Papa Bread

yesterday i went to a big international christian church in khartoum with some of the older boys. i basically judged the entire service. it was mostly white, mostly english, and completely structured. we sang from a book and stood and sat when we were told. we listened to a keyboardist, sat in nice chairs, and ate snacks afterwards. the boys loved it; i hated it. just 6 hours before, on sunday morning, we had our usual church service on the center under our rakuba (bamboo-roof structure). just me and 12 boys or so, jumping around, laughing and dancing, praising Jesus and listening to each other share and pray. one of our little guys, tong, stood up on a bench and lead us in a couple songs while other boys banged on the dented iron table and plastic crates. as i sat in my chair in khartoum 6 hours later, i wondered which one was church. i also wondered why. why do so many of us westerners come here, to this demolished people, packing our cocoa puffs and play stations, picking out the nicest houses in our budget, and then raise our families together to recreate the same environment we have just left? who are we reaching out to? when is reaching out more than just leaving the comfort of your home country but leaving the comfort of your life? i am really not here to say that this person is doing good and that person isn't. there are too many things i don't know, including how God's love is working in the lives of people i've never met. i can't even say that everyone's supposed to drop what they're doing and live in a mud hut. but something happened in my spirit when i looked around at this thing called church-i do know some things. i know we are supposed to be a living, breathing, moving being, a bride that hurts for each of its members and that equally cares for them. i want to know the pains of living as a refugee in my own country with 300,000 others, to feel hopeless and jobless and tired. but where's the line? giving up you're own culture and identity is lying to yourself...and shouldn't be done to prove a point...but there is simply one truth: if you follow Christ, your identity and culture IS Christ, and to be more like Him is to be less like yourself, to value less those things which you value more, to sacrifice your loves for His Love.

you know, when i was praying the other morning, i think God gave me a new name for Him. first in arabic-"baba esh". in english, this means "papa bread". that's His name-Papa Bread. He is the bread of life, the first and final feeding for His creation. we drink of His cup, eat of His life. we are His church, and we've got a lot of people to feed. this reminded me that living with the poor and being like the destitute should exist for only one reason-to demonstrate who Papa Bread is. to demonstrate, like Christ did for the woman at the well, that no matter how many donkeys pulling water into your IDP camp, how much rice from UN aid, you will never be quenched, you will never be satisfied, until you receive from Papa Bread. that's church. when we can learn to live in such a way, to get down and hurt with people who are hurting in such a way that they wonder who or what makes us chose this life of pain to live along side them. that as we do, we are amidst a beauty, a Papa, that motivates us to leave our gods Familiarity and Comfort, that we might be humbled to share His everlasting gift of life with others.