Chasing the Dragon (20 page)

Throughout his withdrawal period and for the next few months, I was commuting between my own house and Mei Foo, because the miracle of Ah Kei’s healing was repeated with several of his friends. Jean took Ah Kei to the Hilton to get his hair cut; there he ran into his old friend Wahchai, whom he had introduced into the crime rackets years earlier. Ah Kei persuaded him to come back to the Willanses’ flat, and we had an impromptu meeting. During the meeting I had a message in tongues, but there was no interpretation. As St. Paul says, there has to be an interpretation every time someone has a message in tongues,
⁴
so we waited and waited, but no one spoke. Finally, Wahchai admitted that he had received an interpretation but had been afraid to speak; he could not believe that God would use him because he was still on drugs, even though he had recently been converted and received the gift of the Spirit. As he told us the interpretation of my message, he began to weep uncontrollably. After that, it was only a matter of sitting with him while he had a painless withdrawal from heroin. As with Ah Kei, whenever he had pains, he began to pray in the Spirit and so felt better.

At the following Thursday night prayer meeting, yet another boy who had accepted Jesus asked for the power of Christ to free him from his addiction. After the prayer meeting was over, I suggested that he come off drugs that very night. By this time the Willanses’ flat was full, so we rented a room for him in one of the apartment houses generally used as a brothel, and I sat up with him all night praying. For the next four days, other boys in our group sat and prayed with him until he had completely withdrawn. We took two hourly shifts all day and night, quite confusing the proprietors of the “hotel” who were used to quite a different kind of clientele. Then, when he was clear, he went and spent a week in the Willanses’ flat to complete his rehabilitation.

Two weeks later, Ah Kei decided to go off and spend a week in China. A whole group of us went to see him off at the railway station; when he arrived at the Chinese border, the Chinese security guards wanted to know who the people were who had seen him off at the Kowloon station. He replied that there was an American (Rick), an English girl (me) and his Chinese friends. “Who,” they asked, “were the Westerners?”

“Ah, they are the people who told me about Jesus Christ,” he replied cheerfully.

“All right, answer us this,” the guards replied. “Who are better, Chinese people or Westerners?”

Ah Kei replied, “Well, being Chinese I naturally think Chinese are better, but these Westerners are Christians, and so they are very good. In fact, I find I like them very much.” At this point the guards, who may have belonged to some kind of special security branch, revealed that they knew exactly who Ah Kei was. They knew he often tried to smuggle drugs across the border and that he was a leader in the Triad groups.

“Why are you not trying to smuggle drugs this time?” they demanded. “Who are these Westerners? What are their names? How did you get involved with them?” The questioning was relentless.

Ah Kei was completely frank with his questioners. He explained that he was off heroin because the Westerners had told
him about Jesus and had prayed with him. He explained that he had left his Triad gang and given up criminal activities—instead, he was starting work in an office in March. The security men refused to believe him, saying that he could not have come off drugs—the Chinese opium wars had proved that no one could escape from addiction. Ah Kei insisted that he had been free from drugs for the past six weeks and that now he believed in Jesus Christ, he was a new person. The security men asked if he had achieved this result with medicine. He explained that he had used no medicines; the whole cure had been affected with Jesus and the Bible.

At this, the security men bristled and said that it was impossible; clearly the Westerners were exploiting him. This was Ah Kei’s cue to launch into a full-scale testimony of what Christ had done for him. He talked for nearly an hour; the security men listened in quite a friendly way to the news and then allowed him to cross the border into China, carrying with him his Bible. When Ah Kei arrived at his village, he discovered one Christian Chinese girl who did not know much about the Scriptures because she had never had a Bible. Ah Kei gave his Bible to her, and the word spread.

Once Ah Kei had become a Christian, he began to tell the good news to all his family, who one by one accepted it. Ah Bing’s father was so pleased to see the change in his son-in-law that he too became a Christian and was baptized with the Spirit. The dinner he gave us all to celebrate this was truly memorable: quail eggs with strips of breast of chicken, beef with mushrooms, stuffed boneless roast duck, corn soup, braised duck’s feet with another type of mushroom, boneless pork fried in sweet soy sauce, steamed fish, sweet peanut soup, and pastries. Afterward, the father rose to his feet and announced, “Once I was young and now I am old, but never before have I seen a bad man become a good man.”

11

THE HOUSES OF STEPHEN

T
ext of a testimony by Daniel, written from my house in Lung Kong Road:

Before I introduce myself, I thank our Lord Jesus for rescuing me from my past and for giving me a new wonderful life in Him. My Chinese name is Ah Lam, and my English name is Daniel. I don’t mind which name you choose to call me by.

The reason I mentioned thanking our Lord Jesus is because I was a very bad person. I remember about 10 years ago when I was just 14 years old I left school and joined a Triad gang. The reason I joined was because I wanted to be respected, known and feared, and I felt that being a Triad member would give me all this. So I dropped out from the normal way of life and began living in the underground (underworld, I mean). One year later I was arrested and charged with armed robbery—I was sentenced to a Training Center for young offenders for a period of 9 months to 3 years.

At the time I really regretted what I did, and I felt sorry and miserable. I decided then to change, to turn over a new leaf, to live a decent life as soon as I left prison. But on my discharge, instead of living a decent life as I planned I became worse, got deeper into crime, and went around with my old friends, back to the same places. I felt a big emptiness inside me. I wanted to forget everything and so I turned to big
H
(heroin).

I was heavily addicted. I tried to get off drugs a couple of times but never made it. It was by a stroke of luck—or more likely fate—that I came to know Jesus, and I repented and accepted Him as my Savior. I felt different—how can I explain it? (Words would never be able to justify my feeling.) It was as if I was released from something, as if a heavy burden was lifted from my shoulder. I felt free, wonderful. It was really a beautiful experience that I’ll never forget, and I can truly say I have never looked back or had cause to look back since that day. He has given me so much and I have learned so much from Him—like patience, humbleness and love—and I am learning more every day. It is a very exciting life, and I thank Jesus for making all this possible.

I hope and pray you will be able to have the same experience as I have had. Only then you will fully understand what my testimony is all about.

May God bless you,

Ah Lam

This was written by one of the criminals who flocked to see me or the Willanses after hearing what had happened to Ah Kei. Word quickly spread along the addict grapevine that if they were willing to believe in Jesus, they would receive some kind of power that enabled them to kick drugs painlessly. Addicts queued up to be admitted to Jean and Rick’s house.

I tried to avoid taking them into my Lung Kong Road house. It was so near the Walled City that in 30 seconds or so a desperate addict could find an unlimited supply of heroin or opium. Also, it was possible for addicts to jump off our roof into the next-door flat, and knowing this made them feel less safe in our care. In Jean and Rick’s flat, we gave them no option of escape. There was a secure double lock on the door, the windows
were barred, and there was at least one person on watch 24 hours of the day.

A young man brought to my house by a priest said, “I’ve seen what happens to addicts when they go to Miss Pullinger and I would like to try, but I’m a bit worried about the Jesus bit.”

The priest replied, “Don’t worry about that! Jackie won’t push it.” He could not have been more wrong—if we did not “push” Jesus, we had nothing to offer the junkie. If he could not pray, he would only suffer agonies through withdrawal. Medication only postponed the pain. I had once seen six strong boys sitting on top of Little Cat when he was trying to kick drugs on his own. Little Cat was a small boy, but when the need for drugs came on him, he was suddenly strong enough to overthrow those six and run half-crazed.

However, we never had to face the problem of the junkies being unwilling to believe in Jesus; they did not come to us until they were ready to believe, as they knew the way we worked. Their numbers grew until Jean and Rick’s house was always more than full. Several times I was obliged to hire a room in a brothel, where there were washing facilities, a plentiful supply of Chinese tea and locks on the doors. There were drawbacks with this arrangement, however, beginning with registration …

Obviously, we needed a place solely for the addicts to come off drugs and stay afterward so that they could grow up as Christians. Most of them had been seriously disturbed people before they became addicted, and they needed and demanded constant attention.

Involvement with Ah Kit, one of Ah Kei’s relatives, brought our need for a secure house to a head. Having been off drugs for only a few days, he decided that he would like to control his own life again and left the Willanses’ house. All of us prayed that he would end up in a place where he could not continue his life of drugs and crime and that he would return to Jesus. This prayer was answered impressively—Ah Kit was arrested and put behind bars. He underwent a real change of heart and genuinely repented in prison. As he waited for his case to come
to court, he began to pray and talk to his cellmates about Christ. He was charged with armed robbery.

At the trial, the judge commented that Ah Kit had an appalling record and well deserved a long sentence. However, he heard Jean’s account of Ah Kit’s change of heart, and taking into account her willingness to care for him, the judge released him into our care for 18 months.

The judge’s clerk, the court officers and the prison officers looked aghast. The judge had actually done the impossible in legal terms by releasing a man who had been arrested on such a charge. We knew differently, as two rows of us were sitting in court praying. We took Ah Kit home to Mei Foo. On our way out, we overheard the prison wardens asking one another whether it was not more powerful to have a God than a lawyer.

Ah Kit began to slowly grow up as a Christian. He loved staying in the Willanses’ house, but he demanded 24-hour attention. After a life of neglect he yearned for love—to him, this was having someone talking to him all the time and being given exactly the same presents as Suzy, the Willanses’ daughter. Should Jean turn to talk to someone else or settle down to do her own letter writing, he felt rejected.

This caused such a strain on the family that one day Jean found 17-year-old Suzy packing her bags. “Either the addicts go or I go,” she said—and she meant it. She was a serious Christian, but no family could survive that pressure for long. The time had come to find a new place that had a home atmosphere, plenty of love and a 24-hour surveillance by workers who were committed to looking after the boys full-time.

I was visiting my family in England when the Willanses telegrammed the news. They had found it! Someone reading Jean’s book had been so inspired that he made a sum of money available for renting a flat, which was to be especially devoted to helping drug addicts who wanted to start a new life in Christ.

“Society of Stephen” was the name chosen by the Willanses’ prayer group in Hong Kong to publish literature. The organization was later registered in the United States as a church and
recognized by the federal government. As more and more criminals were being helped by the combined efforts of the Willanses and myself, we needed an official body through which we could operate when dealing with rent laws, court cases and other official matters. So we became known throughout the addict subculture as “Stephen” and by the rest of the world as “SOS.” We called the new flat “Stephen’s Third House,” mine having been the first and Mei Foo the second.

The first full-time worker was Diane Edwards, an American from Hawaii. She was a former Maryknoll nun who had spent five years in Hong Kong and spoke fluent Cantonese; she had been baptized in the Spirit several years before at the Willanses’ meetings. We sent a telegram to her in Hawaii that read, “
PLEASE COME
—
STOP
—
HELP NEW DRUG CENTER
—
STOP
—
WE LOVE YOU
.” Diane, knowing that she would receive no salary but that we would share everything we had with her, arrived in Hong Kong within a week.

We began with one resident, but within a few weeks we had increased to six, and more were clamoring for admission. As each boy arrived, the miracle was repeated: He came to Christ and came off drugs painlessly when he prayed in the language of the Spirit. Ah Kei and his family moved in to assist Diane in running the house as it expanded even further.

By Christmas, there were 17 people in the tiny apartment, with 4 boys sleeping on the floor. We began to pray for yet another place, a fourth house, by the New Year to accommodate those who were waiting to come in. It was so hard to refuse them admission when we knew how simple it was to come off drugs with Jesus’ power.

The Saturday meetings at the Willanses’ flat grew so large that they had to move to a larger place on Hong Kong Island near Third House. Sometimes 150 people—including ministers, professors, priests and nuns—would gather together with our Triads and ex-junkies. At the New Year’s Eve meeting, we prayed a prayer of faith that God would give us the new house by the New Year and thanked Him in advance for it. We had no inkling of where that place would be at that moment.