In her autobiography, Chasing the Dragon, Jackie Pullinger describes how God brought revival to Hong Kong. Pullinger arrived in Hong Kong from the U.K. in 1966 with little money in the bank, yet full of missionary zeal and expectancy in God.¹ First as a teacher and then through the organization she founded, the St. Stephen Society, she worked to love, minister to and serve those trapped in poverty, gangs, drug addiction and prostitution in a walled slum in Kowloon, Hong Kong. Locals dubbed the slum the ‘City of Darkness.’

Drug addiction was rampant in the slum and it ensnared generations in gang violence and prostitution. One person at a time, Pullinger and her team began to pray that the Holy Spirit would set people free of drug addiction and hundreds were, even without experiencing withdrawals. She and the St. Stephens Society went onto rehabilitate hundreds to health by providing a Christian home for former addicts and by actively discipling those within their care. Pullinger even met her husband through their ministry after he was healed from a drug addiction through prayer. In 1993, the walls to the Kowloon slum were torn down.² Symbolically, it was a tearing down of what trapped many in darkness and how God brought revival to the city through freedom. There is still a plaque there today to commemorate Pullinger and the St. Stephen’s Society for their work in transforming that part of Hong Kong. Five decades on, both in Hong Kong and other cities within Southeast Asia, Pullinger and St. Stephens’ continue to seek the renewal of lives and cities for God’s glory.³ 

The revival in the Kowloon slum shows how God works both through the suddenlies of freedom from drug addiction while also working through the slowlies of his people faithfully discipling and serving. 

 

— This is an excerpt from the “Rend the Heavens: A Primer for Revival Prayer” now available on Amazon. 

 

 

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 [1] Sam Hailes, “Jackie Pullinger: ‘We’re going to feel stupid for eternity if we waste this life,’” Premier Christian Magazine online, January 2019, https://www.premierchristianity.com/Past-Issues/2019/January-2019/Jackie-Pullinger-We-re-going-to-feel-stupid-for-eternity-if-we-waste-this-life. 

[2] “Our Story,” St. Stephen’s Society website, accessed 12 January 2021, http://www.ststephenssociety.com/en/story.php.

[3] Ibid.