(I am simply passing this on to challenge our perspectives - MA)

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I’m a simple little white girl from Florida who is now in Sudan taking in orphanage children to live with her.

I was really relieved when Jesus called me to move to Sudan and out of the West.  When I got here I realised I was ten times more religious than anything I have ever seen and the Christian south is an absolute cartoon mockery. As caricature of all of the things of the religious system called Christianity, with all the avarice it breeds.  Leaders who actually know Jesus estimate maybe only three percent of His people actually know who Jesus is, really.

When I was in the simple church movement in the west with campus churches a few months into it I realized I was training people how to plant churches so nicely they could do it without God. And a few months more it seemed to me we were producing another box we were trying to contain God in and saying our box was better than the other boxes.  Now, after nearing two years in the war-torn bush of central Africa, I don’t really give a rip whether it’s a house church or a legacy church or a cell church or an open church, a sitting room a sanctuary or a stadium if people are growing in Jesus, walking in love with one another and being the face of His love to the world around them, it is just about love and life and Him.

I don’t want to have to figure out whether I should embrace the system, conform, reform or vacate. I don’t have time. Other things are too precious. I just want to do what he is doing and love other people. I don’t want to debate ‘what is the right way to have a church?’ I don’t give a rip because it can all become a box in a prison if it is not filled with His life anyway.  So why can’t we all just focus on Him and fall in love with Him and love the people around us?

I don’t want to figure it all out, I can’t.  I was just holding a dying woman in the hospitals here whose family will not feed her or help her because the stench of rotting flesh is too bad and she soils herself and people are arguing if they should meet in homes or buildings.

Last week a blind woman saw, this week another woman lay dying in my arms.  I cannot figure it out – I can’t even try anymore. If I can’t embrace His mystery and love beyond my little understanding I will limit the place I give to His majesty to be revealed in and through my life.  Meet under a tree, rent a cathedral, go on a hike with your family but love people.  Learn about Him, live in Him, have an encounter with Him, live in the encounter with Him, be His encounter to those around you.  That is what He said to me last night.  Can’t we just do that?  I don’t have any answers or anything except a heart cry to love each person He sets in front of me and to stay in His presence because I love Him more than I love anything. He is my life. … I met Him face to face when I was seven and have heard very few describe the One who I met face to face when I was seven.
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