Average

The other day Monica and I were laying in bed looking around our room at the dirty walls, tin roof, rats running across the rafters, the bedsheet that was our door, the concrete floor w/ geckos running across it, and just how different it was compared to homes in America We began talking about "could you imagine living with the rats for life?" and "this is home for our family, they've never known any different.." Then it hit us- this is home for most of the world. This is average. Right now we are living in normal conditions when compared with the rest of the world! In America, I used to think our 4 person/ 4 bathroom house was average- middle class. Now I'm begininng to see America is SO rich, and it makes me sick to think I was once in the mindset that I was a "poor college student."

I watched Rob Bell's Nooma video "RICH" before I left and it's never been more real to me than now. He talks about how Rich we are in American and we don't even realize it- infact we still want more even though we are in the top 1% of the worlds wealth, or some crazy statistic like that.

Then I think about our shower....and maybe it is out of a bucket....but I thought back to the end of this summer when my friend Candace got up in front of our church back home and talked about how she spent her summer at an organization that provides clean water because most thrid world countries don't have any. Well there's clean water in our bucket...so I'm feelin pretty rich even now.

So now when I look around this town and think "Wow, they are so poor," I'm going to remind myself that "No, this is AVERAGE..."