Living an 'ACTS' Life in South Sudan

Last year, I met some people whose lives fit into the ‘radical’ lifestyle that was the norm for those living in the church we see in the book of Acts.  He is a doctor working with refugees here in Australia.  She, an Occupational Therapist, is one of those people you automatically feel at home with, as if you’ve been sisters for life.

They have an incredible dream.  Heading toward the world’s youngest country, South Sudan, they plan to work amongst the broken and downtrodden.  In their own family mission statement they say:

“We believe God wants us to be His hands and feet amongst the people of South Sudan.  He has given us a clear mission as a family – to join with others in re-building South Sudan…

• By providing health care to women and children
• By promoting the value and values of God-honouring families
• By proclaiming the gospel of Jesus Christ, in words and deeds
• By praying that God’s Name and His Ways would be honoured”

This second point might sound strange, but in a country where families are torn apart, kids are orphaned, fathers killed by war, to model a family that honours God is huge.  And this family, in their beautiful vulnerability, will do it well.  Sharing their skills, their lives, their resources, their faith… they would fit well into the church we find in Acts.

Check out their website:  www.servantsofsouthsudan.net

LIKE their Facebook page: The Poole Family in South Sudan https://www.facebook.com/#!/PooleFamilyInSouthSudan

For more information visit: www.pioneers.org.au
or see Pioneers of Australia Facebook page at https://www.facebook.com/#!/pioneersau

Next blog: The Shema – Living Jesus Out Loud

Living an 'ACTS' Life

Some time ago a friend pointed me to Francis Chan’s sermons on YouTube.  Being the gifted communicator that he is, most of his sermons make you want to immediately go and change the world! But one in particular struck me.  In this talk he uses a balance beam as a prop.  After sharing a bit of his life history, he lies on the beam, hugging it.  No jumps and twirls (which, after seeing this live at the Commonwealth Games 2010, I’m much more impressed with), no cartwheels, no flippy dismounts.  Then, mid powerful monologue, he simply climbs off and does the Olympic hands in the air ‘thank you’. 

His challenge? When our lives are over and we stand before God, many of us will want credit for the great performance our lives have been, but all we’ve done is hug the ‘balance beam of Christian life’ and dismount.

“I want my life to fit in this,” Francis Chan says in another YouTube video, holding up his Bible.  Implicit in this is the question, If we were to hold our lives up to the radical lives that we see in the early church (especially in the book of Acts), would our lives fit, or would we be “living on the bearable surface of things,” as one writer pens? 

When I first saw this balance beam YouTube, I was living in Nth India, working with the poor.  Maybe, just maybe, on a good day, if I held my life and my work up against the Acts church, it wasn’t too different.  But I’m now back in Australia.  What about now?  What about you?  Rather than ‘normal’ being modelled by the culture around me, I want to have the radical nature of the gospel of Jesus Christ as my standard. For that to be my normal. 

What’s your normal?

For more information, visit: www.pioneers.org.au

Next blog: What’s it like living an ‘Acts’ life in the youngest nation on earth?

Planting among Hippies in South East Asia

Curled up on a stone seat overlooking the murky Ganga River, she begins to talk. Below her are hordes of people; Half-naked Sadhus, travellers ladened with backpacks trying to look somewhat savvy in a world so different to their own, bedraggled kids rushing around with their hands full of floating candles and other trinkets for sale, men bathing in the shallows, devotees coming to the river to worship. Buffalo and stray dogs look for food, and boats softly make their way back and forth, packed with pilgrims fulfilling a life-long dream to visit this ancient city.

I’ll call her Goldberry because she reminds me of the character from Lord of the Rings, with golden hair and a voice like a bell. She, her husband and their son have been living in India for five or so years now. They run a Jesus Ashram, where they invite travellers to come for meditations on Jesus. They fall easily into conversation with eclectic peoples from Europe, Asia, India, Australia, the Americas, you name it, and invite them home for chai or a chat about Jesus or a place to sleep.

“It’s not an easy life”, she says, eyes fixed on a distant point, “but we know it’s where God has planted our family.”

Planting is an important metaphor for Goldberry. “I think beauty itself speaks directly about God. It reflects part of who He is,” a smile playing on her lips as she meanders throughout the garden she planted. Looking around, I see her creative touches everywhere. I see, too, how it reflects Jesus to others. How the beauty of this garden, the wall art, and the sacred space they have set apart within the Ashram, bears witness. They are living Jesus out loud in this hard place.

For more information, visit: www.pioneers.org.au

Next blog:  Living an 'Acts' life