TNT-Cell

Saturday, March 31, 2007

2:38 PM

G'day mates! Haha. I just got back from Downunder! It was a fantastic holiday and I'm missing Gold Coast already!

Actually, I just want to share with you guys about an experience I had in Brisbane the first day I arrived. I actually flew to Brisbane 2 days earlier than my friends so that I could visit and bunk in with an old secondary schoolmate who's currently studying there. Her name's Lena, by the way.

So anyway, before I fill you in with the details on what happened, I'll share with you some of my prayers for this holiday. Like most of you would, I prayed for journey mercy, God's hand of protection to be upon me, and for my friends and I to have a wonderful first-time vacation without any parents there with us.

So now to cut the long story short, when I arrived, Lena met me at the airport and told me that that night, she'd be going clubbing with her friends to celebrate one of their birthdays, and invited me to come along. I met several of her friends throughout the day, and found that they weren't the kind of people I would usually hang around with - so interacting with them was a little difficult. For starters, they were a pretty wild bunch (or what we call 'happening'), and I also soon found out that all of them smoke. It was really hard for me to get along well with them, and constantly breathing in second-hand smoke didn't make things any easier either.

That night, after an entire day of persistent persuasion from everyone, I agreed on joining them for their clubbing session. By this time, I was already feeling way out of my comfort zone since I didn't know anyone and clubbing wasn't my kind of scene. I was already on the brink of tears! Silently, I kept asking God why did my vacation start off like this, and I started questioning whether or not He was really protecting me and keeping me safe.

At around 11pm, we headed for our first club of the night. It was called Friday's, and when we arrived there, I felt like a fish out of water. If any of you have been to clubs in Singapore, nightlife in Brisbane is way wilder in every sense - their dressing, language, actions, everything you could think of. All her friends seemed to fit in really well, and started drinking, downing shooter after shooter, and bopping to the music. I tried to enjoy myself and act as though everything was fine, and had a couple of drinks with them, thinking that it would be all over before I knew it.

But NO. At around 1am, we headed to a second nightclub, and they had even more drinks. By that time, I was feeling really terrible. I didn't like what I was experiencing at all. I kept uttering short prayers under my breath, but deep inside I was still doubtful to whether God was really there with me.

We soon headed to our third nightclub called The Family. This club was by far the worse of all. Picture a nightclub located in a dingy alley in the red light district, walls made of bricks - exposed and unpainted, and the entrance dimly lit with a couple of spotlights. Then you see a stream of people outside the club, some waiting to get in, some drunk and staggering about, some vomiting at the sidewalk. Yeah, that was exactly what I saw. I thought it could not get any worse, but the moment I entered the club, it was nothing like I ever felt or imagined. The club was horribly dark, and the only source of light was from the strobe lights coming from the dance floor. The music was deafening and the inside was crammed full of people, and everyone was touching me and pushing me aside as they squeezed past to get in and around. At that moment, I lost Lena and her group of friends, and frantically walked around to find them. And to add to my moment of misery, the nightclub was 3 storeys high. Thankfully, I found them downstairs near the bar. I sat myself down on one of the chairs and by then, I felt too scared and miserable to even breathe a prayer. I started crying and soon Lena realized it. I told her I wanted to go back first, so she brought me out, got a cab for me, and gave me the keys to her apartment.

Inside the cab, I kept crying and sniffling, and thinking about how awful the night was. I was upset that God didn't seem to intervene and make the situation better. The cab driver then turned around to ask me whether I was hurt, and I told him I wasn't. He started consoling me and assuring me that he'd take care of me and get me home safely. When we arrived outside Lena's apartment, he stopped his cab and told me he'd chat with me for awhile to make sure I was alright. While he spoke, I absentmindedly touched the back of my blouse. When I looked at my hand, I saw brown disgusting vomit smeared all over my palm and fingers. I started wailing and crying and I told him that someone puked on my back without me realizing it. He hushed me and cleaned my blouse, then walked me up to my apartment, went inside, and waited while I got changed. He sat me down and told me that the nightclub I went into was one of the worst in the area - it's located in the red light district, and they even had gay nights on certain sundays. They sold alcohol and DRUGS at dirt cheap prices and he said he wouldn't be surprised if my friends were into drugs. Before he left, he told me never to go back there again and even left me his email address so that I can contact him when I return back to Singapore.

So that was how my first night in Brisbane went. Awfully thrilling, isn't it? Actually, apart from sharing this experience with you guys, I also wanted to share some of my thoughts on it. Remember I told you what I prayed for before arriving in Brisbane? I asked God to keep me safe. And praise God that He did. Somehow, inspite of whatever that has happened, I've realized that God was in the midst of it all. He was there to protect me, keep me safe from harm, and make sure I wasn't hurt, I wasn't drugged, and best of all, He sent me such a sincere and compassionate cabbie to encourage and take care of me when I was at my lowest. I could have been picked up by any cab driver, and anything could have happened to me in the cab since I was alone in a foreign land. But God didn't allow it to happen. This is truly a testimony of thanksgiving and praise, and an assurance that surely He keeps His promise, because God has said, "Never will I leave you; never will I forsake you." (Hebrews 13:5)

Praise Him!

~ Victoria.

+ AMEN