Living overseas can usher significant social burnout, often due to differences in culture and the exhaustion that comes from not living in your home country. This can then cause many global workers to find solitude in their homes to keep a safe space from the never-ending work and needs outside.

Though there is wisdom in creating those safe spaces so we don’t spread ourselves too thin or create unnecessary stress on ourselves and our families, many times we can stray toward the extreme of closing ourselves off to the world, when our homes could be the very place where people can best see the very goodness of God we are out there proclaiming.

The most significant changes I have seen in friends to whom we have been ministering have been through our “ministry” inside our four walls—whether it be over shared cups of chai or coffee, inviting them to our children’s school pickups, or hosting Friday night open house events for university students. I’ve also witnessed the same in the lives of other expat friends in our city, where they host backyard barbecues or international Friendsgivings and give space for their love to spill over in natural conversations.

When Paul is writing to the church at Thessalonica, he shares about how deeply he, Silas, and Timothy cared for the people there, and how that love caused them to not only share the gospel with them, but to share their lives. The highly referenced Hebrews 13:2 also reminds us to “not forget to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing some people have shown hospitality to angels without knowing it.” I know these verses can invoke in many of us a sense of reprimand or guilt, but I believe they are instead meant to be encouraging invitations to continue walking out our love and good deeds for others, for we never know the impact our actions may be making.

We all have different contexts, personalities, family makeups, and capacities, so I am not saying everyone’s hospitality should look a certain way by any means. We must sway and bend to the differing seasons and needs of our lives in order to honor everyone in our family well. But I do know that when we personally open our doors and invite people into our lives, and also ours to theirs, those invitations cause the protective barriers in others’ hearts to start to break and true relationship and openness to the gospel begin.