I love the story of Jesus feeding the 5,000 because the disciples see a need: The people are hungry and they are far away from any grocery stores or restaurants. They go to Jesus to fix the problem and he turns it back on them: “You feed them.”

In life and missions, it can be too easy to see what is missing, without seeing the abundance of resources at hand. This is especially difficult if it’s not your culture, since you have a different perspective and approach to things. We all have an ingrained bias and it takes diligent work to look beyond it. Another difficulty occurs when the people you serve are used to being the recipients rather than participants.

Often times, as in the feeding of the 5,000, we just need to take what we have and give it to God. He can take what seems insufficient to us and do abundantly more than we could expect or imagine.

A couple years ago Juan, pictured above, tried out our new climbing ladder, built during a visit by a team from UTMB. He loved it! I wish we could have captured the smile on his face as he went up and down. Even more exciting is his mother recognized that the ladder was built with all locally available materials.

Juan’s mom is talking to Shes, our Guatemalan PT, about how to make a climbing ladder. I have no doubt Juan will now has his own at home. I’m so thankful his mom realized this wasn’t something brought in from the outside but built with materials available locally. Instead, it something she has and can do at home. I love that part of TCI!