At this moment, Dad had no idea if his bag had been stolen or lost. He called me (Christina) and told me the situation , then right away he began to retrace his steps from where he last had the bag. After a long time of searching in the freezing cold, he still couldn't find it anywhere. When I met up with him, I called the police and they came to the sight. They asked a few questions and then took us in their car to the local station to file a report. Funny thing..... At the time there were four of us and two of them and a five passenger police car. You know you're in China when they allow all four of you to squish in the back for the ride! And yes, I did take a pic of us that you can see below! ;)
When we got to the police station, they took Dad and I into a small room to hear the whole story and record it. The room consisted of a desk, computer, one chair, a security camera, and a metal chair that looked pretty scary. The chair is what they call and iron chair, and has shackles for the arms and ankles. On the walls in places there was dried blood, and the floor wasn't too clean either. But overall it wasn't the worst I've seen. We sat down and explained everything in detail and then went to look at traffic cameras. I couldn't believe my ears when I heard them talking about the cameras that we needed to see... Apparently all the cameras on that street were broken, so there was no way for us to see what happened! This made the problem even worse, and they told us that is all they could do to help us. They said they would keep and eye out and notify other branches, but that was all. We finally left after a few hours to go search the area ourselves, since the police were unhelpful. We looked through garbage cans, asked nearby stores and vendors, but nothing! It was late and dark outside so we regretfully headed home for the night. In , our hearts were constant prayers going up to heaven, hoping for a miracle. The next day Dad and I planned to go back to the police and ask for more help somehow. On the way I thought of the idea of making a "Lost Item" poster and putting them all around the area. So we went to a nearby photo shop, and I did just that. We printed out 30 of them and that morning we taped them to posts and walls all over. It was a freezing day and the wind was biting cold. By the time we were done, my hands were beet red and I couldn't move them. I can't remember the last time my hands hurt so bad. After we finished, we went home to wait. We could only wait, and pray.
Sunday morning, (two days later) I received a phone call... "I saw a poster in Shunyi about a lost briefcase.... Is it yours?" asked a man's voice with a strong dialect. "Yes, it is." I replied. "I found it and have it right now." he said. "Where are you? We can come get it right now!" I replied excitedly, and so he told me where he was and we jumped in the van to hurry there. We were super nervous not knowing if he was being honest, or if it was safe, or if he actually had it. When we got to the sight, he was standing there by the side of the road, I jumped out and went to talk with him. In the end we found out that his home is over an hour away and that is where the bag was. So he got into our van and we took him there. Finally, we got the bag back!!!!!!!!! Praise The Lord! He called me because he had seen the poster I made, and told me he had seen it fall off the scooter and called after Dad, but it was to no avail. He didn't know how to contact us until he saw the poster.
In the end, God really did a miracle! When you lose something here, it is next to impossible to get back. Especially if there are valuables inside! We are SO thankful to have it back, it would have been very bad if we didn't. Below are a few pictures of the event, when I took control of the security guards security system to check the history (Because they didn't know how to work the machine)... Squishing four people in the back of a police car.... Putting up the posters.... Etc. Enjoy! And Praise God!