While I am in Costa Rica, I have prepared some posts which should, if I have set things up correctly, appear automatically in my absence. I will be back to live posting on July 16.

One of the books which LEAMIS asks team members to read in preparation for a trip is “Rich Thinking About The World’s Poor,” by Peter Meadows.

Chapter 2 of this book has the title “It matters why you think they are poor.” Our preconceptions about what poverty is, and where it comes from, will affect how we respond to poverty. Is poverty due to a lack of education? Systemic problems which prevent social justice? Cultural issues?

Meadows points out that the causes of poverty are often complex, encompassing many different factors.

Which means ignoring any one of them is the first step to failing to address the real issues at the heart of a poor community. More than that, the key to bringing change that lasts is to identify and tackle all the issues — material, medical, social, political, structural and spiritual. And also the complex relationships between them.

Please keep me and my teammates, Frank Schroer and Megan Siegrist, in prayer as we begin our mission trip.