Chasing the Dragon (4 page)

My new life also brought difficulty. After one particular Bible study, the girls sat praying—thanking God for their certainty of going to heaven. I opened my eyes and peeped at them. They were all smiling and genuinely happy. I was appalled. For if we believed that we were going to heaven because of Jesus, surely the converse was true also—that some people would not be going. The girls sat down to eat risotto, but I dashed out, thinking,
How can you just sit there believing what you do? What about the people who haven’t heard? Risotto?

This resulted in my taking part in the kind of scene that I would have despised before my conversion. I found myself playing the piano for a youth squash evangelical tea party in Waddon. It was a Saturday afternoon, and I should have been at the Rugger International at Twickenham, yelling “shove” with the best of them. Instead, I was singing salvation songs and eating sausage-sizzles in Waddon. It was then that I was sure my life had really taken a new direction!

Having gained my degree, I was enjoying a career teaching music. I wanted to give my whole life somewhere; I was free. Since I was not especially in love at the time, there was nothing to stop me from giving all my time in one place. The missionary idea came back.

So I wrote to Africa (that’s where missionaries go)—to schools, societies and broadcasting companies. And they all wrote back no—they did not want me. One group explained, “If you
could teach English and math, then we could find a place for you, but we can’t afford musicians out here yet. Maybe in a few years.”

Undeterred, I sought the best advice going. My idea was to get hold of the visiting speaker (or the good-looking curate) after a meeting and ask for a private audience.

“What do you think I should do with my life?” I asked earnestly of each one.

“Have you prayed about it?” they always replied. It was maddening, because I had prayed about it, but God did not give me a clear answer. My Bible told me to trust and He would lead me.
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I used to dash down to fetch the post in the mornings, thinking guidance would come that way. But the replies were always negative.

One night, I had a dream in which the family were all crowded around the dining room table looking at a map of Africa. In the middle of the different colored countries was a pink one. I leaned over to see what it was called. It said “Hong Kong.” I did not really believe this, but I did not want to show my ignorance.

“Ah,” I tried to sound nonchalant, “I never knew Hong Kong was there.”

“Yes, of course, it is, didn’t you know?” said my Aunty Dotty in a superior tone, and I did not dare argue.

When I woke up, I wrote to the Hong Kong government explaining that I was a qualified musician and that I would like a teaching post. They wrote back saying that applications accompanied by three named references had to be handled through the Ministry of Overseas Development—and that they had no jobs for musicians. Then, I tried my old Missionary Society, stating that I wanted to go to Hong Kong. Impossible, they said—they did not accept would-be missionaries until the age of 25, so I would have to wait.

“But I think Jesus might come back before I’m 25,” I said. “Couldn’t I go sooner? I don’t mind not being called a missionary—can’t I teach in one of your schools?” They said there was no way. I seemed to have misinterpreted my dream. I went to pray in a tiny, peaceful village church. There, I saw a vision
of a woman—holding out her arms beseechingly as on a refugee poster. I wondered what she wanted—she looked desperate for something. Was it Christian aid?

Then words moved past like a television credit. “What can you give us?” What did I honestly think I could give her? If I was going to be a missionary, what was I going to give anyone? Was it my ability to play the piano and oboe? Was I to pass on the benefit of my nice English background or my education? Was I to be a channel for food, or money or clothing? If I only gave her those things, then when I went away she would be hungry again. But the woman in the picture had been hungry for a food she did not know about.

Then it came to me that what she needed was the love of Jesus; if she received that, then when I left her she would still be full and, even better, she would be able to share it with other people. I now knew what I had to do, but I still did not know where I was supposed to do it.

Not long afterward, I met a factory worker from West Croydon who had been with us on the sausage-sizzle mission.

“You got any answers yet?” He knew I was praying about the future.

“No,” I said apologetically.

“You wanna come to our meeting?” he said, nodding his head knowingly. “We always get answers in ours.”

What kind of monopoly on God did he think he had in West Croydon? I was furious, but I was also intrigued to know what was going on at his meeting. So one Tuesday night, I took the bus over.

When I arrived, someone told me confidentially not to be surprised if anything odd happened. Nervously, I sat myself near the door—apparently they were going to use “spiritual gifts” at their meeting, and I wanted to be in a good position to get away if necessary.

I was not sure what to expect, and I thought maybe someone would prophesy in a loud voice, “You’ll meet a man who’ll give you a ticket for such and such a country on such and such a date,” and that would be God’s way of answering me.

The meeting, however, was orderly and calm, with normal prayers and songs. One or two people who were present did speak in a strange language that I did not understand and others explained what they meant. But there was no booming voice from God talking to me.

Then it came.

It was not a great booming voice at all. Someone was speaking quite quietly, and I was completely sure that it was meant for me.

“Go. Trust me, and I will lead you. I will instruct you and teach you in the way which you shall go; I will guide you with my eye.”
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There it was, what He had been saying all along, but now it was underlined. I was sure that God had my life in hand and that He was about to lead me somewhere.

There was no doubt that West Croydon got answers, but they did not tell me how I could receive spiritual gifts myself. I went home to wait. God had quite clearly promised to guide me, but I still did not know where to go. I gave in my notice for all my jobs so that I would be free to leave after the summer term—and I tried to pray by my bedside a bit more.

Still no answers.

During the Easter holidays I went to help in Richard Thompson’s Shoreditch parish for a week. As a minister, he had known me for some time, and I felt as though he was in a position to give counsel. I well remember the carpet in his study, for I spent a good time staring at it before plucking up courage to speak. Then I told him that God and I had reached a stalemate; He had told me clearly to go. I knew why I was to go, but He would not tell me where. So how could I go?

Richard’s reply was extraordinary. “If God is telling you to go—you had better go.”

“How can I—I don’t know where to go. All my applications have been rejected.”

“Well, if you’ve tried all the conventional ways and missionary societies and God still is telling you to go, you had better get on the move.”

I felt frustrated.

“If you had a job, a ticket, accommodation, a sick fund and a pension, you wouldn’t need to trust Him,” Richard continued. “Anyone can go that way whether they are Christians or not. If I were you, I would go out and buy a ticket for a boat going on the longest journey you can find and pray to know where to get off.”

I did not exactly hear bells, but this was the first time in all those months of searching that anything made sense.

“It sounds terrific—but it must be cheating, because I’d love to do that.” I still had the idea that anything to do with God had to be serious. I was sure that Christians always had to take the hard way and that enjoyment was no part of suffering for their faith.

But Richard Thompson told me that it was quite scriptural. Abraham was willing to leave his country and follow Jehovah to a promised land without knowing where he was going, because he trusted.
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In the same way, thousands of years later, Gladys Aylward journeyed in faith to China.

“You can’t lose if you put yourself completely in God’s hands, you know.” Richard was quite serious. “If He doesn’t want you to get on the ship, He is quite able to stop you—or to make the ship go anywhere in the world.” I had visions of being storm-driven like St. Paul. I might land on a little desert island where one person wanted to hear about Jesus. It was an exciting proposition.

“Maybe you will go all the way round the world just to talk to one sailor about Christ, or maybe you will go as far as Singapore to play the piano for a week of youth meetings and then come back.”

Richard’s advice was extraordinary, but completely wise. Never at any time did he lead me to the impression that I was to get on a ship, grow a bun and get off as a missionary ready to do a “work.” He never suggested that I had to achieve anything at all; I had simply to follow wherever God led. I, too, felt that I could not lose on this adventure.

So I went out and, after counting up my money, found the cheapest ship on the longest route passing through the most countries on its way. It went from France to Japan. I bought a ticket and was all set.

Of course, there were my parents and friends and others to deal with. Understandably, some were skeptical. My father, very rightly, insisted that I think long and carefully on my “slow boat to China.” What right had I to give my religion to people in other countries when they had perfectly good religions of their own? Each parent was content about my trip but worried about the other. So I prayed, and one evening I heard them convincing each other that it was all right.

The telephone book missionary society was less keen. “Very irresponsible advice for a vicar to give a young girl,” they cautioned. And I suppose it would have been had it not been the Holy Spirit who gave Richard Thompson the words.

The day I left was one of those days when everything goes wrong. The taxi ordered to drive us the 20 miles to London appeared an hour late and then got stuck in a traffic jam on Vauxhall Bridge. I remember my mother frantically chewing white stomach pills. Gasping, I settled into the boat-train carriage with my nightmare of luggage and one minute to spare. Richard Thompson came running up the platform shouting, “Praise the Lord!” in a very un-English fashion, and the train pulled out.

The immigration officer turned back to me in annoyance. For a moment, I was afraid that I had come all this way to Asia merely to be repatriated. Then I remembered that morning’s reading, “Behold your name is written on the palms of God’s hands.” If my name was written there, then God knew all about me. So perhaps the whole purpose of the journey was that I should get arrested in Hong Kong and locked up in the ship’s hold, and then I could convert the jailer. I could not lose.

“Wait a minute,” I said, suddenly remembering my mother’s godson. “I do know someone here. He’s a policeman.” The effect was dramatic; the police were highly regarded back in 1966, and anyone who knew a policeman who ranked higher than mere immigration officials was clearly okay. On their faces I read, “All this bother from a stupid girl who is well connected all along.”

They thrust my passport at me, muttering angrily that I could land on condition that I search for work immediately. As far as they were concerned, my money would not last three days in Hong Kong.

3

THEY CALL IT DARKNESS

T
he Walled City is guarded day and night by a ceaseless army of watchers. As soon as a stranger approaches, the watchers pass the word. Their flip-flops flapping, the boys run between the noodle stalls, through doorways, across narrow alleys and up staircases. Grass Sandal whispers to Red Bamboo Pole, who respectfully communicates the news to Golden Paw. The leaders of the crime syndicate have colorful names, but their activities are sordid. To strangers, the real business of the Walled City is invisible; doors close, shutters clang shut, joss sticks camouflage the strange, pungent smell of opium.

One name for the Walled City in Chinese is
Hak Nam
, in English, “darkness.” As I began to know it better, I learned how true this name was; the Walled City was a place of terrible darkness, both physical and spiritual. Journalists get good copy out of it, but when you meet the men and women who have to live and suffer in such a place, you can be broken by compassion.

I had thought I was going to one of those Chinese walled villages in the guidebooks—sort of quaint, but poor.

Mrs. Donnithorne had invited me to visit her nursery school and church, but she had not prepared me for what I was to see. We got a lift as far as Tung Tau Chuen Road on the edge of the city. The street was lined with countless dentists’ parlors, which were equipped with ancient and modern drilling equipment, their windows filled with gold and silver teeth. There were teeth in bottles, teeth on velvet cushions, teeth even on the tips of big whirring fans. This was the street of the illegal dentists; illegal
because none of the amateur mouth doctors is allowed to practice in Hong Kong proper.

Behind these tawdry shops rose the ramshackle skyscrapers of the Walled City; it seemed impossible to find a way in. But the frail old lady who was my guide knew exactly where to go; we squeezed through a narrow gap between the shops and started walking down a slime-covered passageway. I will never forget the darkness and the smell—a fetid smell of rotten foodstuffs, excrement, offal and general rubbish. The darkness was startling after the glaring sunlight outside. As we walked on between the houses, their projecting upper stories almost touched each other above us so that only occasionally would the daylight penetrate in strong shafts of brightness among the shadows. I felt like I was in an underground tunnel.

As we went, my guide gave me a running commentary. On my right was a plastic flower factory; on my left an old prostitute who was too old and ugly to get work. So instead, the prostitute employed several child prostitutes to work for her; one seemed mentally retarded, another was a child she had bought as a baby and brought up to take over the bread-earner’s role when she grew too old. They had plenty of customers; in that depraved street the ownership of child prostitutes was regarded as a good source of income. “Auntie Donnie” told me to keep my head down in case someone chose to empty his chamber pot as we were passing below. Next, we reached the door to the illegal dog restaurant, where the captured beasts were flayed to death to provide tender dog steaks; then we came upon the pornographic film-show house, a crowded lean-to shed.