By this time Jackie Pullinger had brought a num- ber of drug addicts to a knowledge of Jesus and began to have a "name" in the colony. She asked the prayer group to intercede for the biggest gang- ster she had yet met. The prayer was answered and he began to listen to the Good News and took her to preach in gambling dens and drug dens in many areas of Hong Kong, introducing her by saying, "Don't be frightened. This is Miss Poon. She doesn't look down on us. She's a Christian and she's come to tell us about Jesus." One night she took him to Rick and Jean Willans' flat for dinner. Rick told him more about the Way while Jackie translated. They all prayed together and although he had previously accepted Christ with his head, when he heard them pray in tongues, repentance came upon him for his past life of robbery, drug pushing, selling girls into prostitution, and all that goes with it, and he fell to his knees and told Jesus he repented of his sins. To his surprise he began to pray in tongues, and that same night he was baptized in water. Unfortunately he was still a heroin addict.
Jackie had many plans to get men like this off drugs. However, one person alone finds it difficult to change a city. She lacked funds, people and "know how" and the volunteer workers who offer- ed to help seldom materialized. Months later she brought Ah Gei back to Rick and Jean's flat. Rick worked full time as a management consultant and could hardly ask Jean to take in and care for a gang- ster on heroin, yet he was secretly convinced it was the only way. As Ah Gei talked, the sheer ineffi- ciency of the entire operation frustrated Jean to the extent that she found herself telling Ah Gei that if he was genuinely committed to following Christ he should remain in their flat to withdraw from drugs.
During that three months of maintaining a 24 hour watch, they discovered several things: addicts are seriously disturbed people (which is why they
are on drugs); they need someone with them const- antly; and (best of all) if they pray in tongues when withdrawal pains come they will have no pain or withdrawal symptoms -- truly an amazing discovery.
The gangster testified freely to his conversion and to his painless withdrawal from heroin. His father-in-law took all of them to a Chinese feast in celebration and publicly stated, "Once I was young and now I am old but never before have I seen a bad man become a good man." This appeared to express the opinion of most of the other relatives who then became Christians. One 20-year-old rel- ative went back to heroin and crime to support his habit, and was subsequently hauled into court on an armed robbery charge. He repented with tears, the group prayed, and, amazingly, when Jean went into court and asked that he be put into their cust- ody, the judge established an unheard of precedent.
Obviously, a place was needed for these addicts with a home atmosphere of acceptance and affec- tion and 24 hour surveillance. The procedure "worked" but no home could bear such pressure in- definitely. They prayed for funds for an apartment. While Jackie was on leave in England the way open- ed. An English expatriate read The Acts of the Green Apples which inspired him to make HK$1,500 available monthly for Stephen's Third House (Miss Pullinger's had been the first house and the Willans' the second), which opened in October of 1974. It was packed out by Christmas and boys were sleeping on the floor. Prayer brought forth another HK$1,500 monthly and Stephen's Fourth House began operation in January of 1975.
The first "worker" was Diane Edwards, an Amer- ican from Hawaii, a former Maryknoll nun who had spent five years in Hong Kong and spoke Cantonese fluently. Later Doreen Cadney, an English nurse who had been with the Church Missionary Society, came to assist, and then Gail Castle returned from
California where she had been employed as a legal secretary. Sarah Searcy, a convert of the Saturday night meeting (whose father was Australian Consul General to Los Angeles) who had been voluntarily "apprenticed" to Rick and Jean for three years, took over the responsibility of the daily operation of the two houses.
Daphne Ng-Quinn and Florence Lo, two Hong Kong University undergraduates who were regular attenders of the Saturday night meetings, became the official translators.
Jackie gave up the flat outside the Walled City (which was later demolished), moved in with the Willans at what, through necessity, became the Soc- iety's headquarters, and gave her efforts to full time evangelism, with dramatic results, as hundreds of people from varying walks of life came to know Christ and received His power.
The Society of Stephen has many facets to its work. A Monday night charismatic prayer group begun by Jean in 1960, meets at the home of Bill
Rick and
Dennis chat
with "Summer
Volunteer Corps"
Mark, Bill
and Toby.
and Madeline Duncan at 2710 Maiden Lane, Alta- dena, California, in the U.S. A. Literature published by the Society can be obtained from the Treasurer, Mrs. Loraine Ewart, 6850 Woodley, Apt. 1, Van Nuys, California, and gifts to the work can be sent there and are tax deductible. Information for British residents can be obtained from Hugh and Suzanne Jagger (the Willans' daughter and son-in-law) at 22 Ranelagh Road, Ealing, London W5, England, or from Julian Lyon-Taylor at 11 Kensington Park Gardens, London W11, England, who is in charge of the Hong Kong prayer group which meets in England.
In Hong Kong where Rick and Jean and Jackie reside between 60 and 100 friends join them for dinner every Saturday night at 7:00 pm, and attend the prayer meeting which follows. The address is 12 Kotewall Road, D4 Alpine Court. The prayer meeting is bilingual and is a happy mixture of race, class and age, and is closely patterned on the Biblical account of the early church meetings.
Another program the Society maintains is an opportunity for serious young Christians to come to assist in the Houses of Stephen during their summer holidays. Through this participation in communal Christian living some have gained Christ- ian maturity, and the ex-addicts have benefited, as well, by involvement with "normal" young adults.
Through trial and error the Society has discov- ered that the ex-addicts need a great deal of agape love accompanied by a routine schedule and strict discipline. It takes a long time to change the think- ing of a friendless orphan who grew up in vice and crime, without education, in squalor and poverty, with no standards, no values and no morals, and became a thief, a heroin addict, sometimes a mur- derer, a liar, a cheat, a blackmailer, an established criminal, a triad society member and a seller of women and drugs, into an ethical, moral, respons- ible and respected member of the community, gainfully employed in a "legal" job. It is considered that a year living with the Christian "family" is the bare minimum needed and two years would be better. He needs to learn not only to trust Christ for his future but also to trust his spiritual parents to do the best for him: a difficult undertaking for a person who has never trusted anyone.
If the ex-addict returns to his "home" in a resett- lement estate where he is surrounded by the "smell" of drugs and his former criminal acquaintances, plus the pressures put upon him by any relatives he may have to bring in more money, he will always return eventually to his former ways. Thus new thinking, new surroundings, new friends, and a new job must be substituted for the old. For someone with a primary four education (or none at all) to do this takes grace, training and prayer. But coming off drugs and a new job and another place to live never solves these problems. New thinking must emerge or eventually the person will succumb to tempt-
ation of some sort. Not only Christian morals but Christ in the heart to the extent that the ex-addict is truly being changed into His likeness, is the only permanent solution the Society has discovered. This comes to pass not only through God's grace but through a desire in the person to be changed. Jon- athan (an addict who has since left), who co-starred with Jackie in a film done by ATV television in Britain on the work, puts it in the film (his own words) about the painless withdrawal from heroin, "The miracle happens for everyone. Whether you go on with Jesus or not is up to you."
So this is the story of the Society of Stephen, a group of committed Christians who work, without salary, to spread the news that God is real and Jesus is alive and caring about people and making things happen, and that the Holy Spirit still fills people just as He did in the early days of the Church, with all the accompanying signs and miracles. And that like Peter of old, and Mary Magdalene and all of those others, you also can be changed. This is the message, and unexpectedly even the modern media have considered it news and have carried forth what is happening in a small group in Hong Kong to people in many parts of the world through such unlikely vehicles as People Magazine in the United States; Asia Magazine, the Hongkong Stundard and the South China Morning Post in the Far East; and the Sunday Times in England. Reuters and UPI have written syndicated articles and the story has also been told on Anglia and ATV television as well as spread by Christian television, radio and publica- tions. Thousands of people have come to know Jesus Christ and/or been filled with the Holy Spirit through the continuing influence of this small group. But perhaps the most dramatic witness comes from the ex-criminals and addicts who tell in their own words how once they were blind but now they see...
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