Lessons

Today was a lot of learning. We learned a lot about what we're going to be doing in North Africa, about the culture and such. We got to talk to the missionary's wife. It was very interesting to hear how different the culture is between men and women. Obviously, that's something of interest to the media and they like to harp it, but I don't think they really understand how much the men and women have developed such dissimilar ways of life.

Oppression

Being a wife and mother isn't oppression. Submission to your husband isn't oppression. Wearing a skirt isn't oppression.

Having to stand behind a screen so the men can't see you. Having to cover every part of your body lest you cause the men to sin. Never leaving the home, never getting an education because you're considered inferior. That's oppression.

Being in a religion with no hope of salvation, stuck in a repetitive cycle of prayers and rituals based on folklore, word of mouth, and a religion corrupted by centuries of selfishness and politics.

That's oppression.

A Morrocan Meal

No pictures today and a rather short post. (I have a cold. Please pray for it to disappear before I have to fly out!)

We ate Morrocan food for lunch, Morrocan style, which means we ate useing pieces of bread and our hands... our right hands. (I'm left-handed)

Try this: Sit down at a table and eat a meal without utensils with your weak hand.

It was good food, but hard to eat!

Temples

Why would you build a work of art dedicated to a religion based on uncertainty? We visited two temples today. One was a Buddist temple, which was just in a normal building, but the second was a Hindu temple. It was beautiful, stainless white with intricately carved pieces set together like a puzzle, solid without any metal reinforcing. But it was a white seplchure for a dead religion. In this case a sect of Hinduism that bases its worship around a Hindu reformer called Swaminarayan, a recent addition to the Hindu gods. Or rather the incarnation of the one god as the Hindu guide explained to us. One of the few things he could explain. It seems to be a small very liberal sect of Hinduism. Like more liberal Christians they embrace all religions. After all, we all worship the same god, we just called it by differant names!

...don't we?

I Cor. 10:20

"But I say, that the things which the Gentiles sacrifice, they sacrifice to devils, and not to God: and I would not that ye should have fellowship with devils."

Deut 4:35

"Unto thee it was shewed, that thou mightest know that the LORD he is God; there is none else beside him."

The Braves Won...

Went door-to-door today in a neighborhood that had a sampling of probably every third-world country. I actually got to have some good conversations with several. There was one older boy that seemed very interested in the gospel. We were using a pamphlet for Muslims that uses the first three chapters of Genesis and the life of Adam to present that plan of salvation. A great example of how the good news is written in almost every word of that wonderful Book.

And we went to a baseball game and the Braves won.

Vision Baptist

You find churches in the most unusual places. This one is in an office park, which turns out to be the perfect place for a church! Once you're inside you forget that you're in a neighborhood full of offices.

Clapping

The oddest sound I have ever heard in an airport is clapping. What do you clap for in an airport? I was wandering around the Atlanta airport trying to decide which of the two million luggage pick up points my luggage was going to be coming to when I heard the beginning of a wave, a wave of a clapping and whistles and cheers. I paused my search and turned to see... a parade? Not a parade, but a line of soldiers led by a USO with a banner and as they passed people clapped.
And I clapped too.
We tend to forget our troops. They're not part of our daily lives. They're not something we think of. The war 'over there' has been pushed out of the news by celebrities and the elections. 9/11 is a blurry piece of history. It's all to far away from us and I include me in that us. That parade of soldiers reminded me that those soldiers are still out there. It isn't a time of peace and we shouldn't treat it like it is.

In other news, I'm safe and sound in Atlanta. I'm staying with a very nice family and attending a camp at Vision Baptist Church. They're great people, very enthusiastic and I feel right at home!

-- In Christ