Free Chasing the Dragon by Jackie Pullinger

received this gift, but no one had ever been willing to discuss it. The idea of a new language in which you could speak fluently and express all the thoughts of your heart to God was wonderful. 2 But I thought that it was something that you had to be rather advanced andspiritual to get. I shut my mouth firmly. If God was going to give me this gift, He was going to do it, not me.
    “Now you begin speaking, now you begin speaking.”
    I was acutely embarrassed and began to get cross with them. I felt hotter and hotter and more and more uncomfortable. Here I was not speaking in tongues, and they were going to be so disappointed that nothing had happened. They need not have prepared the wet flannels and the oranges—they were not going to need either plate. Eventually, I could not stand it any longer, so I opened my mouth to say, “Help me, God.” And then it happened.
    As soon as I made the conscious effort to open my mouth, I found that I could speak freely in a language I had never learned. It was a beautiful articulate tongue, soft and coherent in that there was a clear speech pattern with modulated rise and fall. I was never in any doubt that I had received the sign that I had asked for. But there was no accompanying exultation. I had imagined being lifted up into praise and glory, but it was a most unemotional experience.
    The Chinese pair were delighted that I had spoken, although a little surprised that I was not in a flood of tears. However, they cried to make up for it, and their old mother had a good weep too. I still felt extremely embarrassed and left their house as soon as I could. I was very glad that this experience had not happened to me in front of British people.
    As I got to the door, they said, “Oh, you can expect the other gifts of the Spirit to appear now.” At the time, I did not understand what they meant.
    Every day for the next week or so, I waited for the gift of healing or the gift of prophecy to pop up. These were the only other gifts of the Spirit I had heard about, although I now know there are nine. 3 I knew that in England two of the ministers I most respected used these gifts, and they certainly were most effective in their ministry. I also knew that there was an MP’s wife who had the gift of healing. They followed Bible teaching carefully, so there was no doubt in my mind as to the rightness of the gifts ortheir usefulness, but I did not know how you knew when you had received them. How do you know if you have healing?
    I remained puzzled, too, that I was still very cool about this great spiritual event. I had read books like
They Speak in Other Tongues
, which left me with the impression that this experience should make me walk on the mountaintops or sit on a cloud brimming over with love. I wondered if I had not got the right thing; maybe it was all vastly overrated, anyway. I went around Hong Kong trying to find someone who would talk to me about it, but no one would. Missionary friends said darkly, “Something very dangerous happened in China and there was a split between the groups.” Even more surprising, the Pentecostal churches would not talk about it. I went to their services—they still retained the noise, the handclapping and the repeated
amens
and
hallelujahs
—but the gifts of the Spirit were absent. The Pentecostal missionaries explained that they had made a pact with the Evangelicals not to discuss these things because they could not agree about them. They agreed to talk only about Jesus. But I could see that the gifts were in the Bible; they came from God, so how could they be dangerous? 4
    As months passed, I began to dismiss the whole subject. This experience had not patently changed my Christian life; in fact, if anything, life became even more difficult about this time. I was still rushing around the Walled City, going to some kind of Christian meeting every night, trying with every ounce of my being to help people, but nobody seemed to have been helped. I felt