As I said in my last post, I’ve been thinking a lot about hospitality (literally “love of strangers” in Greek) and what it really means. I’ve been thinking about this because we are in a foreign place and in a very real sense are “strangers” even though we believe we have been called to be here. Yet, Shadrach and even (as it turned out) the children of Soweto choose to welcome us as friends. Everywhere we turn we find incredibly warm welcomes and comforting hospitality. We find ourselves being loved by the people we feel called to love.

In the picture below, you see a welcome of sorts in action.

The children in a shanty in Soweto smiled so brightly when they saw us! They ran to us and were mystified by us exploring without words who we were. We felt so welcomed. In their nearness we were reminded of home and we were reminded of all that we cherish back home. Good hospitality should do that. It should help the one who is welcomed feel at home. But even more than that, true hospitality should help the “welcomed one” reflect on all that is “home” for them. For Erin and me in Soweto, the children’s welcome causes us to reflect, with joy and longing, on our home back in Oregon: our church, our family and friends, and our children.

For me, also, it caused me to reflect on the hospitality of our God. We are a people who, in Christ, have been warmly welcomed into God’s family. What is more, we are a people who were welcomed into God’s household not just when we were strangers but while we were, in Paul's words, enemies (Romans 5:10). God, in the truest sense of hospitality, flung opened the doors of heaven and welcomed us there before we ever wanted to come home or even while we were trying to tear heaven down. Stealing a phrase from Derrida, he welcomed us while we were “wholly other.”

What does this mean for our church?

In the church context, we too often think of hospitality as something we do, that is, some ministry program we must implement, rather than something we are. There is a great difference here! We can’t just do hospitality, we must become hospitable. We can’t just welcome people at the door and feel as if that is enough. We must embody love to those who feel as if they are strangers in our midst. And believe me, feel like strangers they do! Strangers who, like Erin and me, are simply seeking, albeit tentatively and with trepidation, what God has led them to seek.

The only question is: ill they find the love for which they were made? Will they find in our midst the welcoming arms of Christ? I pray that they will! I pray that each and every one of us at Columbia Ridge might become like a child, a child in Soweto embracing those who in God’s design cross our path. In becoming like those children we’ll remind those we meet to reflect on the love they have found in life already as well as the home with God to which they are being called; the home beyond a place where the one who is "wholly other" is welcomed. I also pray that each one of us at Columbia Ridge might also become like our ranger, Shadrach. Letting those who are exploring new terrain experience the wonder of God’s beauty, and helping them understand it along the way.

With you in this, Reed and Erin

PS - Here's some more pictures of Soweto. 1) Where we were welcomed by the children; 2) An AIDS poster to educate shanty preschoolers about its dangers; 3) A home where 50 people were said to live; 4) A family garden, notice it's location is next to a community latrine