Tuesday, April 05, 2005
AOTGA - Act 16
Hong Kong means "fragrant harbor," and certainly Hong Kong presents one of the most varied ranges of odors of any place in the world. It has a varied range of sights as well. A fantastic skyline made up of hotels and highrise apartment houses towers above the city; but through it all waves "the great flag of China," which is the daily laundry hung out the windows on bamboo poles. The longer we lived in Hong Kong, the more fascinated we were by the curious blend of East and West.
Obviously our spree at the Peninsula Hotel could not go on for long, so we bought newspapers to search for an apartment. Meanwhile, Rick copied information concerning a flat for rent from the YMCA bulletin board. The papers confused us utterly -- we didn't know whether we should live in Kowloon or Hong Kong, and we didn't know how much an apartment should cost. We prayed and told God we were too dumb to figure it out, and if He would just let the first apartment we looked at be the right one, we would be grateful.
So we went to see one on MacDonnell Road advertised at the YMCA. One look at it and we said, "No, God, you couldn't mean this!" Roaches ran everywhere, and even after Indonesia and Taiwan, I simply had not adjusted to roaches. It was old and dirty and sparsely furnished with odds and ends of which no two matched; and the building was old and badly kept. Worst of all was the kitchen: small, dark, the work table at least a foot too low for me; small refrigerator and stove of ancient vintage; a single sink about the size of a scrub bucket. We didn't commit ourselves and left. We telephoned the numbers listed in the paper only to discover the apartments were wildly expensive and sometimes an entire year's rent was demanded in advance. It was very discouraging.
The Dales had extracted a promise that we would telephone their relatives, the Hardings, so we did. The Hardings had been trying to reach us to ask us to dinner, but we had not been at the YMCA and their radar system wasn't as good as that of the Naval commander. Perhaps Someone had given him a hand.
We dined that evening with Neil and Clare Harding. They are Anglicans and were baptized with the Holy Spirit before leaving England for Hong Kong, where Neil is the assistant headmaster of a school. They asked where we planned to live. We said we hadn't decided but had looked at a flat on MacDonnell Road. Neil asked what number on MacDonnell Road, and when we told him he took us outside to look out over the city, and pointed at the building. It was less than a fifteen-minute walk away! He told us Suzanne could walk to Island School, where he taught, and that this way we would have people we knew close by. He named other advantages, and when we heard the rent being asked, which we found high, he said it was a remarkable price and that we should take it. Our housing problem was solved, and we lived there all of the time we were in the British Crown Colongy of Hong Kong. Things appeared to be working out neatly.
Paul Castle's attractive, effervescent daughter Gail, who had been close to us for many years, and was like one of the family, arrived July first to assist us in our efforts. We weren't sure what our efforts were, but we knew Gail was supposed to be there. About that time a green parrot and I fell in love, and another member was added to the family. Fortunately the flat had three bedrooms: one for Rick and me, one for Gail and Sydney II, and a small one with a view of Island School for Suzanne. Sydney had been sold to us as a member of a non-talking species, but on a diet of chocolate ice cream, honey and fruit, he found his tongue and would screech "Syd-neeey!" all over the flat. Then he began saying, "C'mere!" and whenever we were not visible he called us. Later he added "Suzy" and "Gail" to his repertoire, but somehow they always sounded a bit like "Sydney." One had to be a connoisseur to tell them apart.
The beds in the apartment had come from a children's school. They were short, narrow, without mattresses, and about as soft as a gym mat. Richard's feet hung out a foot over the bottom. We bought a double bed, but his feet even hung over the end of that. Richard simply wasn't made for the Orient. His feet were so large they didn't make a last big enough to make him a pair of shoes. He was down to one tired and beat-up brown pair that had slogged through the dust and dirt of Indonesia.
So here we were. School had not begun, we were very short of money, and we really did not know why we were in Hong Kong or what we were to do there. We prayed. Money became shorter than ever. It almost seemed as though no one heard our prayers. Things were so bad that one night we prayed all night long, but again there was no answer. Finally we were down to birdseed. We had bought it for the parrot, but he wasn't a seed-eater -- neither are we. In spite of boiling the stuff like a sort of hot cereal, the chaff presented a problem. The longer we chewed, the bigger it seemed to grow. If we swallowed it quickly, it scratched going down. It wasn't exactly a gourmet diet.
We needed $600 immediately -- we simply had to have it. But we had only $70 left in the bank. While puttering around the apartment, I noticed a book by Catherine Marshall lying open on Gail's bed. I know Catherine and her husband Len LeSourd, and respect them both -- in fact I had prayed with them when they received the gift of the Spirit. But somehow I'm not a great one for reading religious books. I always seem to be too involved to have the time. The book was open at a chapter entitled, "The Prayer of Relinquishment." I read the chapter, and that night I gave Rick a synopsis and asked what he thought about trying that -- we had tried everything else. He thought it might be good, so we seriously prayed that we would accept whatever God wanted for our lives -- if He wanted us to be poor and in debt -- even if He wanted us in jail -- we would abide by it, and willingly. About 1:00 AM we went to sleep. At 2:00 AM the telephone rang. It was Loraine calling from the United States to tell us she knew it wasn't sufficient, but she had just deposited in our account $530 that some friends had sent. But it was enough, for with the $70 we had left in the account, that made the $600 we had prayed for!
Clare Harding said she wished there were others in Hong Kong who had received the power of the Holy Spirit because then we could have a charismatic prayer meeting. We assured her that it didn't matter how small a group was -- it could grow. So on Thursdays we met together and prayed for the Church -- and the Lord began to add to the group, if not daily, at least weekly.
One Saturday night I thought about church at the Anglican Cathedral and, remembering the sermon of the week before, I wasn't sure I could take it. I suggested to the family that we not go to church but have our own service at home. They agreed. An hour or so later, I was lying on the bed praying when the words came into my head, "I have set you in the establishment to separate the wheat from the tares." I told the rest of them what had happened and said, "I don't understand it or know if the theology is sound. I don't even know if it came from God, but I'm afraid not to go to church tomorrow."
The next morning the preacher was a guest speaker. It was clear that he knew Christ as Lord, but he seemed confused about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. We shook his hand afterward and said we had appreciated his sermon. The next Sunday at the coffee hour I saw him standing with his back toward us on the other side of the room and said, "Let's ask him to lunch." Rick said, "What for?" I confessed I didn't know. "Just tell him we are writing a book and would like to ask him some questions." Naturally Rick was not too enthused, but he humors me in my little idiosyncracies because sometimes they turn out to be from God.
At lunch we chatted a bit and Richard asked the Anglican minister how he felt the church was progressing in Hong Kong. The minister thought it was not doing as well as it might. Rick inquired what the answer might be.
"An outpouring of the Holy Spirit."
We looked at each other. He continued, "Some people think that means speaking in tongues. I don't mean that." And he went on with the standard evangelical line.
Later he inquired what we were doing in Hong Kong. We told our story but did not mention the baptism in the Spirit. He made no comment, so we didn't know how he had taken it.
A few days later he telephoned Rick and asked him to tell the same story at the Anglican college where he was the chaplain. He wanted the boys to know that God still operates.
The following week we hosted a small dinner party and the Hardings and the minister were among the guests. Someone mentioned John Stott and I spoke highly of him. Clare Harding said, "But surely you don't agree with his theology on speaking in tongues, do you?" I replied that I felt his doctrine was such because he had not received the experience, and that if he did his doctrine would change.
A day or so later the minister asked Rick if he had ever spoken in tongues. Something I had said caused him to think we might have. Rick admitted we had. The minister asked us to tea and said he wanted to ask questions concerning the phenomenon.
At tea he interrogated us for three hours. At the end of that time he said wistfully, "In the book They Speak With Other Tongues, John Sherrill mentioned a woman named Jean Stone who has the gift of laying on of hands for receiving the Spirit." Richard said, "You're looking at her." (My married name is not Stone.) The minister asked fervently (for an Englishman), "Do you think I might have the gift?" From this small beginning came a real move of the Spirit in teh Colony.
One Sunday after church Clare whispered, "See that couple? They're Americans. They live close to you, and they need something. If you ever see them you should talk to them."
I said, "Really Clare, you surely don't expect me to walk up to them on the street and talk to them about God. The least you could do is introduce us."
"I could do that," she admitted.
She quickly performed the introductions and left! Jim Foerster said, "Why don't you come up for coffee?" What was surprising was that it was in the middle of a typhoon. Looking back on the incident, he can't imagine why he did such a peculiar thing as to invite two complete strangers to coffee during a typhoon.
By the time we arrived at the Foerster's apartment we were completely drenched. It was peculiar to sit soaking wet and make polite conversation with three strangers. Conversation lagged somewhat, but when their other guest mentioned that she got more from her guru than she did from the Anglican church, I thought, "What do I have to lose?" and proceededd to tell them about the baptism in the Spirit. I'm sure they thought we were quite mad, but strangely enough they couldn't seem to let us alone. We had dinner with them several times and were invited to a couple of parties. Somehow or other we invariably ended up discussing God. One night Elaine and I were talking, and Elaine had just vocalized her belief that the Higher Being has a son, Jesus Christ. When I asked about her belief in the resurrection, Jim (who was beginning to believe I was a pretty good joe) said in an incredulous tone, "Surely, Jean, you don't believe that?" I was tempted to behave like Peter and squeeze out of the whole thing, but I forced myself to say, "I'm afraid I do." He registered disappointment but despite that we received an invitation to their next party. They asked ahead of time that we stay after everyone else left, so all was not lost.
At the party I sat beside an Anglican minister. I wickedly led him on to tell me just how much of the faith he didn't believe. Richard was listening and expressed anger with my behavior but I kept on. After we had settled that he didn't believe much of anything he asked me what I believed. I said, "We should mix a bit. Come to lunch with us tomorrow and I'll tell you."
At lunch we told him everything: how the Spirit had fallen at St Mark's, the dream, the trip to Asia -- the works. The proper young Englishman said nothing at all and we thought, "We've blown it with the Anglican church here."
The next week the priest's wife telephoned and asked both of us to teach Sunday School. We looked at each other in silence. The following Sunday the priest came to me at the coffee hour and whispered in my ear, "Keep praying for my conversion; it's working." Never had we intimated he was not converted -- or that we were praying for him. In fact we had never mentioned the word "conversion" or anything faintly resembling it. The following Wednesday he telephoned and said, "Through knowing you I have come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." And a month later he called again and said, "Are you and Richard free tonight? I think I'm ready now for the gift of the Spirit." Things were picking up in Hong Kong.
We were out of money and had a hundred dollars' worth of obligations to pay. We prayed. It seemed to us that we should go to a rather odd church we didn't normally attend. We went. Just before the service a woman came to Rick and handed him an envelope with Scripture verses written all over it. "The Lord said to give you this, that you would be here this morning," she whispered. He opened the envelope. In it was an American hundred dollar bill.
We went home joyous. That afternoon we attended a Bible study and tea held at the Hardings'. A woman began to tell me her problems. She lived in an elegant flat and maintained a cook, maid, and chauffeur. Through some peculiar circumstances she had no money at all and wanted me to pray for her. She felt safe in telling me; since I was a missionary and no better off than she was, I wouldn't think she was asking for money. I said, "Someone just gave us a hundred dollars. I'll split it with you."
"But you can't do that!"
"Why not?"
"You'd better pray about it."
"I don't have to pray about something this simple; I know what Christian behavior is."
So we went to the moneychanger and had the money changed into Hong Kong currency in order to divide it.
But the next day I realized that we still had $100 worth of bills and now only $50 to pay them with. I lay down on the bed and prayed. I told God that I knew He was going to take care of the problem and He might as well do it properly -- that rather than $50 we needed $500 as Suzy must have school uniforms, Rick needed suits, and groceries were non-existent. I told Him I was sure He would provide $500. After praying for half an hour, I went downstairs to get the mail. In the box was an aerogram from Loraine to tell us that Conrad (the rooster man) who had never before sent us anything, had deposited $500 to our account. "Before they call I shall answer."
Richard had two new suits tailored and Suzy now had uniforms. All was well except that Rick's new suits called for black shoes, and all he had were those decrepit old brown ones. We went to a number of shops, but his feet were just too large. We had always laughed and said that someday his shoes would wear out in China and some little old man would come to him holding a new pair and say, "Yankee shoes too big." So far nothing like that had occurrred.
We went out to dinner with the Foersters. During the evening it occurred to me that Jim's feet were not exactly Chinese in size, so I asked him where he got his shoes. He said he had them shipped from the States but it took about three months.
Elaine said, "That won't do. You can't wait three months."
Jim said, "It isn't satisfactory, anyway. A change in styles sometimes brings a change in fit. I have two new pairs in my closet that I can't wear."
"Jim! You're the little old man!" (Jim is in his thirties; he's over six feet tall with curly hair and blue eyes.)
"What?"
We told them our private joke. Jim said they couldn't possibly fit. Rick said they obviously would. Of course they did -- beautifully! Naturally we wanted to buy them. Jim was stunned, but said he would look it up on the books and find out the exact price. When he did, it developed that he had only been charged for one pair because they hadn't fit, and since Florsheim was one of their customers, he was only charged the wholesale price. Rick had two new pairs of handsome black shoes for one-fourth their price. But after Jim thought it over, he decided the shoes were from God; and he refused to cash the check Rick had given him. But what was this? Up until this time Jim had had a little trouble with God --
Jim was now a study in contradictions. He didn't believe; yet he was pleased when his children wanted to say grace at meals. After another late-night talk, we suggested he pray daily, "God, if there is a God, and if You have a Son, Jesus Christ, reveal Him to me."
One afternoon Jim telephoned to say he was coming over to leave some pictures with us for a month. What kind of sense did that make? I said nothing about the peculiarity of it, but suggested he stay for tea. He hung the paintings on our wall; I poured the tea. The three of us talked about various things, including pornography. He stated that during the past week he had stopped advertising in a pornographic magazine and that he had not lost his temper at the office. He had told Elaine, "I think they've been praying for me."
Many people, seeing the change in his attitudes and behavior, would say that he had received the Holy Spirit. But far from that, Jim did not yet accept Christ as Lord. We talked about this -- for hours. At last we suggested he relinquish his life to Christ. He still wasn't sure Christ was the Son of God. It was not hot in the room, but the perspiration stood on his forehead. We suggested he pray. He buried his head in his hands and said he didn't know how. Silently he prayed -- and sweated -- and suffered. At last he said aloud, "I feel like there are two people warring within me."
"What does the real you say?"
"The real me says, 'Help!'"
"Why don't you tell God that?"
He began to pour out his faults, shortcomings, and failures to God. Rick said, "Tell Jesus -- He's the only way to God."
He did.
Jim had always said he would not even consider becoming a Christian without the power of the Spirit -- that he had seen enough of the emasculated Church.
"Do you want the baptism in the Spirit?"
"Yes," he whispered, and within two minutes he was audibly worshipping Christ in a new language given by the Spirit.
He arrived late for a sit-down dinner party at the United States Consul's residence. Elaine had telephoned twice and had finally gone on to the dinner and told the hosts Jim was at a meeting (which was true!). She later reported that instead of arriving with the harried look of a pressured businessman, he simply glowed; she said he looked "glorious." He was wearing a white Nehru shirt with a black suit. "Going into the priesthood, Jim?" someone asked facetiously. Jim meaningfully looked at Elaine and his eyes twinkled as he replied, "We-ell, not exactly!"
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Obviously our spree at the Peninsula Hotel could not go on for long, so we bought newspapers to search for an apartment. Meanwhile, Rick copied information concerning a flat for rent from the YMCA bulletin board. The papers confused us utterly -- we didn't know whether we should live in Kowloon or Hong Kong, and we didn't know how much an apartment should cost. We prayed and told God we were too dumb to figure it out, and if He would just let the first apartment we looked at be the right one, we would be grateful.
So we went to see one on MacDonnell Road advertised at the YMCA. One look at it and we said, "No, God, you couldn't mean this!" Roaches ran everywhere, and even after Indonesia and Taiwan, I simply had not adjusted to roaches. It was old and dirty and sparsely furnished with odds and ends of which no two matched; and the building was old and badly kept. Worst of all was the kitchen: small, dark, the work table at least a foot too low for me; small refrigerator and stove of ancient vintage; a single sink about the size of a scrub bucket. We didn't commit ourselves and left. We telephoned the numbers listed in the paper only to discover the apartments were wildly expensive and sometimes an entire year's rent was demanded in advance. It was very discouraging.
The Dales had extracted a promise that we would telephone their relatives, the Hardings, so we did. The Hardings had been trying to reach us to ask us to dinner, but we had not been at the YMCA and their radar system wasn't as good as that of the Naval commander. Perhaps Someone had given him a hand.
We dined that evening with Neil and Clare Harding. They are Anglicans and were baptized with the Holy Spirit before leaving England for Hong Kong, where Neil is the assistant headmaster of a school. They asked where we planned to live. We said we hadn't decided but had looked at a flat on MacDonnell Road. Neil asked what number on MacDonnell Road, and when we told him he took us outside to look out over the city, and pointed at the building. It was less than a fifteen-minute walk away! He told us Suzanne could walk to Island School, where he taught, and that this way we would have people we knew close by. He named other advantages, and when we heard the rent being asked, which we found high, he said it was a remarkable price and that we should take it. Our housing problem was solved, and we lived there all of the time we were in the British Crown Colongy of Hong Kong. Things appeared to be working out neatly.
Paul Castle's attractive, effervescent daughter Gail, who had been close to us for many years, and was like one of the family, arrived July first to assist us in our efforts. We weren't sure what our efforts were, but we knew Gail was supposed to be there. About that time a green parrot and I fell in love, and another member was added to the family. Fortunately the flat had three bedrooms: one for Rick and me, one for Gail and Sydney II, and a small one with a view of Island School for Suzanne. Sydney had been sold to us as a member of a non-talking species, but on a diet of chocolate ice cream, honey and fruit, he found his tongue and would screech "Syd-neeey!" all over the flat. Then he began saying, "C'mere!" and whenever we were not visible he called us. Later he added "Suzy" and "Gail" to his repertoire, but somehow they always sounded a bit like "Sydney." One had to be a connoisseur to tell them apart.
The beds in the apartment had come from a children's school. They were short, narrow, without mattresses, and about as soft as a gym mat. Richard's feet hung out a foot over the bottom. We bought a double bed, but his feet even hung over the end of that. Richard simply wasn't made for the Orient. His feet were so large they didn't make a last big enough to make him a pair of shoes. He was down to one tired and beat-up brown pair that had slogged through the dust and dirt of Indonesia.
So here we were. School had not begun, we were very short of money, and we really did not know why we were in Hong Kong or what we were to do there. We prayed. Money became shorter than ever. It almost seemed as though no one heard our prayers. Things were so bad that one night we prayed all night long, but again there was no answer. Finally we were down to birdseed. We had bought it for the parrot, but he wasn't a seed-eater -- neither are we. In spite of boiling the stuff like a sort of hot cereal, the chaff presented a problem. The longer we chewed, the bigger it seemed to grow. If we swallowed it quickly, it scratched going down. It wasn't exactly a gourmet diet.
We needed $600 immediately -- we simply had to have it. But we had only $70 left in the bank. While puttering around the apartment, I noticed a book by Catherine Marshall lying open on Gail's bed. I know Catherine and her husband Len LeSourd, and respect them both -- in fact I had prayed with them when they received the gift of the Spirit. But somehow I'm not a great one for reading religious books. I always seem to be too involved to have the time. The book was open at a chapter entitled, "The Prayer of Relinquishment." I read the chapter, and that night I gave Rick a synopsis and asked what he thought about trying that -- we had tried everything else. He thought it might be good, so we seriously prayed that we would accept whatever God wanted for our lives -- if He wanted us to be poor and in debt -- even if He wanted us in jail -- we would abide by it, and willingly. About 1:00 AM we went to sleep. At 2:00 AM the telephone rang. It was Loraine calling from the United States to tell us she knew it wasn't sufficient, but she had just deposited in our account $530 that some friends had sent. But it was enough, for with the $70 we had left in the account, that made the $600 we had prayed for!
Clare Harding said she wished there were others in Hong Kong who had received the power of the Holy Spirit because then we could have a charismatic prayer meeting. We assured her that it didn't matter how small a group was -- it could grow. So on Thursdays we met together and prayed for the Church -- and the Lord began to add to the group, if not daily, at least weekly.
One Saturday night I thought about church at the Anglican Cathedral and, remembering the sermon of the week before, I wasn't sure I could take it. I suggested to the family that we not go to church but have our own service at home. They agreed. An hour or so later, I was lying on the bed praying when the words came into my head, "I have set you in the establishment to separate the wheat from the tares." I told the rest of them what had happened and said, "I don't understand it or know if the theology is sound. I don't even know if it came from God, but I'm afraid not to go to church tomorrow."
The next morning the preacher was a guest speaker. It was clear that he knew Christ as Lord, but he seemed confused about the doctrine of the Holy Spirit. We shook his hand afterward and said we had appreciated his sermon. The next Sunday at the coffee hour I saw him standing with his back toward us on the other side of the room and said, "Let's ask him to lunch." Rick said, "What for?" I confessed I didn't know. "Just tell him we are writing a book and would like to ask him some questions." Naturally Rick was not too enthused, but he humors me in my little idiosyncracies because sometimes they turn out to be from God.
At lunch we chatted a bit and Richard asked the Anglican minister how he felt the church was progressing in Hong Kong. The minister thought it was not doing as well as it might. Rick inquired what the answer might be.
"An outpouring of the Holy Spirit."
We looked at each other. He continued, "Some people think that means speaking in tongues. I don't mean that." And he went on with the standard evangelical line.
Later he inquired what we were doing in Hong Kong. We told our story but did not mention the baptism in the Spirit. He made no comment, so we didn't know how he had taken it.
A few days later he telephoned Rick and asked him to tell the same story at the Anglican college where he was the chaplain. He wanted the boys to know that God still operates.
The following week we hosted a small dinner party and the Hardings and the minister were among the guests. Someone mentioned John Stott and I spoke highly of him. Clare Harding said, "But surely you don't agree with his theology on speaking in tongues, do you?" I replied that I felt his doctrine was such because he had not received the experience, and that if he did his doctrine would change.
A day or so later the minister asked Rick if he had ever spoken in tongues. Something I had said caused him to think we might have. Rick admitted we had. The minister asked us to tea and said he wanted to ask questions concerning the phenomenon.
At tea he interrogated us for three hours. At the end of that time he said wistfully, "In the book They Speak With Other Tongues, John Sherrill mentioned a woman named Jean Stone who has the gift of laying on of hands for receiving the Spirit." Richard said, "You're looking at her." (My married name is not Stone.) The minister asked fervently (for an Englishman), "Do you think I might have the gift?" From this small beginning came a real move of the Spirit in teh Colony.
One Sunday after church Clare whispered, "See that couple? They're Americans. They live close to you, and they need something. If you ever see them you should talk to them."
I said, "Really Clare, you surely don't expect me to walk up to them on the street and talk to them about God. The least you could do is introduce us."
"I could do that," she admitted.
She quickly performed the introductions and left! Jim Foerster said, "Why don't you come up for coffee?" What was surprising was that it was in the middle of a typhoon. Looking back on the incident, he can't imagine why he did such a peculiar thing as to invite two complete strangers to coffee during a typhoon.
By the time we arrived at the Foerster's apartment we were completely drenched. It was peculiar to sit soaking wet and make polite conversation with three strangers. Conversation lagged somewhat, but when their other guest mentioned that she got more from her guru than she did from the Anglican church, I thought, "What do I have to lose?" and proceededd to tell them about the baptism in the Spirit. I'm sure they thought we were quite mad, but strangely enough they couldn't seem to let us alone. We had dinner with them several times and were invited to a couple of parties. Somehow or other we invariably ended up discussing God. One night Elaine and I were talking, and Elaine had just vocalized her belief that the Higher Being has a son, Jesus Christ. When I asked about her belief in the resurrection, Jim (who was beginning to believe I was a pretty good joe) said in an incredulous tone, "Surely, Jean, you don't believe that?" I was tempted to behave like Peter and squeeze out of the whole thing, but I forced myself to say, "I'm afraid I do." He registered disappointment but despite that we received an invitation to their next party. They asked ahead of time that we stay after everyone else left, so all was not lost.
At the party I sat beside an Anglican minister. I wickedly led him on to tell me just how much of the faith he didn't believe. Richard was listening and expressed anger with my behavior but I kept on. After we had settled that he didn't believe much of anything he asked me what I believed. I said, "We should mix a bit. Come to lunch with us tomorrow and I'll tell you."
At lunch we told him everything: how the Spirit had fallen at St Mark's, the dream, the trip to Asia -- the works. The proper young Englishman said nothing at all and we thought, "We've blown it with the Anglican church here."
The next week the priest's wife telephoned and asked both of us to teach Sunday School. We looked at each other in silence. The following Sunday the priest came to me at the coffee hour and whispered in my ear, "Keep praying for my conversion; it's working." Never had we intimated he was not converted -- or that we were praying for him. In fact we had never mentioned the word "conversion" or anything faintly resembling it. The following Wednesday he telephoned and said, "Through knowing you I have come into a personal relationship with Jesus Christ." And a month later he called again and said, "Are you and Richard free tonight? I think I'm ready now for the gift of the Spirit." Things were picking up in Hong Kong.
We were out of money and had a hundred dollars' worth of obligations to pay. We prayed. It seemed to us that we should go to a rather odd church we didn't normally attend. We went. Just before the service a woman came to Rick and handed him an envelope with Scripture verses written all over it. "The Lord said to give you this, that you would be here this morning," she whispered. He opened the envelope. In it was an American hundred dollar bill.
We went home joyous. That afternoon we attended a Bible study and tea held at the Hardings'. A woman began to tell me her problems. She lived in an elegant flat and maintained a cook, maid, and chauffeur. Through some peculiar circumstances she had no money at all and wanted me to pray for her. She felt safe in telling me; since I was a missionary and no better off than she was, I wouldn't think she was asking for money. I said, "Someone just gave us a hundred dollars. I'll split it with you."
"But you can't do that!"
"Why not?"
"You'd better pray about it."
"I don't have to pray about something this simple; I know what Christian behavior is."
So we went to the moneychanger and had the money changed into Hong Kong currency in order to divide it.
But the next day I realized that we still had $100 worth of bills and now only $50 to pay them with. I lay down on the bed and prayed. I told God that I knew He was going to take care of the problem and He might as well do it properly -- that rather than $50 we needed $500 as Suzy must have school uniforms, Rick needed suits, and groceries were non-existent. I told Him I was sure He would provide $500. After praying for half an hour, I went downstairs to get the mail. In the box was an aerogram from Loraine to tell us that Conrad (the rooster man) who had never before sent us anything, had deposited $500 to our account. "Before they call I shall answer."
Richard had two new suits tailored and Suzy now had uniforms. All was well except that Rick's new suits called for black shoes, and all he had were those decrepit old brown ones. We went to a number of shops, but his feet were just too large. We had always laughed and said that someday his shoes would wear out in China and some little old man would come to him holding a new pair and say, "Yankee shoes too big." So far nothing like that had occurrred.
We went out to dinner with the Foersters. During the evening it occurred to me that Jim's feet were not exactly Chinese in size, so I asked him where he got his shoes. He said he had them shipped from the States but it took about three months.
Elaine said, "That won't do. You can't wait three months."
Jim said, "It isn't satisfactory, anyway. A change in styles sometimes brings a change in fit. I have two new pairs in my closet that I can't wear."
"Jim! You're the little old man!" (Jim is in his thirties; he's over six feet tall with curly hair and blue eyes.)
"What?"
We told them our private joke. Jim said they couldn't possibly fit. Rick said they obviously would. Of course they did -- beautifully! Naturally we wanted to buy them. Jim was stunned, but said he would look it up on the books and find out the exact price. When he did, it developed that he had only been charged for one pair because they hadn't fit, and since Florsheim was one of their customers, he was only charged the wholesale price. Rick had two new pairs of handsome black shoes for one-fourth their price. But after Jim thought it over, he decided the shoes were from God; and he refused to cash the check Rick had given him. But what was this? Up until this time Jim had had a little trouble with God --
Jim was now a study in contradictions. He didn't believe; yet he was pleased when his children wanted to say grace at meals. After another late-night talk, we suggested he pray daily, "God, if there is a God, and if You have a Son, Jesus Christ, reveal Him to me."
One afternoon Jim telephoned to say he was coming over to leave some pictures with us for a month. What kind of sense did that make? I said nothing about the peculiarity of it, but suggested he stay for tea. He hung the paintings on our wall; I poured the tea. The three of us talked about various things, including pornography. He stated that during the past week he had stopped advertising in a pornographic magazine and that he had not lost his temper at the office. He had told Elaine, "I think they've been praying for me."
Many people, seeing the change in his attitudes and behavior, would say that he had received the Holy Spirit. But far from that, Jim did not yet accept Christ as Lord. We talked about this -- for hours. At last we suggested he relinquish his life to Christ. He still wasn't sure Christ was the Son of God. It was not hot in the room, but the perspiration stood on his forehead. We suggested he pray. He buried his head in his hands and said he didn't know how. Silently he prayed -- and sweated -- and suffered. At last he said aloud, "I feel like there are two people warring within me."
"What does the real you say?"
"The real me says, 'Help!'"
"Why don't you tell God that?"
He began to pour out his faults, shortcomings, and failures to God. Rick said, "Tell Jesus -- He's the only way to God."
He did.
Jim had always said he would not even consider becoming a Christian without the power of the Spirit -- that he had seen enough of the emasculated Church.
"Do you want the baptism in the Spirit?"
"Yes," he whispered, and within two minutes he was audibly worshipping Christ in a new language given by the Spirit.
He arrived late for a sit-down dinner party at the United States Consul's residence. Elaine had telephoned twice and had finally gone on to the dinner and told the hosts Jim was at a meeting (which was true!). She later reported that instead of arriving with the harried look of a pressured businessman, he simply glowed; she said he looked "glorious." He was wearing a white Nehru shirt with a black suit. "Going into the priesthood, Jim?" someone asked facetiously. Jim meaningfully looked at Elaine and his eyes twinkled as he replied, "We-ell, not exactly!"
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# posted by LeeSun @ 2:17 pm 
