. 

I am entirely lost in China when my iPhone isn’t working properly. You know when your phone doesn’t work in the United States and you can’t make a call so you get annoyed that it’s not functioning properly? Well try having that happen to you in a foreign country where your phone is your life line.

[Please imagine a picture of  my non-working iPhone here.]

I was on the bus on route to meeting a couple and Denny by myself when the home button on the bottom of my iPhone stopped working. My last app that I had opened was iBooks. This book was not going to help me navigate to getting to my destination. I couldn’t push the button to follow the bus’s route on Google maps like I wanted. Fortunately for me the night before Denny and I had gone to this area, so I was praying God would help me remember which stop to get off at (for those of you who don’t know me, I get lost quite frequently; I’m working on that). With God’s help I got off at the right place, the Jusco bus stop.

I continued to push the home button on the iPhone in hopes of it working. Nothing…nada. I had no ability to call or text anyone. While sitting at the bus stop waiting for the new couple and Denny to arrive, a man from the bus I was on sat by me. He was the man I had asked earlier if he knew English while in attempts to figuring out which stop was for Jusco. I think he wanted to help me or he was a creep, not sure? I will lean more towards helpful since he was nicely dressed.

Normally I would pull up Pleco or Lonely Planet to communicate I was okay and meeting someone, but nope, I was basically a sitting duck with my iPhone not working in China quaking. “Quake, quake…,” is basically what this man was understanding. What little English he knew he said, “I love you and you can trust me.” Whoa……is what I was thinking. “He doesn’t know much English that is why he is speaking this way,” is what I was telling myself. To a stranger that is hair-raising but I will believe the best that he was trying to help a foreigner. Ten minutes later the couple text me, I was able to receive it because my phone works, just not the home button. Praise the Lord! Shortly I met up with Denny and them.

The following morning I learned the phone can’t charge; I am in China with no iPhone until some parts arrive from Taobao for my husband to fix it. Happy ending right? The following day, by God’s helpful hand, a loving a woman we got connected to with the international church in Qingdao lent me her basic phone so I have some way of getting in contact with my husband if I were to get lost. The Lord provides, praise Him and thank you Austin.

We all have at one point in another have had our phones not work, what was your predicament? Do you have an interesting story? Please share yours; I would love to hear it.

Updates:

Denny and I are residing in a palace apartment near a new temple and grave yard, that means we are living in good fengshui, according to a Chinese woman. Whatever fengshui is we are entirely blessed. My husband said we were given lemons at first and God made lemonade out of our situation.

I love this place. Thank you God and Kings English for Kids.