Let God Arise - Part 4 — Jackie Pullinger

To show why the program indicated this might be a shocking or a frightening session. Not at all. It's really a journey, that's all, and we'd like to take you through this journey gradually bit by bit.

I suppose it's God's mercy that he doesn't give us the full details of our journey before we start. The only thing that we're very sure about is our destination, and this is something that I feel very strongly about, and I therefore feel that it's not hard for any Christian to follow the Lord, whatever he asks us to do, if we're sure of our destination.

If we're not, we get very discouraged and upset along the way, because we allow what we're going through to dictate to us. We even think if we're having a bad time, we're doing badly, or if we're having a good time, we're doing well, neither of which may be true.

But I believe the important thing is to know where we're heading, and it was for that reason that Jesus could endure the cross, because he knew where he was heading. He knew the joy that was set before him, and because of that, he could endure the cross and scorn its shame.

And so the journey must be the same for us all. I don't suppose any of us will be called to less than he walked. In his mercy, he calls us to a place in heaven, and he also asks us to share his death.

The Christian Journey and the Hope of Heaven

And what I want to share today is a little bit of my journey, and during the course of which, he has allowed me to see what's happening in other people's lives and sometimes become part of them. But in sharing this story, I suppose it's a little unfair, because what you're hearing is over twenty years being told in a very short space of time.

And people often say, well, you know, you never talk about the failures. You never talk about the hard times. Well, you know that place in scripture where it talks about a woman in childbirth, and doubtless those who have may affirm that it's painful to give birth.

But I never hear my twin sister talking about her birth pains. I only ever hear her talking about her beautiful children. So, sure, there's pain along the way. Not many failures, because if you're working in the name of the Lord, he uses everything that you do.

And I believe his measure of success is not ours at all. It's different. So, it's painful. So there are dark times. So there are a lot of people that we love, and it doesn't look as if they're working out that well.

Yes. We want to be honest and tell you that this happens. We want to be honest and say we don't understand it all, but we are committed to going on learning, and we're committed to going on trying with those people that it doesn't look as if we've yet reached.

But actually, we don't want to spend a lot of time on all of that. We're just trying to be honest in telling you that that happens. But we'd prefer to tell you about the beautiful children, the nice babies that have been born, because that's why, in his mercy, God's left us here.

Psalm 107 and the Homeless Finding a Home

I want to read you from Psalm 107. There are several psalms which we call addict psalms or poor people psalms, and this is one of them. You could call this the psalm of the homeless. Give thanks to the Lord for his good, his love endures forever.

Let the redeemed of the Lord say this, those he redeemed from the hand of the foe, those he gathered from the lands, from north, from east, and from west, and from the south. What we have now in Hong Kong is, we'll show you some pictures in a minute, we have one particular place which has been lent to us by the government, which is like a picture of the kingdom of God.

And we have people from north and south and west and east. We have people from America, India, Philippines, Africa, New Zealand, China, Indonesia, all living together. We have people who were made homeless because they went to hospital, and when they came out their families didn't want them because they were too difficult to look after, or in one case the girl smelt so her family wouldn't have her.

We have people who've been found under flyovers, they sleep under bridges. One young man whose father ejected him when he was young because he had polio and was therefore useless, and he thrust him up in wire and hung him from the ceiling and beat him.

So he came to live with us. We have children whose parents are coming off drugs with us, and some of the children, their parents are still in the streets, and we've taken them to look after them, some with no parents.

And we also have old ladies who've started again, and I'll talk about one later, who's nearly 70 and spent nearly 50 of those years on heroin and as a prostitute. We've got old men, there's a sweet old man who lived in the streets for 40 years, I think, and he said he was looking for a home all that time.

He was looking, and it's lovely, we gave him a Christmas stocking the year before last, and he wore it as a hat for six months. And for all of us, it's only not our final one, definitely not, we're looking forward to a much better one.

We've got 12 tin huts, well we had, but since we left Hong Kong, been four fires, so we don't know how many are still left. And they're long tin huts that have been lent to us, and we all live together.

A wonderful collection, quite a high percentage have come through our various different houses to come off drugs, and they come to live at this place to be further trained in the work of the Gospel and in other practical training.

But there's no difference between us. In our work in Hong Kong, we don't have staff, we don't have leadership team even, because we have noticed that there's not much difference between us and those people that we went to help.

And so we found that we can learn a lot together. And we have different problems that we're learning how to overcome. But all of us really are there for one reason. It's because we want to practice living in Jesus and making him known to other people.

So we are from all over the place, and it's a kind of temporary home, but we're glad it's tin because we can't make it too beautiful. And everything that we do there is, our criteria is, can we move it when we leave?

So the place that we worship, and the place that we cook, and the places that we sleep, everything has to be movable, because we feel very much that we're on a journey only. This is not our landing up place.

And this is a pretty good way to live, actually. It makes a lot of difference to the things one buys, and the ways one spends one's time if you're living temporary. So this is the kind of home that many of us have landed up in, and here are some of the places they came from.

Some wandered in desert wastelands, finding no way to a city where they could settle. They were hungry and thirsty, and their lives ebbed away. And then they cried out to the Lord in their trouble, and he delivered them from their distress.

He led them by a straight way to a city where they could settle. Let them give thanks to the Lord for his unfailing love and his wonderful deeds for men, for he satisfies the thirsty and fills the hungry with good things.

Finding a Calling Among Overwhelming Needs

When I first went to Hong Kong, I was overwhelmed by the needs that I found there. And I'd like to talk a little further about this tonight and tomorrow, because I think that we can get so overwhelmed by big things that we truly have no idea where to start.

And I saw hungry people. I saw children that couldn't go to school because they had to take care of the babies so that the mothers could go out to work. And I saw old men and old women. He had to beg because there weren't old people's homes.

And if you don't have children, you're poor because your children look after you. There's no old age pension there. So if you don't have children, you're wretched. And that, of course, is why a lot of people have children.

So I saw these old people and I thought maybe I could have an old people's home for them, or maybe I could have a nursery for the children. And then I saw the teenagers, and one of them, he paid, it would be the equivalent of a pound, I suppose, a pound a month to sleep on someone's shop counter because there wasn't room for him in his home.

It was just one room, and it was too full up. And he couldn't go to secondary school, although he longed to do so because his parents needed the money. And so he earned, so he could send the younger brothers and sisters to school.

And I thought, well, maybe I could have English lessons for teenagers. And if I taught him English, then he could get a better job, and that would help his family. The needs were amazing, but so many that they're confusing.

And I suppose they would be the same in Essex, or anywhere in England, if we're looking with one eye at least. I suppose we'd see the same needs once we start opening our eyes. Where do you start? I was overwhelmed, and I said, God, I don't understand all of this.

And anyway, my heart isn't big enough. So would you please show me where my bit is? All I can do is my bit. And he led me to a place called the Wall City, which is very strange. And I had no idea that when I went there that it was an illegal city.

I just thought it was some quaint old Chinese village, and everybody'd be sort of poor. But I didn't know it was actually outside the law, and it was a place where criminals, they've got kind of mafia gangs called triads.

Many of them operated from there, or hid after they committed crimes elsewhere. And it's a very small place. It's only about a third of a square mile, and together with some of the surrounding squatter areas that probably at that time were nearly 60 ,000 people, which is a little hard to imagine here, just a couple of fields.

And completely dark inside because there's no light. Because it was outside Hong Kong's law, even though it's right in the middle of Hong Kong's territory, the government didn't supply it with water or electricity until the started stealing it.

So they just ran a big wire in, and then people ran a wire off that, and someone else ran a wire off that. And now when you walk through the streets, you walk through with loops above your head, and under your feet are the sewers, the open ones.

And everything sort of sits there till it rains, and it all sort of sloshes down. So that was the World City. And there were, when I went, 32 opium dens. And an opium den's very small, probably only five feet by six feet maybe.

Not very big. You just go into a little room, and there's a platform there, a few inches high. And the platform is usually covered with slime. Because when you lie there, when people take opium, sort of stuff comes out of eyes and nose and mouth and all other orifices.

So it's always covered with slime. There were 32 of those, well watched. And there were not as many heroin dens, but they were bigger. You could get 100 people into one in a tin hut. They used to sit around tables, with a host at each table even, who sold the matchboxes through which they inhaled the fumes.

And for 50 cents, you got your bit of silver paper thrown in. As well as that, there were gambling dens, and they were usually swinging around about between 1 to 4 a .m. This was the best time of night.

And they were guarded also by men from the triads, who were called timanthoi, which means a weatherman or a watchman. And their job was to stop government spies, like police or narcotics bureau, or detectives from coming to spy out what was happening.

Or else their job was to clobber rival triads, who were trying to take over the territory. So they usually sat with lead pipes under their chairs, or their orange boxes. But they weren't very good watchmen, because they'd usually taken so much heroin that they were what we call wume.

And they were drooping all over the place. And then there were the blue film theaters, they call them yellow films in Chinese. And very small again, a room maybe 6 feet by 10, filled with people. They used to import Japanese tourists, actually, to watch these.

They arrived in Hong Kong, and they were given a mystery tour. I used to see them down the following a man with a flag. And they ended up at these blue film theaters, watching the show of the day. And thrown in for good measure was a live lesbian show.

And those were performed by girls who were sold by their boyfriends, who wanted money. They were usually addicts, and they'd have to live off the girls, because it was very hard to live otherwise. And the girls would expect this.

They'd expect to give their pay to the man. So that was the scene. The strange thing was that every time I went in, I felt really happy. It was very odd. And I can remember noticing it about the second or third time.

And then it happened again. And you know how you feel when it's your birthday. I was feeling like that all day long. I was going inside. And I thought, now what nice has happened today? Nobody said I look beautiful.

Nobody sent me a love letter. Nobody sent me flowers. Why am I feeling like this? And all day long, I was like that. I realized that every time I went into the World City, I felt like that. Every time.

And then I understood what it was. I was in the right place. That's all. It was a gift. So you see, I'm not brave. And I didn't need to be brave. The whole thing, as I've always said, is a setup. I was made for it.

All I did was find the place I was meant to be. That's all. So it was not hard for me to be there. I wanted to be nowhere else. And when other people came through Hong Kong, other Christians, they used to say, Jackie, I'm praying about what I should do.

And I always used to think, this is true. I used to think, why on earth are you praying? Don't you want to stay in the World City forever and ever? I mean, I thought it was the most wonderful place in the world.

I couldn't imagine why everyone didn't want to stay there. Because you see, I always saw another city. I didn't just see the one that I've described. I saw the other one. And I didn't understand about dreams and visions and things.

People weren't talking about them in those days. But that's, in fact, what I was seeing. I was seeing the other city. I was seeing Zion. Every time I went down the streets, I saw a city filled with light.

And I saw a place where people with no homes came home. And orphans came into families. And widows were highly regarded and looked after. And lame people leapt about. And blind people saw. And lepers were made clean.

And the socially outcast were publicly welcomed. That was the city I saw. Now, I had no idea how to make one into the other. But that, you see, is the journey. One thing that I feel very, very sure about is that we cannot make it happen.

But there are some things which we are supposed to be doing anyway. And if we do those things anyway, God causes the other to happen by itself. I've spent years and years and years and years doing things I'm not suited to do.

For years and years, I looked after houses where people came off drugs. This is very unsuitable work for me. It's absolutely not suitable for me. And I don't like it. It's not my thing. But I did it for about 10 years because it needed doing.

This is just one of the things I had to work through. That's all. Because I couldn't find anyone else who'd do it. So I had to do it before I could ask anyone else to do it. And when I'd done it, then I could tell them how to do it.

Now, I don't have to do it anymore, thank God. But I'm having to do other things that I'm not very suited to now. I have to work through them. Because they're there to do, you see. And I believe that if I see a hungry man at my gate, he is my responsibility.

I believe he is. So for me, it's been bit by bit, one by one. And the first person who God gave me to start on, so to speak, was a young man who was working in the Blue Film Theater. And I'd begun to teach at a mission school in the walled city.

I was teaching percussion band. It was quite funny. I used to play an accordion. And I conducted with my feet. You know. And got all these little Chinese children bashing Chinese blocks and things. And I taught them 10 green bottles.

And there was this young man called Chan Wah Sai. And when I taught them 10 green bottles, Chan Wah Sai got sent. And I was very worried, you know. He got sent during 10 green bottles. So I endeavored to find out a little bit about him.

And found out that his mother was a prostitute. His father was a drug addict. And all the teachers hated him. Because he upset the school. And then they asked him to leave. Well, I was very naive. You see, I was a new Christian out from England.

And I thought Christian schools were to help people like this. So I went to the teachers. And I said, please will you have him back. I'm really praying for him. And they said, well, sorry. We were really glad when he left.

And he upset all the other students. He gave the school a bad name. And the teachers couldn't cope. So I thought, oh, well, better do something about him. You see, I used to think about him all the time.

He was really on my heart. And I used to dream about him. And I really thought, this poor boy. I mean, he's 14. He started selling tickets in a blue film theater. I mean, that's the beginning of his life.

It's not the end. It's not as if he's lived a depraved life. And that's where he's landed up. I mean, that's where he started. What kind of choices he had. And I felt he ought to have a choice. Bought him a drum pad.

And I used to go and visit him. And I can remember going down his lane one night. And I met a lady who'd seen me in the little church around the corner. And she's a very nice Christian. And she asked me where I was going.

And I told her I was going to see him. And she said, oh, that's a nice person. Very bad man, she said. And I discovered that this wasn't a reaction all the time. The very sad thing was that those who really needed help were the ones that the places that were designed to help them could not accept.

So I went on visiting him. And the church wasn't very happy with me. Because I was giving them a bad name by biasing, by being seen around people such as he, 14. So I went on seeing him. And he was hopeless at drums.

Never practiced. But it just gave me an excuse to see him. And it really was because of him that I thought I would start a youth club. So I rented a room, very small room, in there and asked him to come and bring friends.

And that was the beginning. That's all. It was for him. And he didn't come to Christ for 15 years. But then you see, for me, the point wasn't him coming to Christ. And I know this might sound a bit shocking.

But you see, I'd always teach people this. If you're going to minister Christ's love to people, and especially the poor, please never do it in order to get their soul. Because they'll know you're coming, and they'll turn away from you.

You see, for me, it would be worth it. It would be worth ministering to that man for the whole of my life, whether he ever received Jesus or not. Receiving Jesus wouldn't justify loving him. Otherwise Jesus would have waited until I said, thank you, before he died.

And he didn't. He died for me when I didn't want him. And he forgave me when I condemned him to the cross. That's the love of Christ. And he asks us to minister in the same way, whether people come to believe in Jesus or not.

We minister the love of Christ. Of course, if you minister like that, it's irresistible. They'll come anyway. But we don't do it because we're going to add up a number or send home a list of this month's converts.

No. We do it because we care for them. And this they'll recognize. I think it's the secret of preaching the gospel, actually. So I had the youth club for him. And he didn't come to Christ. So I kept it open several nights a week for him.

And he didn't come to Christ. And I got to know his friends. And I got to know more of his friends. And they belong to triad societies. And by now we were getting thick in with the triads. If you want to understand who the triads are, it would be fair to say, I suppose, that a triad must be a pretty good marriage between the masons and the mafia.

Very similar to both. In fact, a policeman who's a mason in Hong Kong tells me that the hand signs, feet signs, and initiation ceremonies are almost identical. And it's a secret brotherhood. And they're sworn to loyalty to one another.

And they don't feel wicked. They feel they're protecting their own people. And they were protecting the brothels, the opium dens, the two main gangs. And they more or less split the city between them.

And I began to meet those people. And I was terribly excited to meet them. But I was really pleased. And somebody said to me once, aren't you frightened? And I said, well, you only have to look at them.

I mean, who'd be frightened? I mean, you look at people one by one, no one's frightening. If you look at them in a crowd, they are. But if you look at them one by one, no one's frightening. I thought, this is great.

This is what Jesus wanted us to do. He wants us to bring his love to these people. And more and more of them began to come to our youth club. And I kept it open at night, because it seemed to me most missionaries went to bed at night and got up in the day.

And most triads got up at night and slept during day. So I thought we should redress the balance a bit. Problem was I had to get up in the day as well. But I've been like that for a long time. And after a few years, what they said about me was this.

Which means, of course, she's cracked about Jesus. But apart from that, she's all right. And this was progress. This was progress. This was after two or three years. And this is pretty good, you know, if people say this about you.

Because as I mentioned last night, when we preach the gospel, I'm convinced that most people aren't listening. And I don't see why they should. But they are watching. They're watching to see if we live what we preach.

In fact, this is the way that most people understand preaching better than listening to it. So they thought I was cracked about Jesus. But apart from that, I was all right. And I can remember walking down a lane one night and seeing a man with very, very short hair.

And he'd obviously just come out of prison. And he was saying to his friend, which is, that's Miss Poon and her telephone number is 833179. And he said, next time you get arrested to his friend, ring the number.

Because it doesn't matter what time of day or night she'll come. And he said, it doesn't matter if you've done it or not. Because they got arrested probably 50 of the time for crimes they hadn't committed.

He said, it doesn't matter if you've done it or not. She'll come. But you must tell the truth. Because she's a Christian. I thought that was great. Because they understood something about Jesus, you see.

They understood that he'd come day or night, any time if you called. And it didn't matter if you'd done it or not. But you had to tell the truth, because that was his name. So in those ways, you see, Jesus was being preached.

Of course, the problem with the story I'm telling you now is the problem that any one of us here is going to find once we start sharing Jesus. You get deeper and deeper and deeper in. And what you began with, you suddenly realize is not enough.

Because merely to have a place for them to come and play at night wasn't enough. I wanted their lives to change. And when I prayed to know the power of the Holy Spirit and I began to see this happen, I realized that they needed a safe place to grow up in.

Loving People Without Using Them

And the first one who came off drugs, that was a miracle. It was as a result of a breakup. I'd been hauled down to the walled city the night before. And very early in the morning, they had thrown sewage into the room that I was renting.

They painted it on the walls and broken up the chairs and windows. And I was very disappointed. I also felt quite like a martyr. And I said to God, well, I don't have to stay here. I hadn't been to a dinner party for four years.

Well, God, I thought, I can go back to Kensington. Because in Kensington, we can have apologetic Bible supper parties. I don't have to stay here playing ping pong with this lot. We don't want you or me.

And the Lord said, he's got such a sense of humor. When somebody hits you on one cheek, you're supposed to offer the other. You know, there's so much in scripture that's not sensible. And he also said, when things weren't going well, you were supposed to praise God.

That's not smart either. But you're supposed to do it. So I can remember spending the day sweeping up all this revolting rubbish and saying, praise God. Praise God. Because you're supposed to. And opened the room up that night.

And I was frightened. I wasn't frightened of being hit. I was frightened of being rejected. Which is really what frightens most of us. And so I stood there. And this stranger appeared at the door. And I'd never seen him before.

And he sort of lent their notion, looking as if he owned it. And he said, you got any problems? And I said, I'm fine, thanks. Who are you? And he said, Gogo sent me. Gogo is the name of the gang leader whom I had never met.

The leader of the 14K. And so I thought, now why does Gogo want to see me? And why has he sent this man down? Because he's always refused to see me before. And he said, Gogo says, if anybody touches you, or touches this place, we're going to do them.

And I said, oh, thank you. That's very kind. I'm most grateful. Please will you go and tell Gogo, you know, I'm very thankful for his offer. But I mean, I don't want to offend him or anything. But I don't accept.

Because Jesus is looking after us down here. And he said, teasing, you know, which means. And even though I refused his offer of help, this man came down to guard me anyway. So every time I came in and out, he came.

And then one night, I said to him, oh, why don't you come in and praise God? And he said, okay. And he came in. And for three weeks, he'd been standing outside under Big Brother's orders, listening very unwillingly to the gospel.

And he came in. He started praising God. He started singing. And then he started praying in tongues. And the Holy Spirit came upon him. And he came off his opium addiction in half an hour. And I thought, good.

Just how I thought it was going to be. I did, you see. Because I mean, everything you read in the Bible is like that. Why not? So good. Now I can go on to the next one. So I said to him, just like it says in the epistle of James, be fed, be clothed.

God bless you. Stay away from the bad men. Stay with the Christians. Go your way. A few weeks later, we used to meet nearly every day. A few weeks later, he came back and he said, I really want to praise God.

And I said, oh, good. Why? And he said, well, I was in the opium den last night. And I said, hang on. He said, I was in the opium den last night. And I really wanted to take opium. And he said, somebody offered me some free opium.

And I was about to take it. And then I remembered I couldn't. Because I now have a new life in Jesus. So he said, I knelt down on the platform and I sang choruses. Praise God. And I said, no, it's not praise God.

It's silly you. You shouldn't have been there. It's really not smart to get into opium dens and pray to get out. You shouldn't have been there. And he said, I lived there. I'd never realized that. He actually didn't have a home.

He kept his clothes in a laundry. And when he needed clean ones, he got out the ones that were in the laundry. But otherwise, he slept in the opium den. That was his home. I said to him, God bless you.

Be fed, be clothed, be warmed. Keep away from the bad guys. He didn't know any Christians apart from me. I was the only one. I was the only church he could join. Of course, it's not enough. It's not enough to tell someone about the love of Jesus and leave him half naked.

The gospel says that we cannot do this. It's not enough to say, be fed, be clothed, be warmed and not do it. So I looked around to see where he could go and I couldn't find a place. And I don't know if you've ever tried this, but I dare say you will.

And I dare say I can't spare you the pain that's going to be involved because it surely will be. But at some time or another, all the ordinary friends I've got in Hong Kong, I mean those who've got homes, I've used them all at least once.

And not many people will let you do it a second time. I mean, who wants a just converted prostitute in your spare bedroom? Not many people. Anyway, there's nowhere I could put this man. Nowhere. And to get into a hostel, he needed references from two ministers.

He needed a job. He needed two months down payment and he needed a deposit as well. Well, what just converted junkies got that? I hadn't got the rent for him and he hadn't got the references. So I took him into my home, which was not very suitable.

And then his friend came, which was not very suitable. And then his friend came and we found the miracle in God's mercy was repeated. Of course, I got into more trouble then because now you've got all these people coming off drugs and we found that it was quite simple when they were open to Jesus and we prayed with them, they came off drugs.

So I thought, well now I'll send them all to school. So I sent them off to school and sent one of them off to a job and thought, good, got my family out of the way, you know, women's are. And they came back at night and it was very distressing to find out that they hadn't gone to school.

And one of them had called in at a drug den on the way back. Could you do this? I thought, I mean, you're a new man in Christ, aren't you? How can you call in at a drug den on your way back from school?

Or how can you not go to your job at all? I didn't understand this because new men in Christ don't put drugs in their arms. Of course, I had a double standard. Even now, I suppose it's the same for you.

There are things in my life which I'm discovering I've never let God deal with, even now. And yet I expected things in their lives to be dealt with in the first weeks or months. Then I understood that they needed a safe place to grow up in, that they weren't new men in Christ, but in fact more accurately, new babies.

And you don't send a baby out to cross a road by itself. You keep a baby in a safe place with sides against the cot. And you gradually give it more freedom. You let it fall down a few times so it can learn to walk.

You hold its hand crossing the road. You tell it how to cross the road. Eventually, you must let it cross the road by itself. But you don't do it when it's a baby. So I understood then the need for a home where these people could grow up.

Now you can see what's happening. This is all taking years. I'm getting deeper and deeper and deeper into trouble. And I'm needing more and more and more help. You see, it wasn't enough just to feed somebody.

It wasn't enough to clothe them. They had to be housed. And when they were housed, they needed to be looked after. And they needed to be trained. And they needed to be helped to grow up. So what we're going to show you right now is the outcome of some of those years.

And what you're going to see now on the slides is a result of that. Now, I'd like you to understand this. We didn't start with these buildings. People sometimes look at us and look at what we've got and say, oh, well, of course, if I had a center like yours, I could help all these people.

And it's completely the opposite way around. For 18 years, we lived in tiny little apartments, which we rented ourselves. It's quite the wrong way around to form a committee, rent a house, and then look for poor people.

It's the other way around. By sharing what we have with them, not expecting the rest of the community or the church or society. You start by sharing what we have. After 18 years, the government very kindly noticed that we were a bit crowded and said, we'd like to give you these places.

They're temporarily given. We have them on the condition that we give them back at any time, which may be tomorrow or next year. We don't know. But that's fine by us, because we're only called to journey for now.

So what we're showing you is a result. It's not what we started with. And if you're thinking of ministering to the poor, you don't need any of this. You only need to share what you have. That's how you begin.

The Walled City and the Growth of Practical Ministry

So let's see them. This is the outside of the World City. When I first went, all that land that you can see, which is bare, was squatter huts. It was a squatter village. They were also guarded. They've been taken down during the last two or three years as part of a clearance program.