Jackie Pullinger shares her testimony of faith and sacrifice, illustrating the profound impact of unconditional love and service to others, particularly the needy. She recounts her experience of selling her beloved oboe to help a girl in trouble, emphasizing that true ministry is not about expecting gratitude or change but about reflecting the love of Jesus, who gave His life for us without conditions. Pullinger's encounter with a gang leader highlights the importance of living out the gospel through actions and genuine care, rather than mere words. Ultimately, she stresses that the essence of ministry lies in sharing our lives and love with others, just as Christ did for us.

But it's a musical instrument. And I had, this is one of the things that I studied in London, and this is a very special oboe. Actually, to an oboist, his oboe or her oboe is always special, because it's yours. You've chosen it, and you know how it works, and it suits you, and you've worked on it. And I thought, why, no, no, no, not that. You know, I, no, no, no, no. The Lord would never mean me to give that up. Anyway, I didn't say anything to the boy, and we prayed together. And as we prayed, I had a message in tongues, and he had the interpretation. And the interpretation of the message was roughly this. If Jesus gave up his life for you, what's an oboe? All right, Lord, I said. I mean, what's an oboe? So I went out to the girl, and I said, Look, I'll give you the money on two conditions. First of all, I hand over the money myself. I'm not going to give it to you. I'll give it to the loan sharks. Secondly, I want you really to consider a new life in Jesus. We'll give you any help you like. We'll find a place for you to live. We'll help you get a job. We'll support you so that you can start a new life. And she said, No way. She said, The loan shark won't talk to you. It has to be me. And I said, Well, those are my conditions. So in the end, she agreed. And she set up this appointment for me in the middle of the night. We sat at a cafe. And this was outside the wall city. And at midnight, and I'd taken all, I'd sold my oboe and got all these dollar bills used in a brown envelope. And this was going to be very exciting, you see. And Michael, the loan shark, never turned up. But he sent three or four of his heavies along instead. And they all sort of creature car tires as they drove up to the cafe. And they kept the car running outside. And in came these men, you see. And they came over to the table. And they saw her. And they picked up the envelope. And they quickly counted the money. And they walked out. And I thought, Oh, this has gone a bit too quick. You see, I was very disappointed. So I called to the men. I said, Hey, stop. And they looked around. And I said, Excuse me, but I want you to take a message to your leader. And they said, What do you want? And I said, No, I want to give a message to your leader. And they said, Well, you can tell us. And I said, No, I have to tell it myself. This is very important. And they said, No, he won't speak to you. And I said, I insist upon it. So will you please arrange that? So they took my phone number. And later on, the leader, called Michael, phoned me. And when he telephoned me, he arranged for me to go to his nightclub. He operated a big nightclub on the 21st floor of a building. And when I got up there, they had to let me in with a three feet long golden key. And I found out that this was a club for sophisticated businessmen. And this is where Maria would have worked. Because upstairs, there were cages for the girls. Downstairs, there was a bar, thickly carpeted with teddy bears everywhere. It's a very weird place. And I sat down, and Michael wouldn't talk to me. He sent other people over. Later on, he came down, and he sat down. And he said, I suppose you think you're really clever. He said, I suppose you think you've done something really noble, don't you? Well, he said, I know all about Jesus. He said, you don't have to tell me about him. In fact, he said, people in Hong Kong should be grateful to me, because I find missing children. The reason that he found missing children was that as he was a gang leader, he knew where many of them were, as they were in brothels and so on. And he operated this service for parents whose children were run away. And he thought he was doing a reasonable job, because he'd got 11 brothers and sisters, and he needed to support them. And I said, I want to tell you about Jesus. And he said, oh, you don't need to tell me all of that. He said, you think you've done something good for that girl, don't you? Well, you haven't. He said, she'll teach you. She'll never change. She'll go right back and do the same thing. He said it was a wasted gesture. He's very good at talking. And I said, well, when Jesus died for me, you see, he didn't die when I promised to change. He died whether I was going to change or not. He laid down his life for me because he loved me. And I said, that's what I want to do for her. I'd rather pay the money for her and give her the opportunity to be saved rather than be hard-hearted and cynical and see her go to hell. I said, now it's up to her. This is her choice what she does with it or not. But I'd rather be the fool and give her the opportunity for a new life because that's what Jesus did for me. And he opened his mouth to speak back. And he was struck dumb. He couldn't speak. He couldn't speak for about ten minutes. No words came. He tried. Nothing came out and his eyes just filled with tears. And then at the end of ten minutes he said, I have nothing more to say. A man nearby had heard. And he later followed me out and he accepted Jesus and came to new life. But Michael heard the gospel and he understood it. That's what it is. And when you come to minister to the poor and the hungry and the needy, remember that you don't minister to people who are going to be grateful. You don't minister conditionally. You don't minister because they're going to change. You don't love them. If they repent, you're willing to lay your life down whether they appreciate it or not. That's what Jesus did. And that's what St. Paul said in 1 Thessalonians chapter 1 verse 5. He said, we live among you. And we preach the gospel not simply with words, but also with power, with the Holy Spirit and deep conviction. You know how we have lived among you for your sake. And then he said to them, we loved you so much that we were delighted to share with you not only the gospel of God but our lives as well because you have become so dear to us. Surely you remember, brothers, our toil and hardship. We worked night and day in order not to be a burden to anyone while we preached the gospel to you. And may it be that our lives do indeed testify to other people that we love them. We don't just say the words and leave them. But we share with our lives. We want to share our lives because they were given by Jesus. So what happened in Hong Kong? Our fruits became more and more and more. And there was a gang leader in the walled city who controlled, indirectly, he controlled 10,000 of the 14,000. That particular triad worldwide is 100,000. And his part in the walled city and the surrounding areas is just about 10,000. And his immediate followers were smaller. Because in the triad society everybody has a big brother. And the big brother has a big brother. And he has a big brother. And he has a big brother. That's how you can be in control of so many. And after a few years, I had never met him. But we got to have tea together. And he said to me, he said, we've been watching you. And he said, many people come to Hong Kong. We're not impressed. He said, they stand on platforms and they sing about Jesus. Well, he said, give us an aeroplane ticket round the world and we'd believe. It doesn't touch us. He said, those missionaries, they've still got their air conditioners, their refrigerators. And he said, us, we're still here. So he said, we can usually get them out in six months. They're usually depressed by then. They're discouraged. But he said, when you've been here four years, we thought maybe you meant what you said. He said, all that time, we weren't listening. He said, you can have a program giving out rice. He said, you can have hymn singing every night. You can have judo classes or needlework. He said, we don't care what your program is. We don't mind if you've got a little room or a big church. What we want to know is.