A man who carried a Maasai cow through Kenya realized poverty isn't about money. He saw communities with little wealth living fulfilled, connected lives. Real poverty, he concluded, is broken relationships and disconnection from God and each other.
Chapters
Last week, I finished my book about my trip to Kenya. It was a giant Maasai cow on my shoulders. And now it's gone, and I'm feeling good. But the question that really was— I was struggling with was I want this book to say something. I don't want it just to be this is what happened and it was fun. And the question that presented itself right when I got to Kenya, but I didn't have a solid answer for it, was, Poverty. What is poverty? Because I had always thought in my Western view and in my wealthy background, poverty is not having money. But when I got to Kenya, I saw people who were penniless but completely fulfilled in life, completely happy in their community, and not poverty-stricken at all. They were in what you could say, they were in their bliss. They were living the life that so many of us are striving to achieve. I asked myself, what is poverty? And the conclusion that I came to for the book after reading all the stories and also letting it sit for about 6 months and process is that poverty is actually disconnection. Poverty is replacing relationships with anything else. Poverty is accepting broken relationships as the best solution. Poverty is fragmented families. Orphans are poor, not because they have no money, but because they have no family. Poverty is disconnection. God's purpose for our lives and for the lives of everyone in the world is connection. Connection here so that we can have connection there so that we can have connections to Jesus.
