Acts of the Green Apples

Again we were out of money, and Richard wasn't allowed to look for a job because he was officially still a tourist. The rent was overdue; the utility bills were due; our grocery bill was waiting. We couldn't do anything else; so we prayed. In the meantime we noticed we had been gone nearly a year, and our airline tickets needed renewing. But when we went to the airline for that purpose, they informed us that the tickets were not renewable: we must either return to the United States, cash in the tickets, or lose the money. This was a blow, as we did not think God wanted us to leave; and at the same time the return tickets were our security. We knew that if we cashed them, the money received would not be nearly enough to buy three more tickets. Perhaps our security wasn't supposed to be bound up in tickets. We said we would cash them. By this time we had three tickets from Taiwan to Los Angeles and three tickets from Hong Kong to Taiwan. The airline wired Los Angeles and Taipei concerning the amounts. The total was paid in US money and the amount we received waws $777.

We remembered how we had laughed at Father Sherwood for saying 777 was the perfect number. It seemed an unbelievable coincidence. The more we discussed it, the more sure we were that the day would arrive when we would be sorry we had cashed in the tickets and that this was God's way of telling us it would be all right. We paid the rent, utilities, bought groceries, and waited for the boom to fall.

And fall it did. The immigration authorities refused to renew our visas. They gave us no reason and would not allow us to discuss it: they simply turned us down. We had numerous local sponsors and through a bizarre set of circumstances Richard had even been offered a position teaching English and Bible. But despite this we were refused for a third time, and it was not permissible to apply again. Our friends did not want us to leave; they were agitated about the possibility and prayed for us. If it had not been for the surprising coincidence of the $777, we would have been even more agitated than they were.

Our departure day arrived, but we had not even packed our belongings. What was the point, since we had no tickets? Obviously God must move on our behalf. The telephone rang. It was a Chinese friend, a Pentecostal businessman. He said God had awakened him in the night and told him to pray for us. When he did, he said God told him what to tell us. I hung up and the telephone rang again. This time it was Mary Holland, an Anglican schoolteacher. Having no idea I had heard this story before, she confided that God had awakened her in the night and impress her to pray for us. When she did she was reminded of a friend who could help and we were to call him. She stated God had also told her that she thought she had the baptism in the Holy Spirit without speaking in tongues but that He wanted her to speak in tongues -- that she should come to our flat and receive the gift that morning. So I prayed with Mary and she was filled with the Spirit. Meanwhile Richard was actively carrying out both sets of instructions given to us by these widely divergent people who had never heard of each other. When the actions were accomplished, we had our visa extensions, and for the years we resided in Hong Kong, there were no more visa difficulties.

Clare Harding wanted all of her friends to know about the charismata. She frequently planned dinner parties so we could tell them! The first time she did this it was a complete fiasco. The couple were fundamentalists who followed the old party line, and everything we said was taken as implying that we were better than they were and had something they had not. It was a bad evening all round. I invited them to dinner once, hoping to make peace, but was rudely refused.

The next time Clare worked this little plan was with an English couple named Derek and Ruth Wood. They had brought along a house guest they were entertaining and did not indicate how they felt about the story we told. However, a young man in his final year of high school, named Hugh Jagger, attended the Hardings' Sunday Bible study. Several times we had mentioned to each other that we would like to tell him about the gift of the Spirit because he was so serious about the things of God. The Woods beat us to it. They suggested that Hugh invite us to speak to the Christian group at his school, and that we speak on the gifts of the Holy Spirit. Richard spoke; the group was interested; and two weeks later Hugh asked me to speak on the gifts. I inquired if there was anything he wished me to soft pedal and he said there was not -- to say what I wished. So I spoke on the baptism in the Spirit.

When the time was up the students gathered around asking questions. We were afraid they would be late to their next classes; so we tried to break it up. As soon stop an avalanche. One girl asked me if one went into a trance when one spoke in tongues. I assured her one did not, and she asked me if I could speak at any time. I explained that any who once received the gift could pray in the language at will, but unless God so desired it would not be interpretable. I prayed in tongues so she could understand it was not a frenetic undisciplined experience. Richard, standing nearby talking to some students, received the interpretation and brought it. They were shaken and wanted to know more. To get them to go to their classes I said they could come to dinner the following Tuesday and ask questions.

Tuesday, eight of them came for spaghetti: a mixture of Chinese, Eurasian, English and American (the kids, not the spaghetti). Before the evening was ended all eight were immersed in the Spirit, praising God in new languages. He had begun to move among the youth in Hong Kong.

One of the boys was Robert Wood, the son of Derek and Ruth. What the rest of us did not know was that Derek and Ruth were not yet converted. We were invited to the Woods' for New Year's Eve dinner (complete with crackers and hats) and Carole Wood, home from university, was baptized with the Holy Spirit along with Derek and Ruth, who received much like Cornelius and his wife. This got us in more trouble than ever with the two fundamentalists, because they had told us we would never bring anyone to Christ in Hong Kong -- it was too difficult a field. Derek and Ruth were their next-door neighbors and attended the same Bible study. I often wonder how Rick and I always managed to get into so much trouble when we think we are minding our own business.

The students couldn't come on Thursday evenings because of school the next day, so they requested a Saturday meeting. Like Topsy it grew. Carole Wood was dating Stuart Gill and she told him what was happening. Stu came and received. Stu told Martha Baker, the Anglican bishop's daughter. Marther brought a friend and they both were given new languages by God. Hugh Jagger was head boy (equivalent of student body president) that year; Martha Baker was head girl; and now the bishop was involved. Rick and I looked at each other helplessly and called Mrs Baker and invited them to lunch so we could explain what was going on. But it seems Martha had already told them and Martha was the apple of their eye, so things were not too complicated. Yet.

A Baptist missionary's daughter had been one of the original eight. Her father was much distressed. He was sure it was of God, but he was against it because it wasn't strictly Baptist. By this time, the group Gail and I were cooking dinner for on Saturday night was up to around twenty-five, and nearly every denomination was represented. It had gone beyond party lines.

The adults liked to come on Saturdays more than Thursdays because the kids were happy and eager and would yield to the gifts of the Spirit. One night there were about thirty-five, and a woman from the Cathedra was present. She was strongly opposed to the old-fashioned Gospel songs we had been singing and was looking pretty grim. After everyone went home I said to Rick, "She's angry and she could cause us a lot of trouble -- she's been around a long time at the Cathedra." Rick said, "The bishop was sitting across from her happily singing his heart out. Who's she gonna tell?" And that seemed to be the way it was. God appeared to have everything well in hand. Incidentally, the woman ended up baptized with the Spirit, but she wasn't sure it was real. God awakened her one night and she saw a vision. After that she didn't doubt the reality. She became so much more outgoing and happy that the kids at school (she was a teacher) decided she had fallen in love -- and isn't that what it's all about?

A young girl confided to another in a whisper, "Hugh Jagger thinks he has direct communication with God." The other girl, a Lutheran minister's daughter said, "Like what?"

"I don't know, but I'm going to find out."

The Lutheran minister's daughter, Melissa Singer, attended the Saturday night meeting. We sang a bit and there were several prayers and suddenly Melissa spoke out in a rather belligerent tone, "My father is a pastor and he doesn't speak in tongues, and he says he doesn't need to. What do you say to that?" I said, "I say that's his business." In a quavering voice Melissa said, "Then why is my heart pounding and why am I starting to cry?" Melissa went into the bedroom and came out a Christian -- filled with the Spirit.

But pixie-like Melissa had a problem. She suffered a pronounced twitch that she had had from the time she was four years old. Neither doctors nor psychiatrists had been able to help. A daughter of another Lutheran missionary said nastily to Melissa, "If this gift is from God why do you still twitch?" Melissa asked why. We suggested she fast all day Saturday and come early for prayer. We fasted with her, and when we prayed she was instantly healed -- to the amazement of the family missionary doctor!

Another student who was affected by the move of the Spirit was Sarah Searcy, a friend of Martha Baker. Sarah had gone to a convent school but had emerged an agnostic. By the time she accompanied Martha to SNAG (Saturday Night Agape Group) she had already become a secret believer simply through hearing of God's actions. On the night Martha asked me to pray with Sarah for the Holy Spirit I told the girls to go and pray themselves. They came out of the other room bursting with delight and with cheeks like pink peonies.

One by one, the Harding children were baptized in the Holy Spirit and they requested a children's group. It closely resembled the Mad Hatter's Tea Party. The children ranged in ages from six through thirteen, and they came directly from school for tea. It was not unusual to glimpse a cup of tea, saucer and all, flying through the air. The kids spent about as much time mopping up the spills as they did drinking their tea, and cakes and buns were everywhere. But they loved the gatherings, and their contributions evidenced remarkable originality and perception. One day one of them inquired, "Can you be a Christian and a Catholic?"

"How about Sophie?" Sophie was the daughter of a French merchant and a committed member.

"Oh."

"But can you be a Christian if you don't go to church at all?"

"What about Margaret?" Margaret was a government official's daughter, and was not allowed to attend church although she believed and was filled with the Spirit.

"Oh."

I took the opportunity to give a dissertation on the merits of attending church regularly if possible.

"But church is so boring!"

"Do you find your meeting boring?"

"Oh, no!"

"But in a sense it is a church since the Church is the people of God."

"It's different."

"In what way?"

"They always do the same things. They sing the same songs and the priest says prayers and preaches. In our meetings the Holy Spirit does things."

"Then what's the answer?"

"Ooooooooooh. If the priest had the Holy Spirit he would let the Spirit run the meeting!"

From out of the mouths of babes --

By this time the older students were being regenerated and empowered on street corners while talking with their friends.

Once at a dinner party a music teacher said to me, "What do you think about religion? I used to be an atheist but now I think all religions are good. It doesn't really matter what it is as long as you believe in it. What do you think?"

And I told her. A government official's wife listening to us began to weep and said, "I wish I had met you twenty years ago."

Within the year the teacher had established a relationship with Jesus Christ and had a new language. Then she set down the music for the songbook we printed of the songs which had been given to the group by the Spirit. How practical of God to involve a musician!

The second day of school Suzy had come home singing, confided her Indian girl friend now knew Christ, and burst into tears of relief. But the pressure is tough for an Indian because of group opposition. The girl decided not to believe because it would cause her trouble. (How do you make yourself not believe?) When so many of her friends began receiving the Spirit, she came along and one afternoon broke down and cried and asked Jesus to heal her little brother. She was then baptized with the Spirit but was afraid to tell anyone, because her older brother had been threatened with expulsion from the family when he became a Christian. Some months later a friend of her mother asked if she spoke in tongues and she quickly said, "Oh, you have to be a Christian to do that," hoping the friend would believe she did not and would not tell her mother. What she didn't know, I later discovered, was that some of the Indian community had seen the improvement in the little brother since she began going to meetings and if speaking in tongues was that much of a cure-all, they wanted to know more about it!

Gwen Schmidt, the woman who had given Richard the hundred dollar bill in the church, telephoned. She had met a Swedish Pentecostal missionary who was violently anti-tongues. This struck us as funny. How could a Pentecostal be against tongues, when that is the only excuse for the Pentecostal denomination? Gwen said the missionary refused to attend our prayer meeting, and could she bring her to see us? I suggested they come to tea.

When Gwen and Margaretha Ribberfors, the good-looking Swedish missionary, arrived, we had another guest. Jackie Pullinger, an Anglican and a missionary, had dropped in unexpectedly. We later discovered Jackie had been one of the first people Margaretha had met in Hong Kong. Gail and Rick were present, and the six of us had tea and sandwiches. Some of us talked about God and one of us was not very pleased. Tall, blonde, icy Miss Ribberfors broke in with, "I think you people are fanatics to talk about God over the tea cups." We said we felt if you were in love you liked to talk about the object of your affection, and we found it normal to discuss God. She was unconvinced. When we came to the subject of the Holy Spirit and she discovered friendly, normal, young Jackie also spoke in tongues, she became very agitated. It was obvious she considered speaking in tongues a frenzied emotional experience for unstable people. I later discovered this was due to some things she had witnessed in the past. We tried to explain that it wasn't that way and when I pointed out one could speak in tongues at any time, without an emotional build up, she burst out, "Please, don't!" and looked quite frightened.

I could hardly believe her attitude -- this from a Pentecostal missionary. I told her God must deplore her behavior and feelings concerning His gifts. She and Gwen left and had a talk on the way to Kowloon.

We were all grieved and prayed for the girl for about half an hour. I prayed, "Lord, You can do anything. Fill her with the Spirit on the way home." The next morning Gwen telephoned and said Margaretha had called to say she had begun speaking in tongues driving home to Rennie's Mill!

The change in Margaretha was phenomenal. Before, although she was a missionary-nurse, she did nothing spiritual for her patients. Suddenly people began coming to her inquiring how to become Christians. From a bored missionary with no witness, she became an effectual Christian loved by everyone. She was the only Protestant I knew who was invited by the nuns to their private retreats -- and she a Pentecostal. Jean Darnall used to say if the Pentecostals became and colder and the Catholics kept growing warmer, everyone would wind up in the Episcopal Church. Looking around the room at our integrated, charismatic, ecumenical prayer group, I wondered what the future did hold.

The people attending the meetings were a conglomeration of Protestants, Catholics and previously unchurched. When she went to confession one of the Catholic girls shared her experience and was forbidden to attend meetings again. We seriously began to pray for God to send a Roman Catholic priest who had entered the Pentecostal dimension. A few weeks after we had begun praying in this fashion we were invited to a musical recital at a friend's house. The people in attendance were primarily American missionaries and Chinese Pentecostals, and they looked religious. The Chief of Police of Singapore was present. He was not religious and didn't want to be. I think he picked me out to talk to because I didn't look like a missionary. The poor dear was in for a shock -- I told him everything, and in spite of himself he was completely fascinated. On the other side of me was a Chinese lady who seemed disturbed by our discussing anything so unorthodox as speaking in tongues. She turned to talk to the nice "safe" Roman Catholic priest beside her. I drew him into the conversation, and when it developed that he knew exactly what I was talking about and spoke in tongues himself, it was almost too much for her. God had answered our prayers -- He had sent a charismatic Catholic priest.

The next week the priest asked Rick and me to speak at a retreat in a convent on the subjects of justification by faith and the baptism of the Holy Spirit. When the retreat ended he and the nun in charge of religious instruction for the order joined us for dinner. In the restaurant country-western music was playing and it was there the nun decided she desired the gift. There was no convenient place to go. She said God was everywhere and there was no reason she should not receive in the restaurant -- and she did! Since both the priest and the nun were in mufti and we were all four quietly speaking in tongues before the interested waiters and customers, I think we may have brought reproach on the Pentecostal denominations that night! Those Catholics don't know the rules any better than the Episcopalians do.

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