The Gift of Hospitality

This morning, at church, I was asked to share about hospitality. This is what I read, with shaking hands. 

I am sharing this to honor our dear friends in Ukraine today, the day of the Crimean referendum. 

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Hospitality. Such a big concept! I was asked to speak about this today and I am struggling with what to say, so I decided to blog about it. Sometimes my brain works better this way.

I think that what they wanted me to talk about is how our family is hospitable. I am struggling with that. Mostly because I don't think that we have ever done anything special. Having people stay with us has always felt natural. Like breathing. We have rooms in our home that belong to people who are thousands of miles away.

When we have people stay with us, we have never viewed it as having a stranger, even if we just met them, because if you live with us, you are family. For better or worse.

I would say that is a gift that generations of family has taught me. We have friends on nearly every continent due to the love that was shared when I was growing up with whoever didn't have their family around. In my family there always has seemed to be that person (or five) that is there because of course they are invited. Because what is one more? (Turns out we all stink at math; one more is plus one).

We have had amazing experiences with hosting. And not so amazing experiences. There is no magic quality that makes things easy or perfect. In fact, the opposite, it is hard. Because people are people, wherever they are from. People have opinions and emotions. And that leads to drama and conflict. But it also leads to wonderful things. Gifts. I have seen God's grace to me through the hard that we have experienced through opening our hearts. God has made me a stronger person and has shaped me into a better mother. And that friendship? That love? That has stayed with me long after bags are packed.

So, that being said, I don't ever feel like we are doing anything special. Maybe what we are doing is more so selfish, because we get so much out of it as a family.

Some say that they would never host because they want to protect their children. I don't dismiss the need to be very wise when you are opening your home. It can be intimidating to open yourself, your family, and your home to scrutiny and to someone else's reality.

I can say that my children have become better people through the opening of our homes and hearts. They have developed into very compassionate people and are very generous with their space, their things, and their family. But that is not the only awesome thing: I mean, how many kids do you know that can speak a smattering of Portuguese, Spanish, and Russian?

As far as our adoption goes, I can say that our hearts being opened to that, grew from our other experiences of loving people that don't share our DNA. I think it would have been a huge leap to go from zero to "BOOM, here is your kid."

There were comments that we got when we were planning to adopt and they went something like this: "Your family is so wonderful, you don't want to mess that up." Amen! We didn't want to mess up our family, either! That is so scary! Peace came when we put down our definition of what a "perfect" family should look like and allowed God to define our family. And it occurred to me during that time, that I was sure glad that God wasn't worried about messing up his perfect dynamic. I never would have imagined that God's definition of our family would have included an eight year old boy from Eastern Europe. But as I tuck him into bed every night, I can't imagine my life any differently.

And I don't really see our adoption as hospitality, because Daniel is our child. I don't feel like I am doing my kids a favor by letting them live here (although that may change in 10 years).

I struggle with saying that we are hospitable, although I guess by definition, we are.  And it never has seemed like any big thing to me. Until I was on the receiving end of amazing hospitality from the Church this past summer when we were in Ukraine.

We literally were strangers in a strange land and were embraced and fed and cared for by the Christians in Slavyansk and in Kiev.

When we had our layover in Frankfort, we overheard a group of people talking and realized that they were affiliated with a ministry that we were familiar with, EEM. Upon our arrival into Donetsk, we were given a phone number of the minister in the little town that we would be staying in.

I honestly hesitated to even call because I know that Ukrainians are private people and some are suspicious of Americans and do not always have the most positive feelings toward Americans who come to their country to adopt. But my mother encouraged me to call. She said, "they are Christians, of course they will help you." My reply was something along the lines of, "But Mom, you don't know Ukrainians."

Turns out I didn't know Ukrainian Christians. As soon as the call was made, we were swept into the embrace of New Testament hospitality, ala Ukraine.

I was, and am, amazed at the love that we were shown. And I came away knowing that it does matter. That even though it doesn't feel like a big thing to me, to open our home, it matters. My life was changed by their hospitality. To this day, the relationships that were forged in that hard time of struggle persist.

And I came away inspired to be more intentional. And to continue. And to share what that experience meant to me.

It meant a lot.