I recently read an incredible book about one woman’s ministry in Hong Kong. Chasing the Dragon, the account of Jackie Pullinger’s work in the Walled City of Hong Kong, really impacted me in many ways.

Jackie, a British woman who went to school for music, felt the call to missions at an early age. In 1966, at the age of 21, she boarded a boat leaving from France and stepped off in Hong Kong. She had been unable to find a missionary organization that would except her (most told her she was too young) so she took the advice of a minister friend and bought a ticket for a boat that was sailing the furthest and prayed about where she should get off.

When she arrived in Hong Kong she worked in the Walled City, a densely populated, ungoverned city, as a primary school teacher. The Lord began to give her a heart for the people of the city, most trapped in opium and heroin addictions, gambling, gangs, prostitution and hopelessness.

Reading Chasing the Dragon really increased my faith as Jackie recounts story after story of boys who were addicted to heroin and deeply involved in gangs coming to a realization of Jesus Christ, receiving the Holy Spirit, going through pain free withdrawals from the drug and renouncing their involvement with gangs.

As I read I was reminded again of the existence of other cultures and peoples and burdened a new to pray for the salvation of all nations. I know this sounds very elementary but it is so easy, living in America, to forget about other people, in other countries, whose lives are so different then my own, people who need Jesus and His love.

This book also reminded me that as a Christian you never know what the Lord may ask of you, what assignment He may give you so that His name will be made known throughout the earth. Jackie, a young woman, with save but one connection in Hong Kong, little money and no knowledge of Cantonese left her country and set out into the unknown because the Lord asked her to. The result of her obedience is that hundreds of people received the Lord, were delivered and changed forever.  Though her obedience was at times costly and not easy the Lord gave her grace because she was walking in His will.

One of the things that Jackie was constantly doing (and probably still does) in her ministry was to pray without ceasing. She recounts that in going about her day she would constantly pray in the spirit under her breath; while walking, riding the bus or waiting in lines. When an acquaintance questioned her constant praying in the spirit she told him that one reason why God was able to use her was because she kept in touch through using this gift of tongues all the time. She offered to take him on a day long tour of Hong Kong while they prayed continuously and during the course of that day they saw two healings and six salvations.

The book was definitely very hard to put down almost every time I picked it up. It is full of testimonies of the Lord’s power to change hearts and lives.  Highly recommend!

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