Jackie Pullinger

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Infobox Person
name = Jackie Pullinger

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caption =
birth_date = 1944
birth_place = London, England
education = Royal College of Music

Jackie Pullinger MBE (born 1944) is a British Protestant Christian missionary to Hong Kong and founder of the St Stephen's Society. She has been ministering in Hong Kong since 1966. Her work has resulted in up to 500 addicts being saved from their drug addictions. [Booth, Martin. "Opium: A History". (New York: St. Martin's Press, 1998) p.100]

History

At the age of 20 Pullinger graduated from the Royal College of Music having specialized in the oboe. She wanted to be a missionary, so she wrote to various missionary organizations. At first she wanted to go to Africa, but then she had a dream that impressed upon her the idea of going to Hong Kong. [Pullinger, Jackie. "Chasing the Dragon" (Ventura, CA: Regal Books, 1980) p.28] Unable to find support from missionary organizations, she sought advice from Richard Thompson, a minister in Shoreditch, who told her that she should buy a ticket for a boat going as far as she could get and to pray to know when to get off the boat. She followed his advice and went to Hong Kong by boat in 1966. However, when she arrived she knew no one there and had only HK$100 on hand. [ibid., p.22] The only reason the immigration officers allowed her in was because her mother's godson was a police officer there. [ibid., p.33] She found work as a primary school teacher in the Kowloon Walled City, which in the 1960s was not policed and consequently had become one of the world's largest opium producing centres ran by Chinese criminal Triad gangs. [Booth, Martin. ibid. pp.99-100] She established a youth club to help drug addicts and street sleepers.

t Stephen's Society

In 1981 she started a charity called the St Stephen's Society ["British Anglican minister's son is found dead in Hong Kong." Deutsche Press-Agentur. 12 November 2007: NewsBank Access World News. Retrieved June 22, 2008. ] which provides rehabilitation homes for recovering drug addicts, prostitutes, and gang members. By December of 2007 it had grown and was providing homes for 200 people. [ Baynham, Jacob [http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2007/12/14/MNIKT2BIA.DTL&feed=rss.news "Hong Kong missionary uses intensive prayer to help heroin addicts".] San Francisco Chronicle. 17 December 2007. Retrieved August 14, 2008] The charity's work has been recognized by the Hong Kong government who donated the land for the rehabilitation homes. [ibid.] The intervention process that the drug addicts go through is very intensive. Instead of giving them medications they are put into a room for 10 days, prayed and cared over by a group of ex-addicts. [ibid.]

References

Published works

*"Chasing the Dragon" (1980)
*"Crack in the Wall: The Life and Death of Kowloon Walled City" (1989)

External links

* [http://www.rejesus.co.uk/the_story/saint/saint5/index.html rejesus - the story: Jackie Pullinger]
* [http://www.ststephenssociety.com St Stephen's Society Website]