Why is that dude looking into our car?
From my vantage point in the front seat, I surveyed the dusty streets, congested traffic, roadside vendors—and a figure gazing steadily in our direction, a knitted hat pulled low to his eyebrows.
He’s coming towards us.
Remembering a story my mom once told me about a night when two men tried to enter her car at an intersection, I checked my door’s lock. I’d known my ongoing mission to backpack 360° around the world in 180 days documenting Christian students’ experiences at secular universities might bring some misadventures. Still, I preferred that a carjacking not be one of them.
Click.
The car’s rear door opened from the outside. Simultaneously, a surge of adrenaline whirled me around to see the stranger himself leaping into the backseat! It’s really happening—we’re being hijacked!
But nobody else in the car seemed to care!
“Hi, Patricia!” the stranger waved.
“Hello!” I replied as if he hadn’t nearly stopped my heart. Nobody told me we were going to pick up a guy from church!
The situation I experienced in an Asian restricted access nation caught me totally off-guard. Initially, nothing seemed unusual about the living room where I sat writing; only the clatter of my keyboard sounded as I chronicled my ongoing mission to backpack 360° around the world documenting Chris...
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