Purity

Recently, our team along with a volunteer team, hosted teaching on "True Love Waits" for the youth of our local churches. We knew going into it that it was going to be a cultural challenge for the youth, as the idea of abstinence goes against much of what their family and society reveres. With so many cultural barriers, most of which we do not understand, much sensitivity is needed. With this first teaching we did learn a lot about the cultural understanding of sex and sin. For instance, one story shared was the story of Amnon and Tamar (Amnon rapes his 1/2 sister). While as Americans we tend to focus on the sin being the deception and rape, here the focus is on the the sin being that of sleeping with a sibling. Also, when the girls were asked whether or not Tamar had sinned - all of them said yes. It seems that they related her sin to the impure state she was left in, opposed to the action of choosing sin. It was really interesting to hear these Christian youth's thoughts, as they have intermingled their culture's view with their Biblical understanding (just as we do in America!). Overall the time was great, as we were able to answer a lot of really important questions and open comfortable dialogue on many of the issues Christian youth face in Madagascar.