In the last two years, KK Ip, who pastors an evangelical, multicultural church in Hong Kong, has traveled to a prison located on the border between China and Hong Kong several times.
Every visit takes more than 3 hours. Much of it is commuting time, but once he arrives at the prison, he often waits for 45 minutes before the prison guards escort him to a meeting room.
There, Ip meets with a young woman who was arrested in 2019 for protesting against Hong Kong’s now-scrapped extradition bill. Although she was not involved in any violent acts, the government sentenced her to nearly four years in prison in 2023.
During their half-hour-long interactions, Ip chats with her about her thoughts and the conditions inside the prison. Over time, he sensed her despondency and anxiety over the uncertainty of the prosecution process and its potential outcomes.
“Planning for the future seemed pointless” to the young woman, Ip said.
Before her trial began, Ip prayed with her for guidance in her future career. And as trust began to develop between them, she became more “grounded and hopeful for the future,” he said. She will be released from prison next year.
The Gen Zer, whose name is withheld for security reasons, is not a believer. But Ip has found ways to convey God’s love and grace to her through these in-person visits and also through writing letters to her regularly (he once sent a postcard while vacationing in Greece), sharing insights and encouragement.
“Christ’s sacrifice [has] liberated us from the imprisonment of sins, and I believe in extending that love and support to the youth in our city,” Ip said. “I want her to know that there are people willing to walk with her no matter how far away [they are].”
Ip is not alone in his conviction to care for Hong Kong’s depressed and anxious Gen Zers, who are experiencing a tumultuous political, economic, and social climate. Other pastors and ministry leaders in the city are taking steps to address these mental health issues in creative ways, from creating handy tools to build emotional literacy to opening up spaces for conversations about these challenges inside and outside the church.
In the six years since the 2019 social protests, Hong Kongers have dealt with some of the strictest COVID-19 measures in the world: Its borders were shut in 2020, and visitors had to enter mandatory hotel quarantines. Then, the authorities implemented a tough national security law in June 2020.
While more than 123,800 locals have immigrated to Britain and thousands have received permanent residence in Canada, an influx of people from the mainland has moved in. Since December 2022, around 55,000 people from China have moved to Hong Kong on “top talent” visas.
These rapidly evolving changes in Hong Kong society have taken a toll on Gen Zers’ mental health. Almost half of 18-to-24-year-olds in the city reported having moderate to severe depression with symptoms of anxiety and insomnia, according to a survey last year by the Mental Health Association.
Nearly half of youth aged 12 to 24 said they consider themselves failures, based on a Hong Kong Christian Service survey last year. But only a third of Gen Zers will seek professional help for their mental health problems, a poll by the Chinese YMCA of Hong Kong found.
As Hong Kong churches grapple with dwindling congregations and threats to their religious freedom, Gen Z Christians are also experiencing greater levels of depression and anxiety. Stories of young believers struggling with their mental health are common, said Fox Lo, associate general secretary of the Fellowship of Evangelical Students (FES).
One university student who wanted to further her studies had to drop out of school because her experience of depression and anxiety hindered her from finishing her papers, Lo said.
“Some people say there is no PTSD in Hong Kong because there is no post-trauma,” he added. “The trauma continues every day.”
Lo and others at FES believe the Bible can address the trauma that many young Hong Kongers are experiencing, especially in showing that God cares about humanity’s complicated range of emotions.
When the protests erupted in Hong Kong in 2019, Lee Chiu Mei was in college. Many of his classmates joined the protests outside his school.
“The news information was too overwhelming every day, and I had no time to process my feelings,” Lee, 24, said. Church was not an ideal space to discuss the fiery political issues and divisions sweeping the city, as he did not feel comfortable articulating his personal views there.
After observing that young people like Lee had difficulties expressing how they felt about Hong Kong’s political climate in 2019, Lo hit on the idea to creatively convey the Beatitudes in Matthew 5 as a comforting message for Gen Z believers. Along with other student leaders at FES, he created a deck of cards depicting these Bible verses to help young people share vulnerably about their emotions.
One card, for instance, depicts a heart being poured out onto clasped hands with this verse printed behind it: “Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven” (Matt. 5:3). Another card showcases a person in tears slumped over a rock, while the other side declares, “Blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted” (Matt. 5:4).
While the protests were taking place, Lee met with a small group of Christian students at his school, all of whom he was meeting for the first time. He selected a card from the deck before him, gazing at the illustration on it. He described how he felt looking at the image, read the accompanying Beatitude, and imagined how Jesus would respond to his current circumstance. The other students also shared their reflections.
The cards helped Lee and his peers share their worries with each other—something they normally would not do, as they feared arrest for speaking critically of the government.
“I finally felt that I had the space to express these feelings and that I had someone to accompany me to face the trauma caused by society, to pray for each other, and to leave everything to God,” Lee said.
The second version of the cards, which features the Psalms, was published in 2023 for use in college ministry events during the pandemic and continues to be used today.
There are no illustrations on the cards, but there are words describing emotions, like “angry,” alongside verses like Psalm 35:17: “How long, Lord, will you look on?” On another card, the word shameful accompanies Psalm 40:11: “Do not withhold your mercy from me, Lord; may your love and faithfulness always protect me.”
When students don’t know which card to choose, FES’s leaders ask them to select cards they find interesting. Doing so allows them to explore more nuanced emotions under the general feeling of sadness they may be carrying, said Lo.
Instead of intellectualizing their emotions, looking at the cards and identifying words or images that speak to them offers Gen Z believers the space to express how they feel, pushing against the norm in most Hong Kong churches.
“Churches are afraid that if [people share] too much about their struggles or depressive feelings, it would discourage people not to pursue faith and not go to church,” said Barry Cheung, FES’s general secretary.
Another Christian ministry, Breakthrough Hong Kong, is encouraging Gen Z to bring conversations about depression and anxiety to the public square.
The group’s Emo Error Gym (emo is short for emotions) began as a two-day interactive display in a shopping mall in Tsuen Wan last year. A question on a large board asked people to respond to the question “What’s your emo level?” Young Hong Kongers wrote their responses on pieces of paper shaped like leaves, which were hung up on a brown cardboard tree for passersby to look at.
“I couldn’t socialize with others normally because of depression, and my friends don’t even know about it,” one person wrote. Another person wrote, “I do not like the way I am right now.”
“When other people read these notes, they know they are not alone,” said Wilson Lam, Breakthrough’s associate general secretary.
Breakthrough uses this display to connect Gen Z Hong Kongers to its ministry, which focuses on reaching youth for Christ through digital media, books, and social-support services like counseling. This March and April, the exhibit will be held at five universities in Hong Kong.
Allowing Gen Zers to acknowledge the anxiety and depression they are facing helps guide them toward a more holistic understanding of health and personhood, said Lam.
“In school and society, young people focus on doing,” which often leads to burnout and feelings of isolation, said Lam. “From a Christian perspective, the ‘being’ is more important than the ‘doing.’”
One church, meanwhile, hopes to bring these conversations inside its walls and to become a safer space for Gen Z to have conversations about depression and anxiety.
The Methodist International Church of Hong Kong is in the process of converting a floor in its church building into a center for young people. Slated to open later this year in the Wan Chai neighborhood, the space will be open to Gen Zers who want to socialize, study, and have conversations on any topics they choose.
Gen Zers “need an opportunity to talk openly in settings where there is no stigma attached to talking about one’s sadness, hurt, anger or confusion,” said Lance Lee (no relation to Lee Chiu Mei), a psychologist and pastor at the church.
Through the center, the church also aims to offer support groups, pastoral counsel, and a full range of coaching, counseling, and Christian psychotherapy services.
Doing so is part of a church’s calling and “a root to evangelism, to witness, to the expansion of the kingdom even for people who believe God or religion is irrelevant,” Lee asserted. “People need space where they can bring all of who they are and be met by a Jesus who knows me, loves me, and wants to embrace me deeper.”
For Lee, creating room for conversations around depression and anxiety within the church is not the end goal. Rather, he believes that doing this will give Gen Zers “hope, inspiration, and excitement that the God who is with us in this really has a way for us to be happy in Hong Kong five to ten years from now.”
Ip, the pastor, continues to minister to the young woman in prison. Sometimes their conversations are trivial; other times they have broached religion. “To imitate Christ, we must take up the cross and care for and love those who feel hurt or wronged,” he said.
Additional reporting by Jessie Chiang and Isabel Ong
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