Practice Hospitality

Have you ever had one of those days that just seem to have a theme? Well, that was today for me. The day could be summed up in one word...hospitality. And now, as I'm about to go to sleep, I'm quite amazed at how kind God is to give me "theme days". Really. Any one of the incidents may have only been chalked up as "interesting" to me, but all crammed into one day they are clearly a kick in the pants (in a gentle, God kind of way that is.).
It all started with an amazing new bible study that I started called "Get Uncomfortable" (by Todd Phillips and available at LifeWay if you're interested). In lesson 1 you're supposed to read through Romans chapter 12. Well, I did it and decided to make a list of the "to-do's" in that chapter. There were quite a few, and one of them is "practice hospitality." I took a moment and thought, "I want the Long's to be more hospitable." Good thought. The end.
Next, Jono and I were driving to an apartment complex were refugees from lots of countries have been placed by the United Nations. Our youth ministry is going there Saturday to take family photos and give them to the people...framed and free. Most of them don't have pics and it's a good way to get whole families out to meet them. So we were taking a group to pass out fliers advertising about the photo shoot. On the ride, I kinda threw out to Jono that I want us to be more hospitable. He agreed and before long we were vowing to open our home to others waaaaay more frequently. We even discussed how fast our grocery money seems to go and that, maybe, it doesn't seem like quite enough because pretty much 100% of it is spent on us. I wouldn't put it past God to make money supernaturally disappear because we're hoarding it. And I, quite frankly, don't blame Him either. Money has often been our excuse NOT to have people over more. Lame, I know. The convo ended. And theeeennnnn....
We get to the apartment complex, and an awesome man who has made it his ministry to reach out to these people is there and offers to take me on a few home visit with some Kareni families. I tried to keep the squealing and happy-dancing to a minimum, and off we went. These are people who, for the most part, don't speak English and have only been in the US for a year or less. They are brought over mostly because they have been kicked out of their countries due to ethnic cleansing. So they are in a culture they TOTALLY don't understand and have EXTREMELY little. Well, we are welcomed into our first apartment, we remove our shoes at the door, and then everyone sits down in a circle in the middle of the room. Furniture? Nope. Clean? Nope. Much conversation happening? Mega nope. We charaded ourselves through a couple of statements, but mostly just smiled and tried to learn how to say everyone's names correctly (which was mostly a fail for me). By the time we left apartment one, I was having a nervous breakdown. I was apologizing to my friend for being so awkward and not having a clue what to say or what to do and I promised him that I would get better. Then he enlightened me. "We're the only ones in the situation feeling like we need to talk and do something. Hospitality is such a big deal in their culture that just having someone in their home and being in each other's presence is priceless to them." Yes. There's that word again. This was probably the point at which I caught on to my lesson of the day. And it was all that was on my mind for the next few visits. Really, how many of us put off having people over because the house isn't clean enough or we're not quite finished pulling all of the decor together. "Once I get my house how I want it, we'll have people over all the time." I've said it before. When we do have people over, isn't it usually good friends and people that we're comfortable around? No awkward silences? Really, friends, America is a wonderful place to live, but our culture has stolen from us a beautiful gift. I left those apartments craving to be a part of a community where random people just walk into my house. Where I'm comfortable inviting someone who I have NEVER met before in and not having a clue what we'll do or what we'll talk about. Those people have less square footage than most of our master bedrooms, and had more visitors in their home today than most of us have had this whole year. Oh, and I forgot to mention that every time we went to a different apartment, some of the people that we had met at the last apartment would show up and just walk on in. I finally stopped asking, "Oh, do ya'll know each other?".
So I hope that my daughters look back over their childhood and remember our house being a place where hospitality was practiced. I hope that they understand that to "love your neighbor as yourself" means that our home is as much for others' use as it is for our own. And I hope that if their grocery envelope seems to be ever-empty, it will cross their minds to possibly spend more of that money on feeding others.
So, who wants to come over for dinner??? :)