Delaware County District Library

Pillars, how Muslim friends led me closer to Jesus, Rachel Pieh Jones

eng

autobiography

no index present

non fiction

Pillars

Rachel Pieh Jones

how Muslim friends led me closer to Jesus

When Rachel Pieh Jones moved from Minnesota to rural Somalia with her husband and twin toddlers eighteen years ago, she was secure in a faith that defined who was right and who was wrong, who was saved and who needed saving. She had been taught that Islam was evil, full of lies and darkness, and that the world would be better without it. Jones recounts, often entertainingly, the personal encounters and growing friendships that gradually dismantle her unspoken fears and prejudices and deepen her appreciation for Islam. Unexpectedly, along the way she also gains a far richer understanding of her own Christian faith. Grouping her stories around the five pillars of Islam - creed, prayer, fasting, giving, and pilgrimage - Jones shows how her Muslim friends' devotion to these pillars leads her to rediscover ancient Christian practices her own religious tradition has lost or neglected

Who names God? -- Meeting a Muslim -- Islam in Minnesota -- Go -- Arrive -- Convert or revert -- Infidel -- The garden -- Thirst -- Call to prayer -- Danger -- Call to bread -- Jinn -- Outsider -- Unsettled and resettled -- Blessed -- Excluded and included -- God's names -- Give -- With the poor -- The hard work of unemployment -- Support -- Gratitude and unbelief -- A widow's coin -- Feasting to famine to fasting -- Failed fast -- Night of power -- Community and communion -- Tawhid and shirk -- Lent and locusts -- Chosen -- Exile or pilgrim -- Pilgrims and guides -- My pilgrimage -- Back to the breaking place -- I could kill you -- Home