Chasing the Dragon (28 page)

After the verdict releasing him into our care was announced, the arresting police inspector came to chat with us and was extremely friendly and interested in our work. He suggested that we lunch together so that we could continue the talk. He liked talking, and it was several hours later that he at last managed to say what was important to him.

“You know, I feel terribly embarrassed saying this,” he confessed in his charming Scots brogue, “but when you came into court this morning, I looked at you and—well—it was like those Christmas cards … I know you’ll laugh, and I feel awfully
silly saying this, but—well—there was a halo over your head.” Ted was a big man, a Hong Kong judo champion, second row forward in the police rugby team, and obviously serious. I did not feel a bit like laughing, but I swallowed several times.

We invited Ted to our usual Saturday evening prayer meeting, and he came gladly. I don’t think I have ever seen anyone more knocked sideways by a prayer meeting. At the end of the meeting, he was sitting there gasping. Jean chatted to him and gave him a drink and some canapés. He continued sitting there in silence for a while, then he said, “You’ll never believe me, but that is the strangest Saturday I have ever spent in my life. Normally I’m out with the boys every Saturday night drinking. Tonight I have watched you people really inspired by something I don’t quite understand.”

I was relieved to hear him so positive, because during the meeting a girl had come up and asked him bluntly whether he was saved—I was worried lest he had been put off by such a direct approach. Clearly he had not been; so we sent him home with a copy of Jean’s book.

All Sunday, Ted read the book. He was most upset because he could not dismiss the evidence in it. Finally, he got down on his knees and prayed. Then he rang us up and asked if he could come around, because he wanted to receive the baptism of the Spirit for himself. He said, “I just couldn’t sleep. I kept thinking about last night. I came to the conclusion that either you are all completely crazy or what you said is true. I’ve heard for myself people speaking in tongues; I’ve seen for myself the way these boys’ lives have changed. So I came to the conclusion that Jesus has to be true. And if He was true, that affected me, and I asked Him into my life this morning.”

The following Sunday, Ted was baptized in the sea together with a former gang member and his wife. The officer’s conversion became widely known. His friends could see that his life was completely changed in big ways, like his general attitude to work, and in small ways, like no longer swearing in the rugby scrum. One of his superintendents joked with him at a match,
“No praying in tongues in the scrum, Ted; it gives you an unfair advantage.” Though the superintendent was joking, there was no doubt that Ted’s conversion made a big impact on the Hong Kong police.

Not long afterward, one of Ted’s colleagues who was opposed to his conversion said, “At least I hope you are not trying to change me.”

“No,” replied Ted, “I’m not trying to change you. I know you’ll be all right when you repent, so there is plenty of time.”

“But what if I snuff it first?” said the scoffer.

“Well, yes, there is that,” said Ted.

14

SET THE PRISONERS FREE

O
ne day, I received a beautifully written letter from a Taiwanese man in the remand center. When I saw him there, I found a man full of spite and venom with a white stripe around his uniform, indicating that he was dangerous. He had faked illness and tried to escape from the hospital, attacking the guards in the process. He was sharing a cell with one of the Walled City boys who had told him about me.

I told Ah Lung about Jesus. It was a great disappointment to him, as he had hoped to receive advice on how to get out of prison. However, after listening, he said he would like to believe; I told him he should be willing to forgive his prison guards and lay aside his bitterness.

“Huh! They treat us worse than animals!” he snorted. “Don’t ask me to do that. I could never love them. You asked the worst thing you could ask me.”

“I’m sorry, Ah Lung,” I apologized. “Of course you can’t forgive them until you understand that you have been forgiven yourself.” I told him that whatever he had done Jesus still loved him and would forgive his sins. I then prayed and felt impressed to speak in the language of the Spirit.

Ah Lung looked up at me. He interpreted very softly, “God has spoken to me and told me that He cannot forgive me if I do not forgive others.
¹
I freely forgive my prison guards.” He meant it.

Ah Lung became a model prisoner, as I learned from other inmates and prison officers. He changed his plea to “guilty” in court and sat there praying, which amused the interpreter and
infuriated the barrister who had prepared his defense. “But,” he said wryly, “I had to admit I had done a lot of rotten things. I was a very mean man. When I heard Jesus speaking to me, it was the first time in my life I’ve ever admitted I was wrong.”

Ah Lung spoke to a 19-year-old youth awaiting trial for rape who joined us when I went to the remand center one day for a Bible study. “I’ve seen my friends here in prison and I’ve seen a very hard and a very bitter man and I saw what happened to Ah Lung when he believed in Christ. What is it that has made this hard man change into a softhearted man? I want to know this Jesus.” I told him that Jesus was the One who came into the world and did all those miracles; He was the Son of Almighty God and yet died for sinners.

“Do you believe He’s the Son of God?” I asked.

“Oh,” he said, “I don’t quite understand about that.” His eyes were fixed on the prison table.

“Well never mind—are you willing to believe it?”

“All right.” He kept his eyes downcast.

“Do you believe that He died for your sins?”

“I don’t understand that either.” He was almost cowering; he was so nervous.

“It does not matter if you don’t understand completely—are you willing to believe it?”

“Okay.” He was willing but still did not raise his head.

“Do you believe that He rose again from the dead?”

“Oh, yes,” he said immediately, and looked up at last.

“How are you so sure that Jesus rose from the dead and you’re not sure about the other bit?” I asked curiously.

“If Jesus didn’t rise from the dead, you wouldn’t be here talking to me in prison.”

“Well, do you want to follow Him?” I asked.

He replied in the way that many of the gangsters replied, as if to a rather irrelevant question. “If He is the true God—of course, who else am I going to follow?”
²

“All right. This Jesus will give you power, because He doesn’t expect you to live a Christian life by following a set of
rules—it’s impossible. He will give you His Spirit to help you,” I explained. He began to pray as God gave him his new language there in the prison.

Two weeks later, I picked up a newspaper and read that there had been a dramatic change at this young man’s trial. He had gone up to the judge and said, “My solicitor has instructed me to plead not guilty, but I have to tell you that I am guilty. I have come to believe in Jesus, and I am guilty of this crime.” He was sentenced to nine years in prison.

When I visited him there in prison, he smiled at me. “I have such joy to know that my sins are forgiven, Miss Poon,” he said.

Although his wife and his child were killed in a fire one month later, he never stopped believing and sharing Jesus with others. “It’s such joy to know that I am forgiven,” he said. “Jesus took upon Himself even such a terrible sin as rape.” He discussed with me a chapter on redemption in the Bible until it was time for me to depart. It is hard for me to say who was the more edified by the visit.

This was in direct contrast with an incident that occurred two years previously in the same prison. When I visited Daih So, Ah Keung’s eldest brother, I was not allowed to use a special room, so I saw him in the general visit room. It was bleak, cold and damp. The prisoners were separated from the public by a cage of wire with so fine a mesh that it was difficult to see their faces. I had to peer very closely, because there was also a highly reflective pane of glass that made Bible study impossible.

Daih So was only 30, but as he had been taking heroin since he was 13, he already looked an old man. Even during his father’s funeral, he dribbled continuously into a spittoon and had to go out several times for drugs. He was always drooping, but I liked him very much, for there was a pathetic innocence that hung around him. He once gave me the clearest definition of sin I have ever heard, startling in its profound simplicity.

When I asked him, “What is sin?” I thought he would say, “Stealing, hitting old people or pushing dope.” Instead he replied, “That’s simple. Sin is walking your own road.”

“It’s no good talking to me, Miss Poon,” he said that day in prison. “I’m not going to change in here. And don’t tell me to get off drugs while I’m here either, because that’s impossible.”

When I looked at his arms, they had several lines of fresh track marks running down them. He had gone into prison chasing the dragon but inside had learned to inject, as it was more economical and easier to take.

“Don’t ask me to pray! Don’t!” Daih So insisted. “And if you leave a Bible here for me, I shan’t read it.” He turned his back on me to make further conversation impossible and called a guard to take him away. I left feeling desolated. I went away and prayed for him. This poor man was saying he could not stop taking drugs in prison—to follow Christ would cost too much.

About six months later I was in the Walled City, and a plumpish stranger ran up to me and said, “Poon Siu Jeh! It’s me, Daih So.”

“Daih So! You’re out of prison. When did you get out? And how come you look so fit?”

“Oh, I just got out of prison a few days ago, and I wanted to come and tell you that on that day when you came to visit me and told me about Jesus, I didn’t want to hear. I called the warder to take me out, and when I got to the door I looked back and I saw you sitting there looking sad. I felt really convicted in my heart suddenly, and so I asked the jailer if he would bring me back because I could see you sitting there, but when I came back there was someone else there, so I did what you told me to. I went back to my cell and I prayed in Jesus’ name, and I got off drugs.”

We sometimes sent people toward jail rather than helping them avoid it. Many of the boys who came to our House of Stephen to withdraw from drugs had committed crimes for which they had never been arrested. We did not always insist that they resolve every incident, as they had put the past behind them. However, sometimes something continued to trouble them and they needed to make settlement on a human level.

Ah Wah wanted to go to the police station and give himself up for jumping bail. It turned out that he had been arrested a
month earlier for possession of dangerous drugs and released on bail on the understanding that he appear in court two weeks later. Of course, being a heroin addict, he had no intention of turning up. We did not know that he had jumped bail, and when he said that he really wanted to change his life to become a new person in Jesus, he was admitted to the Houses of Stephen.

As the months went on and he continued praying in the Spirit and reading Scripture, his conscience began to bother him. Then came his confession of his outstanding court case. Jean thought that as I had been on the unhappy side of so many cases, it should be left for me to tackle as a welcome change. As I talked to Ah Wah, however, I thought his chances of release rather slim: It became clear that not only was he liable to be sentenced for the drug case and jumping bail but also that when he committed his last crime he was already on a suspended jail sentence. So under the law, he was bound to go back to prison. Although I was really pleased that he wanted to give himself up, it seemed unlikely that we could avoid his being taken into custody. I told him to pray, and all the boys in the houses also had a huge pray-in.

Although we prayed continuously in tongues all of that Monday morning, we had quite a lot of difficulty getting Ah Wah arrested. We could not start the Willanses’ car, so we waited for a taxi. One hour later, there was still no taxi. Finally, we arrived at the police station, where we were kindly asked to have a cup of tea and wait. We kept saying that Ah Wah wanted to be arrested, but they were not keen and could not find the papers, so they sent us out to have lunch. When we came back, they fingerprinted Ah Wah to see if he really was the one on their files with nine previous convictions. He looked so good that the men taking his prints thought he had come to the police station to apply for a job. When he said no, they thought it must be that he was applying for a gun license. He eventually persuaded them that he was giving himself up for a drug offence and told them how Jesus had changed him. Then they asked him to teach
them
how to take fingerprints, as they had less experience than he.

Eventually we were all invited into a car and driven to court, praying all the while. The magistrate asked Ah Wah why he had skipped bail, and he told him, “Yes, it’s true that I ran away last July. I was a drug addict, and I’m sorry for offending the court. But now I have believed in Jesus, I know I was wrong and I have come to give myself up.”

“Congratulations,” said the magistrate. “You have made a very sensible decision—and I wish you every blessing in your new life. You may go.”

Ah Wah had only to sign a good behavior bond, and never at any time did anyone lay a hand on him. His relief was enormous, and there was great rejoicing in our houses when he returned. We had no calf to kill, but we bought ice cream to celebrate.

In many ways, it was easier for the boys to be Christians inside prison than outside. They suffered mockery, but they also gained respect. Through meeting so many prisoners, I learned to distinguish between
hauh-fui
(regret) and
fui-goih
(repent). Most criminals regretted being arrested, but very few really repented what they had done. Until this happened, there was no hope at all that they would be able to live anything but a life of crime outside.