Social Capital

Before I go on to the main subject of this post, I want to make something clear. Despite the fact that in my last post, I made a point that I'm trying to not seek my own comfort but look first to the needs of others, I'm not utterly neglecting myself or suffering unnecessarily. My mother sent me a nice email reminding me that Martin Luther as a Catholic monk used to flog himself in penance for his sin because he thought he needed to suffer more. I'm definitely gonna stay away from that. I've said I'm here to learn from suffering, but that's the suffering that's going to come naturally. I'm not seeking it out in any way.

That being said, let me tell you how easy my life is. I may be on a low budget and without electricty (which came back on briefly this morning for the first time in eleven days!) but I am rich. Super rich. Not just money, the dollars I brought with me or the support that you gave that I get weekly for food and transport.
Social capital (I'm told by people who've had classes in this sort of thing) comes from the people you know and resources that are available to you because of them. The very fact that I'm here shows an enourmous amount of social capital from you, my friends and family back home. And even though I've known no one on the continent more than 30 days, I have great wealth here now too. When I got sick and was laying in my bed with my fever, I had no idea how many people were working and talking to get the things I needed. Cami, Faye, and Steph were talking at dinner and decided I needed a malaria test. Jan and Karolina brought the test to Cami and Erik brought the test back to our place.
That's just one quick example of the resources available to me thanks to the body of Christ and the friends I've already found here. I'm not living in poverty at all. True poverty would lack that many friends and even if the friends were there, they would not be as resourceful. Thanks God!