Hong Kong missionary uses intensive prayer to help heroin addicts

 Hong Kong missionary uses intensive prayer to help heroin addicts

Jacob Baynham, Chronicle Foreign Service

Published 4:00 am, Friday, December 14, 2007

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  hongkong14_PH.JPG Jackie Pullinger with some of the "brothers," all recently off drugs. Pullinger uses a technique involving prayer and community support to get people off heroin, without drugs or phased withdrawal. "They don't suffer," she says. "We treat them like newborn babies." Jacob Baynham / MANDATORY CREDIT FOR PHOTOG AND SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE/NO SALES-MAGS OUT Photo: Jacob Baynham

Jackie Pullinger doesn't look like a typical Christian missionary.

Popping out of a car in traffic-choked streets, she wears stylish sunglasses and long strings of pink beads over a sparkling blouse. Her cheeks are rouged, and her hair is dyed a golden color. In fact, she detests the word missionary and criticizes those she calls "professional Christians."

Now in her early 60s, Pullinger has spent the past 41 years picking gang members, prostitutes and heroin junkies off Hong Kong's streets and steering them into rehabilitation programs.

"It's a journey, a can't-lose journey," she said.

In a city with an estimated 40,000 heroin addicts, 100,000 gang members and an unknown number of prostitutes, Pullinger has no time for religious dogma. What remains is the raw reality of an unshakable woman whom some have called "Hong Kong's Mother Teresa" (she also bristles when anyone likens her to the famed Calcutta social worker).

"Jackie is one of those people who does what they believe," said Tim Berringer, a young British volunteer who works with Pullinger. "I'm not really into empty religion, but there's something happening here."

In 1966, Pullinger - then in her early 20s - left her native England headed for Asia on a steamship with the intention of helping people in a foreign land. The boat stopped at eight ports before arriving in Hong Kong, where Pullinger decided to get off.

"I walked around Hong Kong and saw people dying, kids in the street, old people with begging bowls," she recalled. "I thought maybe I could manage one street."

She chose that street and quickly began distributing food to the poor and taking them to hospitals when in need of a doctor. She also stepped into the middle of gang fights, pleading for the brawlers to stop.

As her work widened, the street turned into a slum and eventually into the entire city. Despite its Christian bent, the Hong Kong government encourages her work, donating the land where her new St. Stephen's Society center was recently built.

Today, Pullinger organizes weekly meetings in the roughest Hong Kong neighborhoods and offers shelter and rehabilitation to 200 heroin addicts, prostitutes, street kids and gang members. When her main center is filled to capacity, Pullinger has been known to even rent out brothels to house the overflow.

Pullinger offers shelter to what she calls "uncared for" children, meaning their parents are absent because of work or drugs. She estimates Hong Kong has 130,000 such children. Prostitutes are given job skills.

But getting people off heroin is Pullinger's specialty. She doesn't use medication or phased withdrawal. Instead she places addicts in a room and gives them pajamas. For the next 10 days, they are prayed over and surrounded by a supportive group of recovered addicts who never leave them. In the end, she concedes that some addicts need at least five interventions before kicking the habit, while others fall somewhere in between.

"You love people because God loves you, and you love them anyway whether they change or not," she said.

Dr. P.M. Lee, a senior medical officer in the Hong Kong Department of Health, said the state prefers using methadone programs that don't subject addicts to severe cold turkey withdrawals. He said it takes the average addict two to four months to kick the habit after using methadone.

"When someone is addicted to heroin and doesn't take it, they will have withdrawal symptoms like drowsiness, joint pain, runny nose and a loss of appetite," Lee said. But give them the correct dosage of methadone in a safe environment, and they won't have any withdrawal symptoms."

At Pullinger's center, those who do manage to conquer their addiction are given job training and allowed to stay in the shelter for as long as they like.

"We treat them like newborn babies," Pullinger said. "There's always someone with them. They can eat what they want, when they want. There's absolutely no advice or counseling. They're the center of the world."

Such tactics have worked so far for Chi Kong, a 51-year-old father of three and heroin addict for 30 years. Chi was once a member of the Triads, Hong Kong's notorious gang responsible for most of the city's drug running, prostitution and organized crime. A Triad membership tattoo crawls up his arm in the form of a dragon that ends in a snarling head just above his heart.

Five months ago, Chi decided to change his life. He had heard of Pullinger and her treatment for getting off drugs. He decided to give it a try.

"It was very hard. I wanted to run away in the beginning," he said. "I was very temperamental. I wanted to fight the others."

But since taking the detox program, he said his "character has changed. I'm not as angry."

Sai Kit agrees. At 15, Sai was a father, and, at 19, a heroin addict and Triad member. He said he spent most of the meager salary he earned from cleaning hotels on drugs. Three scars on his forearm are a reminder of his days of street fighting. "I always wanted to change, but I was bound up by heroin."

Now 32, Sai has been off the drug for one month and said living with his new "brothers" at the center has been the best step he has ever taken. "I found my father," he said, pointing to the sky. "I found my family. I found some self-confidence. And I found my smile again."

Meanwhile, Pullinger has developed celebrity status among Christians in the West and spends a lot of time on the road, speaking to church congregations. "You'll find the world around that people who help the poor are happily pushed to the side but admired," she said.

At the same time, Chi said he plans to stay another year at the center before looking for his children. If he runs into his old friends in the Triads, he said with a smile, he'll tell them he knows a place they should visit.

"We treat them like newborn babies," Pullinger said. "There's always someone with them. They can eat what they want, when they want. There's absolutely no advice or counseling. They're the center of the world."

Such tactics have worked so far for Chi Kong, a 51-year-old father of three and heroin addict for 30 years. Chi was once a member of the Triads, Hong Kong's notorious gang responsible for most of the city's drug running, prostitution and organized crime. A Triad membership tattoo crawls up his arm in the form of a dragon that ends in a snarling head just above his heart.

Five months ago, Chi decided to change his life. He had heard of Pullinger and her treatment for getting off drugs. He decided to give it a try.

"It was very hard. I wanted to run away in the beginning," he said. "I was very temperamental. I wanted to fight the others."

But since taking the detox program, he said his "character has changed. I'm not as angry."

Sai Kit agrees. At 15, Sai was a father, and, at 19, a heroin addict and Triad member. He said he spent most of the meager salary he earned from cleaning hotels on drugs. Three scars on his forearm are a reminder of his days of street fighting. "I always wanted to change, but I was bound up by heroin."

Now 32, Sai has been off the drug for one month and said living with his new "brothers" at the center has been the best step he has ever taken. "I found my father," he said, pointing to the sky. "I found my family. I found some self-confidence. And I found my smile again."

Meanwhile, Pullinger has developed celebrity status among Christians in the West and spends a lot of time on the road, speaking to church congregations. "You'll find the world around that people who help the poor are happily pushed to the side but admired," she said.

At the same time, Chi said he plans to stay another year at the center before looking for his children. If he runs into his old friends in the Triads, he said with a smile, he'll tell them he knows a place they should visit.