Unraveled

Perhaps you’ve heard what it’s like to be a third culture kid (TCK) or a missionary kid (MK), but reading Faith Dea’s experiences will make you feel what it’s like for so many kids growing up between vastly different cultures. Far from being a bitter story, this is a sweet one of growing up in a family given to following God’s will across the sea, and with that growth, learning to make that same faith her own.

—Joy Anglea, MD

Faith has a wonderfully evocative writing style, using words to paint vivid pictures of life in Hong Kong and China through the eyes of a child, teenager, and young adult. While this writing project was spurred on by her desire to integrate the seemingly disparate aspects of her life in various places around the globe, the reader is provided with a glimpse of how God can weave even such unraveled strands together into a beautiful tapestry of His making. As I read Faith’s story, I found myself reflecting on how God has worked in my own life, using unexpected and sometimes difficult circumstances, and relationships with particular people to open up new possibilities and lead me in directions I would not have foreseen.

—Heather Davediuk Gingrich, PhD

Author of Restoring the Shattered Self: A Christian Counselor’s Guide to Complex Trauma

A descriptive memoir of one young girl growing up in two cultures. The book provides a glimpse, only a glimpse, of the challenges and blessings of becoming when merging the realities of two cultures that do not intersect easily. What all third culture kids experience, Faith is able to articulate well through the writing of her childhood to adulthood experience.

—Cathy Hall- former missionary

Author of God’s Love Letters to Me: A Journey Through Loss and Grief

I had a layover in Hong Kong once; reading Unraveled felt like an invitation to return to Hong Kong and stay a while. This captivating story is a look at the mission field through the eyes of a missionary kid, those often misunderstood third-culture kids who don’t quite seem to fit in anywhere. As Faith shares her journey, she ultimately finds her sense of belonging in her identity in Christ, a place we all must come to regardless of the culture we identify with. Faith’s book will stir you to set the compass of your heart to the true north that is found in Jesus alone.

—Michelle Elaine Burton

Author of Seasons of Change and Losing Yourself and Finding Joy

I felt like I was taking Faith’s hand as we ventured together through her life journey. We started down a road seeing things from a child’s eyes. Her life turned from the stable, secure and familiar to the unknown as she became aware of the adventures of being in a missionary family. As a small child she would look up into the faces of adults who would influence and shape her life. She would look up at the skyscrapers all around her in an unfamiliar environment. Her life path would sometimes take her from wonderment and awe to despair and disappointment yet the Lord sustained her. I enjoyed taking the journey with her through the pages of her book!

—Gayle Tomlinson

Missionary wife with Barnabas 1040.com

Unraveled

© 2024 Faith Dea

Colorado Springs, CO 80930

All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this publication may be mechanical, photocopying, recording or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher.

Some people’s names and certain details of their stories have been changed or modified to protect the privacy of the individuals involved. However, the facts of what happened surrounding the events described in this book have been conveyed as accurately as possible.

The use of material from or references to various websites does not imply endorsement of those sites in their entirety.

Cover & interior design by Typewriter Creative Co.

ISBN 979-8-9898240-0-7 (Paperback)

ISBN 979-8-9898240-1-4 (eBook)

To mom and dad,

the road you took became my road to writing this book.

My story is possible because of you.

And to my husband and children,

for unwittingly adding inspiration for this journey.

***

Contents

Prologue

Kai Tak

Baucum Beginnings

The Upstairs Window

Church

Beacon Hill

Baby Sister

Dear Friends

Mum

New Territories

Butterfly Bay

Texas

Deeper Waters

Ebb and Flow

Hainan

In Over My Head

Pieces to My Puzzle

That Unseen Hand

I’m Home

Epilogue

Endnotes

Acknowledgments

About the Author

Prologue

To this day, my least favorite

question has always been one of the easy ones: Where are you from? I wonder why it matters where people are from. Why is it so important to identify someone, to label them as being from a certain place, to associate them with one dot on the map? There seems to be a basic need to identify a new acquaintance, to find out where their roots stem and why, even if it’s just a small peek into why. Each time someone asks me that question, I typically proceed with the usual, Well, I’ve lived all over. This answer rarely satisfies my inquirer. They want to know at least some of the places I’ve lived and what was the main cause for all the moves. When I add, I grew up in Hong Kong, some immediately ask if my parents were military.

No, my parents were Baptist missionaries but I was born in Tennessee.

The problem isn’t the combination of odd locations or unexpected career fields, but then it is. Over the years, I’ve discovered that mentioning missionary in conjunction with Hong Kong does not provoke much dialogue. Rather, it often leaves a blank stare where there could be wonder and intrigue at the thought of a white American girl growing up in an exotic Asian metropolis. I wonder if it’s due to a stigma over Baptists or missionaries or simply that my questioner is trying to remember which part of the world Hong Kong is in exactly. It could be that there’s just too much information in those few details of my life. It’s more than the usual explanation in reply to where one comes from. I’ve often thought it would be a lot easier to forget the past and just answer in an expected manner: I’m from Tennessee, West Texas, or California. Each of these is technically true yet incomplete in and of itself.

Where you and I each began in life, what our parents were doing, where we grew up spending our formative, impressionable years—all of this leaves an imprint on who we are today. That, coupled with any sort of repetitive transitioning from one set of normal to a completely different set of normal, can make for a unique perspective, to say the least. That idea of belonging, whether strongly attached or detached from locations and family, means something deeper. The good news is, it can be unraveled and dissected in a healthy way when we look to the One who was there and continues to remain along our unique journeys. I love the idea of repurposing the script with Christ in his rightful place where he was all along.

In searching deeper through the recesses of my own memories, I like to ask myself what the Master and Commander of the universe was up to in my corner of the world—the world he formed and the spot I landed on. In sifting through those sometimes faint, sometimes remarkably clear recollections, I wonder how God was moving prior to and at the time of my arrival. Moving within boundaries, I inevitably became part of something bigger than myself—something I grew to accept as positive. There was always a greater narrative taking place, and looking back, I can see how he providentially sustained me within the context of my family. Through the varying circumstances in which I found myself, I had to learn to lift my gaze upward to seek him.

You have a story much like I do. As joyful or painful as it may be to unravel, it is one that can be redeemed, one that can lead you exactly to where you belong. If you do examine your past, as I have done in this book, I pray you’ll see the many ways God had his hand on you as well.

My story begins long before my parents or I showed up on the scene, in a little-known region tucked between mossy, green mountains and a warm coastal sea breeze. Pieces of what look more like a story puzzle were scattered across a span of time, stretching further back than I can take credit for. I have come to see there is a connective thread of grace that offers an aerial glimpse into how the pieces are supposed to fit. I begin with turning the pages of history just enough to lay the edge pieces of my story’s puzzle.

1

Kai Tak

The tale is told of a Chinese believer named Yao Jian Ming who moved with his family to Hong Kong in the 1930s. He settled down in what was then a poor, undeveloped area along Kowloon’s sparsely populated mountain range. Ming happened to be a believer in YeSou, Jesus Christ. While getting acquainted with the locals, Ming discovered they had a village church with a lack of clear gospel teaching. It wasn’t long before Ming invited a preacher to come teach the villagers of the redemptive work of Christ. The Bible was taught in Cantonese as well as in Swatow, a local dialect. In 1938, a building was constructed to house the growing church, including a place to baptize converts. A burden to reach out with both gospel and community services for the poor in the area developed. Once established, they called themselves the Swatow Baptist Church.

No one among the thriving congregation could have imagined their efforts would be astronomically disrupted and the newly built church torn down with the Japanese invasion of 1941. While World War II raged, many fled for safety. The village area at the base of Lion Rock Hill was cleared for the occupying army to fly in and land. By the providence of God, the spirit of the church was not crushed. Hong Kong may have fallen into the hands of the Japanese, but the Lord was preserving his people throughout that tempestuous period of time.¹

In 1942 the Japanese army expanded Kai Tak Airport beneath the rugged mountain range. Many Allied POW (prisoner-of-war) laborers were used to construct two concrete runways. Numerous POW diary entries exist recalling the grueling work and long hours working on expanding Kai Tak.² During the process, the historic wall of the Kowloon Walled City and the 148-foot-tall Sung Wong Toi, a memorial for the last Song dynasty emperor, were destroyed for materials.³

It was in this very same region of Hong Kong, at this very same airport, that my story began, forty years later. God plucked up my family and me from small town middle America, and planted us right there in Kowloon. The region had not only come through recent wartime disaster, but it had transformed into a major international financial center, known worldwide as one of the wealthiest cities and tourist hot spots in Asia. My family’s ministry would come to link hand in hand with what the Lord of the harvest was already doing among the Chinese people.

This is the story of a missionary daughter’s firsthand experience of God’s divine providence in a city that was changing from one identity to the next almost as often as she was. It’s the filling in of a beautiful puzzle in which she had to figure out how she fit while settling on her own sense of belonging and identity.

***

Where are we, Mommy?

She didn’t hear my timid voice, coming from below her trim waist. I yanked on her hand in mine and asked again.

Mommy, where are we?

She turned to look down at me, acknowledging my voice had been heard. Her face showed she was distracted with trying to keep up with Daddy and the boys. My little sister’s legs straddled loosely around my mother’s middle. Ruth’s bare arms dangled at her sides as her sleepy head draped and bobbed over Mom’s sagging shoulder. I felt a squeeze coming from my mother’s clammy hand as she clasped a bit tighter and simultaneously pulled Ruth’s limp body in and up with her other arm for a better hold. All the while, we were almost running forward as we followed the back of Daddy’s predominant frame.

Strange sounds came from every direction. My ears caught a ringing chime coming from a speaker somewhere up high. A woman’s voice followed the chime, but what was she saying? Her words sounded like a rapidly rising and falling pitch bearing no meaning. Was she singing or talking? Her announcement ended with that same ringing chime, and I liked the sound of it, but it stopped abruptly.

As we kept walking through the terminal, I turned to look at my mother to see if she could answer my question. Before I noticed, her legs had halted, and my four-year-old frame bumped up against her body and part of Ruth’s shoe buckle. Ouch! Mom’s skirt brushed smoothly over my face as if to say, Be patient and wait!

Where are we? I asked myself instead. Everything felt peculiar