Freedom

I remembered how when Paul and Silas were in jail in Acts 16, they sang praises to God. And then God sent an earthquake that broke open the jail. I thought I would try. No earthquake.

But about 5 p.m. on the June 12, a nurse buzzed my room and said I could go. I asked about what paperwork I would need to complete, and she said that she would put a certificate in the compartment for passing food to me. No further commentary.

This struck me as very odd. It felt like again like the situation from Acts 16:

But when it was day, the magistrates sent the police, saying, "Let those men go." And the jailer reported these words to Paul, saying, "The magistrates have sent to let you go. Therefore come out now and go in peace." But Paul said to them, "They have beaten us publicly, uncondemned, men who are Roman citizens, and have thrown us into prison; and do they now throw us out secretly? No! Let them come themselves and take us out."

I thought, I have been unjustly accused of carrying the swine flu. Before I had a chance to exchange dollars for RMB and visit and ATM machine, I was forcibly abducted to somewhere on the mainland where I had never been before. And it is almost dark. I called the nurse back and said that I needed to be escorted back to a known location on the island. She said, "Oh, just take a taxi." And I stood my ground and insisted that taking a taxi from the mainland to my home on the island would be prohibitively expensive. Well, it became a test of wills. 1 1/2 later she called back and said that if I would just leave, an ambulance would escort wherever I wanted to go.

Well, then I tried to leave. You have to understand that an isolation ward is locked. I could not get out, and no one would help me. I found the front desk of the ward, and they had this mortified look like, "What are you doing here?" I said, "I cannot get out." They waved their hands for me to go, and I just wandered around pounding and on and shaking locked doors. After a half hour of waiting, a security guard appeared and with great effort managed to unlock the door. Then he demanded to my certificate, and he escorted me through another very scary ward, and we rode down the biohazard waste elevator. I nearly started pyschologically dissociating. When I finally reached the ground floor, I found the ambulance waiting for me. I was so thankful for that ambulance. I had no idea where I was I. I did not start recognizing the road until 5 minutes before he dropped me off.

In a subsequent blog entry, I will put the photos that I took.