Jackie Pullinger: Healing a Broken World

Teresa Neumann : Jan 15, 2013
Staff – Inspire Magazine U.K.

Legendary Missionary and Author of "Chasing the Dragon" to share drug-addiction work and experiences at mission conference.

(United Kingdom)—An opportunity to hear Jackie Pullinger speak doesn't come around every day, so it's with great excitement and anticipation that the mission-focused group GO2013 has announced that the famous missionary will be speaking and leading a seminar at their "Healing a Broken World" conference from May 3-6 in Bulstrode, Gerrards Cross.

Pullinger, the child of Christian missionaries in Hong Kong, was born in 1944 and is the founder of the St. Stephen's Society. Since 1966, she has been ministering to drug addicts and has reportedly helped to save 500 from their addictions to date. Her book Chasing the Dragon chronicles her spirit-led life.

Pullinger's personal testimony is remarkable. She graduated from the Royal College of Music, having specialized in the oboe. Feeling the call to mission work, she at first thought she would go to Africa, but a dream changed her mind and she went to Hong Kong instead.

According to several reports, a British minister, Richard Thompson, suggested Pullinger buy a ticket for a boat going as far as she could go and pray to know when to get off the boat. When she arrived in Hong Kong she was nearly penniless. At first she worked as a schoolteacher in the Kowloon Walled City, which at that time was one of the world's largest opium centers in China. There, she established a youth club to help drug addicts.

She began St. Stephen's Society in 1981, which helps rehabilitate not only drug addicts but also prostitutes and gang members. Instead of being given drugs, addicts are instead reportedly put into a room for ten days, where they are prayed over and cared for by ex-addicts.