AfricaBrief: How do you know what to do if you don't go to church? to bible study? I'll tell you what a very old, very christian lady told me while preparing me to be her speaker for the dead. She came from a family of homesteaders in the area of Kettle Falls, Washington, USA and they lived surrounded by thousands of acres of deep mountain forests and high meadows. Miles and miles from any town and no neighbors in site but family. Her grandaddy had the talk every few years with the new batch of youngsters, explaining why they didn't make that trip to town on a weekly basis. As his tale went, he would show them in the bible where it said "Go into your closet and pray". Then, "wherever two or more of you are gathered in His name, there is Love.". And to top it off - "thou shalt build no man-made temple in which to worship." Explaining that "your body is your temple and your closet is your inner most room, that is where your praying needs to be taking place, not out here where you'd be saying what you think I want to hear, but conversating in your own heart, listening for the Word inside your own self." "There's plenty of us living right here to be showing all that Love, because who better needs it than the ones you live around, day in and day out?" 'Since it would take 5 hours one way in the horse-drawn wagon, we don't be going to town but a couple times a year and we don't be taking all of you kids. So we be reading and studying every thing we can get our hands on and loving each other right here at home. You'll know the difference between right and wrong and if you can't figure that out with your own free will from the voice inside your heart where the Word speaks to each one of us, then no church building anywhere is gonna be giving you that." Sharlene McMullen Larsen