The Least of These...

I've applied for a 4 month internship in Sierra Leone with a wonderful community called Word Made Flesh. It runs from August to December, and I'll find out on April 5th whether I got accepted.
I'm also heading back to Zambia in July, for a very exciting project which I'll talk about on this blog soon!
This being said, I've been reading and meditating and learning so much over the past year about what it means to live in community with the poor, to be broken and share life together, and how Christ manifests himself to us in the opressed and vulnerable and marginalized, in order that they might lead us to the heart of God. I've written on this topic here before, but below are some thoughts. I didn't write them, but I absolutely agree with them, and will wrestle more along these lines soon..


WHAT THE POOR HAVE TO TEACH US:
* They know how deep our world needs redemption.
* They rest their security not on things but on people
* They have no exaggerated sense of their own importance and no exaggerated need of privacy.
* They expect little from competition and much from cooperation.
* They can distinguish between necessities and luxuries.
* They are patient, because they have known dependence.
* Their fears are more realistic and less exaggerated, because they already know that one can survive great suffering and want.
* They can respond to Jesus with an abandonment and uncomplicated totality-- because they have little left to lose.