Poverty

When there are streams of sadness on their faces and still an incessant faith in Jesus, who are the impoverished? When social lives are sacrificed in order to serve, who are the rich? Why do our houses, packed with square footage and clothes that we will never use, consistute us as rich? Why do our broken spirits and selfishness not get put into the equation? What of these Paraguayan lives, who daily demonstrate the fruits of the spirit -- are they not rich?
Lately we've been wrestling with the notion of poverty and all of its implications: whether spiritual, emotional, mental, or monetary. We've been struggling with ideas of Western "superiority", personal poverties, and God's will. It's an interesting notion to reconsider what our patented definitions have been of the word. Paraguay has been an amazing challenge, that have pushed our perceptions of the word daily on how we view others and how we view our own impoverished states.