As we spoke to people we were struck by our ignorance of this part of the world... how our outlook of this country has been formed (incorrectly) by information we seen on TV and read on the internet.
True, both Mily and myself are actually extremely selective in the information + news-sources we access to educate ourselves since we don't want to access junk, we want accurate and interesting information.
But it seems that what we thought was "accurate knowledge" regarding this country was nothing more than preconceived ideas accumulated from various news sources :(
I also recall a previous post on our blog where we highlighted our surprise of the amount of substandard accommodation when going house to house; and we also highlighted how poor many actually are. We stated how this was something we expected to see in Nicaragua; but not in Costa Rica.
In any case, my reason for writing this post is not a continuation of the standard of living issue.
No... today we were struck by another thing while preaching.
What I wanted to write about today is peoples level of education and their outlooks on life + the world today.
While we were out preaching we discussed the Bible's sign of the last days with a family here..... however we realized that our attempt to create common ground with them did not work out.
As we spoke to them we tried to make the case for how things are deteriorating globally in the last days, for example increase insecurity, wars in the Middle East; earth quakes, deceases, the threat of ISIS etc, etc.
But as we presented the case to them we realized that this family are completely oblivious to what happens on a global scale in this world!!??!
They are unaware what happens in large parts of the globe.
We can not blame them or hold them accountable since it is not their fault having limited global insight... they just happen to be fed with very limited news and limited information in regards to things on a global perspective.
The only information they have (since many can not afford cable TV or internet) is very shallow and often irrelevant in the bigger picture. All information they get tends to focus on local issues; and at the very best sometimes what happens on this continent.
For this reason, today was a good reminder for us that we are not only blessed with material riches in Europe. We are also blessed with access to information (multiple sources as well) and this access can sometimes be a much richer blessing than access to material things and money.
