"The Lord can always be trusted." Lam.3:23As you know we were requested to leave Hang Fook Camp on November 10th and right up until September we were promised and were half expecting the Government to provide alternative accommodation. By mid September it was clear this wasn't coming and so we had to make arrangements to disperse.
This meant that our 150 residents (including many old dogs, old & young cats, a goose, and lot of pigeons etc.) had to find apartments, hostels, old people's homes and so on to disperse people all over Hong Kong, Kowloon and the new Territories. It was a very good exercise and good practice for the future and very dramatic. Of course, there were difficult things like our office filing! - as accommodation in HK is very scarce and very expensive, to find a place for files and old records was difficult. So we have some files stored in a airport cargo terminal and some in the new Portland Street office, which makes life interesting.
We are using our Portland Street premises for all the essential administration and paper work (which is equivalent to the P O Box address as follows: St. Stephen's Society, P. O. Box 71099, Kowloon Central Post Office, Kowloon, H.K.). Adjoining this we have another room where small meetings up to 100 people, can be held. Everyone else we have squeezed into first stage houses, hostels, we've rented some village houses and in co-operation with the New Territories and the Hong Kong Vineyards (which are our church offshoots), we have rented quite a lot of apartments which the church people are helping us with.
Therefore, the exercise has been good because it's involved co-operation between church people, and the fruit has been healthy. It also means that everyone is very careful now about electricity and water, and because we were down to praying for toilet paper, they are using their own money, some are even taking shorter showers and thinking about walking long distances instead of taking the underground trains. All of this is what I've been sharing and teaching on for years and with the loss of a big centre it's meant that people have taken more responsibility for their own groups and lives.
However, we still need places for people to live. With nearly 300 residents coming off drugs or looking after those coming off drugs in our residential houses, they need training, encouragement, supporting and housing. As well as that we are continuing on a regular basis to do outreaches, feeding the poor, the old people, street sleepers, etc...
Right now all our places are full of people so there is nowhere for them to meet and fellowship.
We have a continuing need for accommodation and slightly larger venues for people to meet. We also have a need for stable Christians to stand in times of stress to be able to administrate, encourage, train and facilitate the teams that are venturing into missions.
We are praying about more church planting this year and we will definitely be viewing India as a place for permanent teams and mission as well as China of course and Mongolia and other Asian countries. Just recently, I went to Anaheim to have an "Asia Mission Summit" meeting with other Vineyard leaders who are interested in Asia and that was wonderful. I've also just been to Pattaya, Thailand, to meet with Walter Heidenreich's group. They have 60 people all over Asia. Hong Kong is in the geographical centre of an area (the 10/40 window) where there are still the most poor, hungry, homeless, people and children in the world and we know that this is why God has raised us up. The need is so great we just want to be certain where we should concentrate our efforts.
It will also be a very significant year for Hong Kong this year when HK will be handed over from British rule to China. At the moment the British Government are talking to us about granting us some land before the handover but that means we need to think about building. We have never been involved with building our own homes before but it looks like this may be the next step to what God is moving us to do and His provision for us for a place. We'd be very grateful for your prayers.
For those wishing to help St. Stephen's Society write to:
Jackie Pullinger-To
St. Stephen's Society
P.O. Box 71099
Kowloon Central Post Office
Hong KongFax no: 852 725 8230
For more information on Bible studies available, visit the Churchlink site on the World Wide Web at http://www.churchlink.com.au/churchlink. Enquiries to: [email protected]
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