Testimony - Part 3 — Jackie Pullinger

Caring for Children in Poverty

Mother, because mother had to go out to work and couldn't afford to have anyone take care of the children and couldn't afford to send her to the nursery, so they looked after the babies. And I thought, well, Lord, I could have a nursery and look after those children.

Teenagers Supporting Their Families

And then there were the teenagers, and they couldn't afford to go to high school because their parents needed the money to take care of the other children in order that they could go to school. So they began to work when they were very young, and all their money they gave to their parents so that they could support their family and pay the rent.

Homelessness in the Streets

But there was still more. There were those that slept in the middle of the road. They slept in the partition going down the road, because they had no homes at all. There are still many of them. Some of them make little shacks, and many of them have nothing, just a plastic bag with their identity card and their other important things in, just a little plastic bag.

Discovering a Specific Calling

And as I saw these people, I said, well, God, maybe if I stayed in this street, maybe if I spent my whole life here, I could just about love this street. I could just about understand it. You see, my mind isn't very large.

My heart isn't that big. But maybe if I stayed here a whole life, I could just about love them. I could do something about this street. Oh, but the awful thing is, in Hong Kong, you walk out of one street and into another, and there's more faces and there's more people.

And then you walk into another, and then you walk into another. I said, no, God, that's too much. I can't understand all of that. Would you please show me what's my bit? And he showed me a place called the Wall City, which is a strange area.

The Wall City’s Unadministered History

It's peculiar, because although it's in Hong Kong, it's outside British rule. And this was because last century, when Britain and China made the arrangement between them, they left this bit out, because this bit said that it's always had its own Mandarin governing it, so it refused to come under British rule.

For some reason, she was allowed to retain this special arrangement. And later on, Britain tried to change it and said, well, after all, we want the Wall City. But China wouldn't change it. So from last century until now, even though it's been right in the middle of Hong Kong, British territory, it's been unadministered.

And China says it's really hers, and Britain says it's really hers. And meantime, it's been a wonderful place for criminals to hide, because police never used to go in. They do go in now, but when I first got to Hong Kong, they didn't go in, except every now and again to make a patrol.

Entering the City of Darkness

I didn't know where I was going when I arrived. A missionary took me in, and she said, would you like to go to the Wall City? And I said yes. And she said, would you like to help in my school? And I said yes.

And I thought I was going to a quaint sort of Chinese village, you know, and it would be poor, but quite sort of quaint and sweet. And I was surprised that we got there, because it was just a street of false teeth.

Maybe you call them dentures. And the whole street was dentures, and everything smiling at you. And we squeezed in between two of these denture shops, and the missionary said, we're here. And that's because all these dentists are illegal.

They've learned from daddy or someone, and they don't have a license to practice, so they all have their shops on the edge of the Wall City. There's no wall now, because Japan took it down during the occupation to build the runway of the airport with it.

So the only way that you would know how to get in would be if somebody took you. There were at that time about 32 what they call tin man toys, or watchmen, weathermen, who guard the outside of the Wall City, because the triads, this is the gangsters that operate it, employ these weathermen or watchmen to make sure that policemen in disguise or narcotics agencies or other gangs they call triads don't go in.

So they didn't look very like guards, they're just sort of old men or young thugs with sort of bats or bricks or something sitting around the outside, and they would stop you going in. Anyway, I went in, and it was dark inside.

That's because the streets are just two or three feet wide, and there are open sewers beneath your feet, and it's better to look down anyway, because the buildings are built so close together that you can't see any sunlight.

Above the first level of the houses, they built them so that they nearly touch, and they can hardly open the windows from one to another. It's just as well anyway, because as there are no toilets in there, when people open the windows, things fall down, and you have to be very careful where you walk.

Encountering Addiction and Exploitation

And the missionary led me down this little street, and she said, there's a drug addict, and I didn't know what you did when you met drug addicts, whether you jumped or held on to your purse or whatever, but this one just looked sad, and he was putting his fingers through a refuse place near the open sewer, just seeing what he could get out.

And then the prostitutes, and they're really sad, I mean they're not pretty, they're not glamorous, they don't even try, and they were sitting on boxes in the street, old ones, because they keep the girls, the little ones, prisoners, and they're not free to come out.

I found out later they were, some of them, twelve or thirteen, and they'd been raped by their boyfriends, or invited to parties and seduced and then sold, and sometimes they were sold by their parents.

Finding Joy Among the Outcasts

And I began to go in there more and more and more, it was a strange thing, because although it was a dark place, it's called a city of darkness, although some people think it's a frightening place, although outsiders are told never to go there, and indeed Hong Kong people don't want to be seen in it, because they'll get a bad name.

I was really happy, I mean it was not hard for me to be there, every time I went in I felt like singing was quite unreasonable, and I very much wanted to share with the people how Jesus loved them, I just wasn't sure how to do it.

Sharing the Message That Jesus Loves the Poor

I wanted to tell them, he's the one that came for you if you're poor, he's the one that came for you who are hungry, he loves you. So I learnt how to say it, and it's very easy, it goes here, so oi ne, Jesus loves you.

Learning from The Cross and the Switchblade

And the reason I thought that this would work was because I'd read the Cross and the Switchblade, and in the Cross and the Switchblade, you've probably read it, this is what this pastor from New York went up to a gangster and said, Jesus loves you.

And Nicky Cruz, he was the name of the gangster, his heart cracked you see, so I thought, if I learn how to say Jesus loves you in Chinese, maybe their hearts will crack. So I picked my victim, he was a tin man toy, he was a man who sat outside the gambling dens, and they're all illegal gambling dens, and they're really swinging around about three or four in the morning.

When a Simple Gospel Message Is Rejected

And I went up to him, and I said to him, in my best Chinese, Jesus loves you, and he said, kuang lo mi si ya, what does that have to do with me? And I was quite upset it hadn't worked, so I thought, you've got to put your heart into this.

So I said with feeling, zhen hai, but he really loves you. And he said, oi ne, bai di zou la, bai yun ne wan gai yi ge hou mou, run along, go find someone else, please, tell someone else. I was really upset that it hadn't worked, and I didn't know why, so I thought, well the next one I'm going to touch, I really want to show it.

Compassion for a Young Prostituted Girl

So I found a little prostitute, I didn't know how old she was, but she was always squatting over a sewer, and there was nowhere else to squat you see, because the little room that she used, well all it had in was a bed, there was nothing else, so she squatted all day outside her room.

And she couldn't read, and she hadn't got a radio, so that's all she did was to squat over the sewer, and when the men came out of the Blue Film Theatre, which is just a shack, she used to pull them in.

Oh I knew all about the God of Love, I knew that he'd died to save me, I knew that he gave up his life for me, I knew that he made me full, and what did she know? I went up to her and I touched her.