Christian thoughts from everyday life in and around the three cities.
A UNIFORM SCENT.
Most days we can see children going to or from local schools in their pale blue, khaki brown or light grey 'battledress' uniforms. Comboni students wear dark trousers with white shirts, and have a school name badge sewn on somewhere. Unity pupils wear navy, black and white. Kimu charitable school Soba Aradi requests royal blue and white, while 'neat discretion' is the dress code of the American School.
The very first Christians were noticed by those around them, simply because "they were unschooled men, who had been with Jesus". It was not because they dressed in special clothing.
If you've been working with a smoky fire, the smell clings to your clothes and other people notice it. I turned a heap of composting vegetable and fruit peelings recently, and I could smell it on my person for days - even after several showers! Fishermen get so used to their particular aroma that I'm told they hardly ever notice it, although other people might find them high!
Genuine Christians living among people from other faiths (or none) will emit catching fragrances. Their intimate relationship with Jesus Christ is attractive. Its 'sweet forgiveness', 'gentle peace', 'sacrificial love', and 'solid hope' make onlookers sometimes
wish they could they could have these perfumes for themselves.
Compulsory uniforms display to which school a child belongs. Pervading odours reveal where a person has been, or what they have just been doing.
As you walk through your everyday life this week, pray that heads around you will turn to look. Pray people will notice you belong to, and have been with, Jesus. This is the attraction all the people of Sudan need to see.