My Wilderness Experience

In the fall of 2018, life was going smoothly. I had moved from Germany to the US on July 2, transferring from Intel’s Munich office to its San Diego office.

On November 21, just before Thanksgiving, I flew from San Diego to Romania for what I expected to be a three-week vacation. It was my first trip back to Romania since the move. It would be almost nine months before I returned to San Diego.

In Bucharest, I stayed with Pastor Nicu, who pastors a small countryside church near the city and has a remarkable prophetic gift. Over the past year, I had received several prophecies from God through him. On the evening of November 23, as we prayed together, he gave me another prophecy, which included these words:

Do not let the trial overwhelm you, because I am there. I will calm the sea, I will calm the waves, I will calm the storm and I will bring peace, and I will let peace reign. Just look at Me and follow in My footsteps and obey My voice.

I was puzzled. What trial was God referring to? Life was good, and there was no sign of trouble ahead.

The next morning, November 24, I flew from Bucharest to Munich to see my daughter. My wife and I were in the midst of divorce proceedings, and the German family court had granted me permission to see my daughter once a month under the supervision of a social worker from Jugendamt, the German child protection agency. Before leaving the US, I had informed Jugendamt about my trip and arranged the visit for 1 pm.

I had come to see my daughter. Instead, shortly after I arrived at the meeting place, I was confronted by a court officer and three police officers in plain clothes. They showed me an arrest warrant and told me they were taking me to jail.

I remained remarkably calm. I accepted that they were doing their job and let them escort me to their vehicle and then to jail. All the while, I remembered the prophecy I had received just the night before.

Later, the Jugendamt social worker visited me in jail. She was apologetic about what had happened but explained that she had been unable to intervene. Her superior was equally dismayed and had already filed a complaint with the family court. She also told me that the court officer had commented on my composure during the arrest: it seemed “as if I had been expecting it.”

The warrant had been issued by the Munich family court following a motion from my wife’s lawyer. I was to spend six months in jail unless I paid roughly €95,000—the amount her lawyer claimed I owed her.

Before my wife filed for separation, a prerequisite for divorce in Germany, I had made it clear that she could choose a divorce in Romania or a divorce in Germany under Romanian law. At first she seemed to agree. Later, possibly swayed by her German lawyer and perhaps her lover, she changed her mind.

One of my first worries was my job in the US. But just two months earlier, God had given Pastor Nicu another prophecy for me. In it, He said He had brought me to the US to prepare my heart for the work He intends to do with and through me. He also told me to remain in the Chinese church I had been attending in San Diego because He had a plan for me there. I chose to trust those promises rather than dwell on what might happen to my job.

That didn’t make six months in jail easy. There were moments of sadness and discouragement, but despair never got the best of me. I chose to trust God and was always aware of His presence. Often, at my lowest points, He gave me almost supernatural peace.

He also encouraged me through Noelia, a sister from Argentina with the gift of prophecy. I had met her and her husband online in the summer of 2017, and we had stayed in touch. The message she delivered on God’s behalf was short and clear:

God wants you to praise Him at all times. You will be freed from jail and return to the US. God will provide you with financial resources, and you will marry a godly woman.

One small answer to prayer came on my second day in jail. From the moment I was incarcerated, I had been praying for a Bible. The next morning, I came across a bookshelf in a room down the hall where we were allowed to borrow books. Most were in German or English, but there, on the bottom shelf, was a Romanian Bible!

Like most of the other inmates, I had a cell to myself. Each day we were allowed two hours in the hallway and one hour of open-air recreation, which I thought was quite reasonable. I could have rented a TV but chose not to. Instead, I spent most of my time reading. Over those six months, I read the Old Testament once, the New Testament three times, and about twenty novels in English and German, carefully noting unfamiliar words and phrases.

After about a month, I began attending the Sunday services in the sizable chapel in the inner courtyard. There were two services each Sunday, one Catholic and one Lutheran, sometimes combined into an ecumenical service. A month after that, I joined the church choir, which was surprisingly good. Its director, also an inmate, was a competent pianist and organist who had been a church musician before going to jail.

The Catholic and Lutheran churches also ran weekly discussion groups of five to ten people. Even though the discussions didn’t go very deep spiritually, the meetings were a welcome break from the daily routine. I shared my faith with a few Romanians I met, as well as other inmates interested in spiritual things, and I also gave them Bibles from the chapel, which had copies in multiple languages.

Among the people I met at the Sunday services was a young Chinese man with a remarkable story. Before going to jail, he had been bitten by a tick and contracted Lyme disease. The disease led to kidney failure while he was in jail, and a series of treatment errors made his condition worse. One night, his whole body swelled, and he felt he was about to die. In desperation, he cried out to Jesus, whom he had heard about from Christians he had met before. Almost instantly, a yellow liquid began seeping from his body, and he knew he was no longer in danger. After this miraculous recovery, he began praying and reading the Bible every day.

The highlight of each month was half an hour with my daughter. She was nearly seven at the time. A social worker accompanied her and supervised each visit, but even under those circumstances, seeing her and spending time with her always brought me joy.

On May 23, 2019, I was released. I flew straight to Romania and stayed at Pastor Nicu’s home for the next two and a half months, until my return to the US on August 9. Just two days after my release, I received another prophecy through him. Here is an excerpt:

I watched over you every moment, My son, and My hand was always extended to you in mercy. The proof that I have loved and continue to love you with an everlasting love is that you are here tonight… There are many things you still don’t understand, but what I did, I did out of love, to hasten other works and to fulfill some things that your heart longs for. So don’t focus on the wound anymore, but on the One who can heal and bind up any wound…

A few days later, the Lord spoke again through another prophecy, saying in part:

It is good when you are tested and tried… for no one and nothing untested or untried will enter heaven. So all must pass through the school of brokenness and suffering to discern and understand My will and My work.

Before returning to the US, I finally visited Israel, something I had wanted to do for ages. I spent a week exploring the country by car, from the Dead Sea in the south to the Golan Heights in the north, including Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, and Haifa.

I also spent time in the Danube Delta, one of Romania’s most stunning places, where I used to spend all my summer breaks as a kid. After six months in jail, I found myself enjoying an unexpected two-and-a-half-month unpaid vacation. It was a break I really needed.

Meanwhile, God had also been taking care of what I had left behind in San Diego: my job, my room, and my car.

About a month into my jail time, I had managed to get word to my manager in the US. We communicated through a colleague who visited me in jail a few times and passed messages between us. My manager notified the local HR team, who discussed my situation with the HR team in Munich. They decided to suspend my employment rather than terminate it. Given that most companies would have let me go under those circumstances, that alone was remarkable.

One detail still makes me laugh. My manager asked if I could write a self-assessment for the annual performance review. So there I was in my cell, writing about my performance at work with paper and pencil.

As soon as I was released, I notified the company so they could begin reinstating me. First, the company handling my immigration case had to verify that my time in jail hadn’t resulted from a criminal conviction. That took longer than expected, and the internal reinstatement process took time too.

Yet the timing couldn’t have been better. I had enjoyed an extended vacation in Romania and still made it back just in time for Apple’s takeover of Intel’s cellular modem division. The initial agreement was announced on July 25, while I was still in Romania. Roughly two weeks after my return to the US, we Intel employees in San Diego received our offer letters from Apple. Had I returned even a week later, I would have missed out on the deal and might have been laid off by Intel.

After almost nine months away, I was also able to move back into my old room. And there in the driveway was my car. How it had survived my absence was another story of God’s providence.

When I left for Romania, I had taken the train from Solana Beach, a small coastal town just north of San Diego, on my way to the Los Angeles airport. I had planned to leave my car at a beach parking lot I often used and walk to the station. But a sign said cars couldn’t be left there on Mondays, so I drove to the station and parked there instead. The lot was packed because of the Thanksgiving rush, but I found a spot at the far end.

About a month later, my landlord’s wife was at that same station, seeing her daughter off after a visit from Los Angeles. Her daughter normally took the train back from San Diego, but this time she had chosen Solana Beach—a remarkable coincidence! My landlord’s wife remembered that I had taken the train from there too and decided to check on my car.

She found a car that looked like mine but wasn’t sure. Back at home, her husband found my license plate number in my room and confirmed that the car was mine. The next day, he drove to the station to check on the car. Everything seemed fine.

Two weeks later, he happened to be in the area again and took another look. This time, there was a warning ticket on the windshield: unless the car was moved within a week, it would be towed, and if it remained unclaimed for a few months, it would be scrapped. My landlord had it towed at his own expense. Since I had the only key, he paid for a new one and even took care of my annual registration to avoid penalties.

By the end of January, he had learned about my situation from my manager and decided to rent out my room starting March 1. The new tenant wasn’t the cleanest, and my landlord wasn’t keen on keeping him long-term.

After my release, I got in touch with my landlord, though I still couldn’t say when I would be back. Knowing I would return, he advised the tenant to look for another place. The tenant did so and was able to move out one week before my arrival. When I returned, everything was just as I had left it.

As I settle back into life in the US, I’m overwhelmed with relief and gratitude for how God worked in my life. My faith in Him has deepened through this trial, and my love for Him is stronger than ever. The outcome of my divorce is still uncertain, but I find comfort in knowing that God is in control and has a plan.

I think of the prophecy I received the night before my arrest, fulfilled the very next day. I think of the job I kept against all odds, the timing that gave me a vacation and brought me back just in time for the move to Apple, the room that became available just before I needed it, and the car saved through an extraordinary sequence of coincidences. I cannot put all of that down to chance. To me, these experiences are undeniable proof that God is real, that He is in charge down to the smallest detail, and that His care for His children is unending.

Update, September 2019: Just a week after my return to the US, I met Stephanie, a wonderful Christian girl from the Chinese church I attend. Within just 12 days, we both knew we were destined to marry, confirming God’s promise of a godly wife for me. You can read the amazing details of this story in my journal entry from August 30, 2019.

Update, June 2023: The divorce proceedings are still ongoing, but Stephanie and I are waiting patiently, holding on to our faith that God will fulfill His promise. Our mutual love and trust have only deepened over time, and we have discovered that we are very compatible and that God is an exceptional matchmaker.