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Webster defines hospitality as “the friendly and generous treatment of guests, visitors, or strangers.” No mention of a beautifully decorated home or coordinating plates and napkins. Nor a specific host. Not even food. Jesus uses ‘a cup of water’ to put a picture in our minds of an act of service worthy of reward! So many unique cups of water in my life as a foreigner, guest, stranger and, to quote Jesus, ‘a little one.’
In China, it was a family who invited their daughter’s teacher for dinner. Though she knew from dining hall lunches that I could use chopsticks, a fork had been purchased for me. It laid at my place like a name card pointing out my seat.
In Myanmar, the accountants I taught brought baked goods, dried fruit and cups of tea to the store room turned classroom where I taught their class. “You maybe didn’t have time for breakfast.”
On my first day in Vientiane, my teammates picked me up at the airport, bought and installed a local sim card, showed me the nearest ATM, took me to a western coffee shop, and dropped my jet-lagged self at my hotel. There I found a gift bag on my bed. In it were dehydration packets, two brownies, a street map, and a little card with five simple, but oh-so-useful, Lao phrases.
One birthday, I sat on the straw mat of a little shop and ate bamboo soup prepared by the owner who had heard it was my favorite. On the next year’s birthday, she brought my new favorite, fried fish, to our school’s office for my dinner.
When I arrived in Mongolia on a freezing February evening (from Thailand!), I was met by my new teammates with a coat and hat they had pulled from their closet. Just in case the crazy foreigner mistakenly thought she could make a run for the heated car with 2 sweatshirts and a raincoat.
Student to teacher, teammates to newbie, storekeeper to local school teacher. Friendly and generous treatment.
God, please keep revealing to me what hospitality means to You.
I think the majority of readers of these devotionals have thrown out the matching plates and napkins idea of hospitality, but what challenges come to mind when you hear the word hospitality?
For me it often comes back to the comparison game. I should do like so and so does. That’s why I like to think back over what has ministered to me. I have a list – this devo was just a few – of acts of kindness that have been shown to me. Acts that made me feel welcome in a new place, encouraged me at a low time, or taught me something about God. Most were truly as simple as a cup of water. Double blessings as I can often copy them! I can welcome a new teammate the way I was welcomed. I can loan some mittens to a forgetful visitor on a cold night. I can get mats to go around my western coffee table. Yes, most had to do with food. A meal is the Biblical picture of fellowship but even that does not have to be intimating. In my world, letting students or teachers come over and cook in my kitchen is sometimes the most popular. It takes the heat off me as the cook. I do have to give up my kitchen but usually hiding a few Teflon items is all it takes. I also need to remember that a cup of tea or coffee with some nuts or store-bought cookies can go just as nicely with conversation as anything from my oven. (If I even have one!)