I am reading this amazing book called Chasing the Dragon. It's about a Christian, English, woman, missionary who served (serves actually, I think) in Hong Kong. At the point the book was written she was specifically serving a non-governed (that's right anarchist) city near Hong Kong called the Walled City.
Now her story is miraculous and inspiring, so much so that I am sure there is all sorts of controversy (both within Christendom and without) if I were to dig it up. I mean she was a very young (20ish) woman, who was living alone in Hong Kong, during the 1960s in the middle of what was possibly the most drug infested and dangerous city in the world during that time. Yet she serves and survives and sees miraculous things. You should seriously pick up the book.
What I felt compelled to share with you this morning, is a section of the book where she discusses the transformed life of one of the women she served. It knocked me over and screamed "Now this is the redemptive plan in action." So here it is:
So the family in our house grew and was further augmented by constant appearances from Mrs. Chan who I had come to know months earlier through her son, Pin Kwong. He was vicious addict of nineteen who has no intention of changing his ways and collected money by holding up victims at knife point in the public toilet. I often asked him about his widowed mother, but he refused to allow me to visit her saying, "She is an old idol worshiper. She won't want to hear from a Christian."
When Pin Kwong was arrested and put in prison for the fifth time I sought his mother and found her lying on a little bed in her Walled City room. She had decided to die, because her son had been arrested once more. She had no husband or family and Pin Kwong was all her life. Chinese women are very proud of their sons, but he was rotten and took away any money she ever had so she had no more will to live. He had not wanted me to visit her for fear that I would discover he had been exploiting his mother for the little amount she could collect selling vegetables and herbs at the market. When we found her, she had already laid there for some days without eating and was very weak. The boys went out and bought chicken essence and bones to boil for soup, and we set about restoring the elderly lady. While we fed her we told her about the Father who had given her His most precious possession, His only son, because He loved her.
Mrs. Chan was a simple woman who had never been to school. She had never heard of Christ before, and could not follow long sentences. We laid our hands upon her and prayed out loud, asking God to teach her in a way she could comprehend. After the prayer, she looked up, grinning from ear to ear, saying that when we prayed she had been cured of her "sickness of the lungs" and could breath clearly for the first time in years. It never returned.
That night she dreamed that a man in a long white robe came to her, and holding out His arms asked her to come to Him and be baptized. Since that time she was quite radiant, and when I moved to Lung Kong Road, she was delighted. We gave her a key to the new home and she pottered in and out happily cleaning everything in sight, cooking meals and introducing all her local market vendor friends, who would sell us provisions cheaply. Bestowing on me a signal of honor she became my kai ma and I her kai neui, meaning godmother and goddaughter. She adored her new family and bossily clucked around us all.
A women, lying in her bed, ashamed of her life, cut off from love, abused by an addicted son. Visited by a Christian and then by Christ, regains her sense of significance and meaning by becoming the mother hen of not one but many boys, who were formerly addicted but needing a mom. Only God could orchestrate a healing so complete for so many.
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