‘If I were you I’d buy a ticket for a boat going on the longest journey you can find and pray to know where to get off. If God doesn’t want you on that boat he’s perfectly able to stop you . . . or make the ship go anywhere in the world.’
Jackie Pullinger of Croydon, England nodded, sensing God’s affirmation to this advice from her pastor.
For months Jackie’s dream of becoming a missionary in Africa had been stymied. No mission society, school, or broadcasting company took interest in her, a twenty-two-year-old music teacher.
And yet the dream she’d held since age five remained as strong as ever—stronger, in fact, upon developing a close, personal relationship with Jesus while attending the Royal College of Music.
Jackie soon implemented her pastor’s advice and set sail from London in 1966 with no destination in mind and only ten pounds in her pocket. When she reached Hong Kong, Jackie sensed God telling her, this is the place.
Hong Kong, 1960s
She began exploring the island and came upon the Walled City, a place of lawlessness and squalor, open sewers and rats, gangs, drug addicts, and prostitutes. Thirty-some thousand people on six acres.
No building codes enforced .
Years prior the area had been occupied by the Chinese imperial garrison. “It was omitted from the lease of 1898 in which China ceded Hong Kong to Britain. Neither government had taken responsibility for it” [1]. When the garrison disbanded the underclass moved in, unchecked by any police presence.
In spite of the filth and stench, Jackie felt happy there because in her mind’s eye she already saw the darkness lifting. She saw the kingdom of God.
No trash pick-up either.
To support herself, Jackie took a teaching position in a government school, but she also worked at a school in the Walled City, run by a missionary.
Jackie turned a few shabby rooms into a youth club where teenagers could play ping pong and darts. She began to build relationships with them, many of whom were already heroin or opium addicts.
Preaching about Jesus proved ineffective. But Jackie noticed people watching how she lived. So she focused on putting her faith in action.
Jackie shared her rice with an old woman, took a gang member to the hospital after a fight, waited in line overnight to register a young girl for school, went to court with a gang member who said he’d been framed, and more [2].
Many expressed appreciation for her kindness and generosity but no lives were changed—at first.
One night thugs ransacked the youth club. Benches, skateboards, and the games equipment were destroyed, the walls and floor smeared with sewage. But a gang leader who respected Jackie assigned guards to protect the youth club from future damage.
Another leader asked Jackie to help his gang members quit drugs. Sober members made better dealers, he explained.
“I’ll only help them to follow Jesus, reject narcotics, and not participate in organized crime,” she told him.
And yet the leader continued to support Jackie and even released from the gang those boys who became Christians [3].
One day while walking through the Walled City, Jackie spotted Christopher, a boy from her youth group. She asked him to carry her accordion.
As they walked, they talked. Christopher confessed he couldn’t become a Christian because he wasn’t good enough. Jackie made clear that wasn’t a prerequisite, and the boy became a Jesus-follower that day [4].
Others soon made the choice to become Christians, including one of the youth-club guards. But some of these new believers lived in opium dens, making their transition to sober-living especially difficult.
One by one they came to live in Jackie’s home, where they received compassionate care and faith-filled prayer while processing through withdrawal. For many their transition was neither painful or traumatic [5].
Of course, Jackie’s apartment quickly became crowded. But through gifts from other Christians and government resources she was able to rent more apartments. It wasn’t long before dozens of such living quarters became hundreds and each quickly filled to capacity.
More workers joined in the work, including former addicts. They established additional homes for teenagers, women, and girls.
In 1981 Jackie founded the St. Stephen’s Society, to provide accountability for the growing ministry.
In 1985, the Hong Kong Government gave the society a complex of buildings divided into apartments. Hundreds more displaced persons—the poor, the elderly, and the infirm—were given places to live.
In the 1990s, the government offered another property to the St. Stephen’s Society. Buildings were erected to house two hundred men as they completed the five-phase withdrawal program, from detoxification to re-entering society as productive citizens.
The St. Stephen Society continues to function to this day, “rescuing hundreds of young people from a life of misery on the streets” [6]—not only in Hong Kong but in other countries as well.
Jackie, now eighty years old, continues to serve.
[1] https://mycharisma.com/charisma-archive/one-woman-vs-the-dragon/
[2] https://www.ststephenssociety.com/about-us
[3] https://thechurch.org.au/celebrating-jackie-pullinger-of-hong-kong/
[4] https://www.cmf.org.uk/resources/publications/content/?context=article&id=26751
[5] https://thechurch.org.au/celebrating-jackie-pullinger-of-hong-kong/
[6] https://blogs.georgefox.edu/dlgp/jackie-pullinger-loving-the-unlovely/
Photo credits: http://www.flickr.com (2); http://www.picryl.com; http://www.flickr.com; http://www.picryl.com; http://www.pickpik.com; http://www.rawpixel.com.
From the Inside Out 