How We Welcome {guest post}

*By Anonymous

Asian cultures take hospitality very seriously. During our three years in southeast Asia, our local partners took care of us in countless, meaningful ways (tangible and intangible), from helping to find us housing (several times) to helping translate for us to feeding us and being our friends … the list truly is endless.

So when we learned that two of our friends from southeast Asia would be coming to the U.S. this spring as guests of honor at an fundraising event for big donors, we (and our former teammates) both asked the organization if they could come early to spend time with us on the west coast of the U.S.

While my husband and I had both been looking for work since the beginning of the year, neither of us had found jobs by the time our friends arrived from southeast Asia. We subconsciously aside that week to be fully be present with them. We were able to take them to the coast (one friend, 44 years old, had never seen the ocean), and the next day, we drove them halfway to meet up with our former teammates. It was the first time either of our southeast Asian friends had seen snow. We thought through meals and the people they would like to see while with us (contacts they had made from people who had visited southeast Asia on previous short-term teams). We gathered coats and warm gear since no matter how warm of a spring it was on the west coast of the U.S., we knew it would feel cold to them and I know our teammates did similarly during their stint together with them.

I don’t list these examples to pat ourselves on the back, but to reflect with a measure of awe at how far I’ve grown in my hospitality. There were a couple of times that we paid for meals, under the surface aware of our own unemployed status, and yet fully knowing the opportunities we had to bless our friends during that week paled in comparison to all they had carried us through for three years while we were guests in their country.

During that week we discussed hospitality with them off and on. Early on, the 27 year old’s father sent my husband a Facebook message in Burmese that basically said, “Please take good care of my son.” I imagine, like a good Asian would, my husband internalized the weight of that statement. After that, several times during the week, both friends commented on how well taken care of they both felt.

Toward the end of their time with us, one of the friends jokingly said, “Who will take care of us when we go to the fundraiser [that none of our team would be present at]?” I was starting to wonder the same thing…

Even though some of the organization’s staff would be there and had already met our southeast Asian friends, they had very limited overseas experience and I worried that they might not fully understand the ways that our friends would interpret “feeling cared for” over the weekend. I mentioned it to one of the event planners over the phone, and she said, “Oh, we’ll take care of them. We’ve got them covered. We won’t leave them all alone,” not in a dismissive way, but from a posture of genuine concern.

Overall, it sounded like our friends had a good time, but as I was messaging with the younger friend as he waited in the San Francisco airport to board his flight back over the ocean, he admitted, “There are no friends here like you taking care of us.”

Interestingly, one donor gifted this young man $2,000 to put towards his upcoming wedding. Coming from a country and economy such as his, this is an enormous blessing for this friend — it relieves a ton of pressure on him and his family, and helps with a master’s degree that he is working on. And yet his words confirmed my concerns that hospitality was not the strong suit for American Christians, even generous partners to the ministry.

As we continue in our own re-entry and transition back to life in the United States, my husband and I want to be intentional about continuing on with certain values we learned from our overseas living, not least of which is hospitality and the ability to be present with people.

We have so much to learn from one another, and sometimes it is as simple as sharing a meal or opening our home. If you find yourself worrying about the square footage of your space or whether you have what it takes to host someone from another culture, take a moment to consider what those from the majority world are accustomed to. Each one of us, the world over, just wants to know that we are welcome. That we belong. Surely, as Jesus-followers, we can offer that.

Each one of us, the world over, just wants to know that we are welcome. That we belong. Surely, as Jesus-followers, we can offer that.

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* The author of this piece asked to remain anonymous to protect the identity of the friends and organizations mentioned.

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Our theme this month is “Hospitality Around the World.” Email me at scrapingraisins @ gmail (dot) com if you are interested in guest posting. Guest posts should be between 500 and 900 words. Be sure to include a headshot and bio. The theme for August is “Homelessness, Refugees & the Stranger,” so send me a post for that, too, if you have a good idea!

And if you’re not a writer, be sure to follow me on social media (links in upper right) to keep up with the latest blog post or sign up for my newsletter below for links to thought-provoking articles, a digest of blog posts, and a few things I’m into these days! xo

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July 18, 2018July 17, 2018

Building Bridges with Chinese Muslims {guest post}

By Jodie Pine | Instagram: @jodiepine

God doubly blessed our family with the opportunity to live, not only in the hospitable land of China, but also among the super hospitable Muslim minority people there.

Whenever we visited someone in the village where my husband did ethnographical research, we were served tea and something to eat.

Sometimes I had to let my best friend there know that I would really rather talk with her than eat, as I would stop by to visit and she would spend most of the time in the kitchen cooking for me! They are extremely generous, servant-hearted people who greatly honored us as their guests.

Initially, after being on the receiving end of Chinese Muslim hospitality, I felt intimidated to try to extend it myself. I thought I needed to fill the table with a huge variety of dishes like they do. Eventually though, I came to realize that being present and interested in them, with a learner’s heart, was more important to our guests than an impressive meal.

During the 4 ½ years that our family lived in central western China, we probably learned more through our mistakes than our “successes” about extending hospitality to our Muslim friends.

Once when my husband and sons were out of town, I invited a group of female Muslim college students to our home, and my daughter prepared a Halal lunch. We were both very surprised when they refused to eat our food. They didn’t even drink the tea we offered them, because they said we were not clean. After engaging in a somewhat heated spiritual discussion with us for about an hour, they said they needed to leave.

I had thought “being clean” meant the food we were offering them was clean (meaning that we did not cook pork in our kitchen). However, a friend I consulted afterward helped me to understand that when we had all entered the apartment together they had not seen me wash my hands, and I hadn’t offer them a place to wash either. Clearly, there was more to being clean than I had realized.

Another one of our cross-cultural lessons was that our Chinese Muslim friends had a wide range of devoutness. Some were simply non-pork eating Muslims, and that was the only thing that made them different from the Han Chinese. Others took their faith practices and traditions very seriously.

Once, my husband asked my Muslim friend who came over during Ramadan about the fast he assumed she was doing. She politely informed him that actually she doesn’t practice Ramadan, and would like a glass of water! That was an awkward situation, but we were all able to laugh about it. We learned that making wrong assumptions had the potential of making our Muslim friends feel guilty, like they were not “good” Muslims.

On the other end of the spectrum, one of our more devout Muslim neighbors had our family over for meals several times, but consistently refused our invitations to have them over. Instead of taking it personally, we concluded that maybe eating food that came from our non-Muslim kitchen would have violated their conscience.

Over time, we discovered that some of our Muslim friends had no problem eating the chicken that we served when we told them that it came from the grocery store with a Halal sticker on it. Others told us that they would only eat chicken that was bought from a Muslim butcher at the market, to give them confidence that the proper prayers had been said when the animal was killed.

When our family noticed that it was the youngest son in the family who had the responsibility of filling the tea cups of the guests, our youngest son (before we adopted two more) took over this task and did very well. We also observed that younger people treated their elders with a lot of respect, and so we tried our best to incorporate this value into the way we treated our guests as well.

We learned that in group settings, men and women often ate in different rooms. So we were prepared, when groups came to our home, to set up a separate women’s table in my daughter’s bedroom if that would make our guests feel more comfortable.

Sometimes guests wanted to recite their prayers during the prayer time that occurs around dinnertime. We offered our daughter’s bedroom for them to pray in, as it was in the best location facing Mecca. We made blankets available for the them to put on the floor, or sometimes they used their own jackets. We also removed all pictures that would be between them and the window while they prayed, as that is forbidden.

Looking back now, I would say that my biggest lesson from our time of living among Chinese Muslims was: If we enter a new culture and are easily offended or quick to judge what we encounter as “wrong” instead of “different,” we’ll end up building walls instead of bridges.

Humility in cross-cultural hospitality enables us to realize that we are always capable of making mistakes or being misunderstood, but we can refuse to let either of those concerns stop us from seeking and building relationships with those who are different from us.

There is a strong message in our world right now that Muslims are our enemies. Our family’s experience with Chinese Muslims proved the opposite to be true. We are grateful for God’s gift of life-changing friendships with some of the most beautiful people in the world.

*Parts of the this post originally appeared during two interviews at The Serviette.

About Jodie:

As a mom, I juggle two different kinds of parenting — long-distance to our 3 adult kids (who are white on the outside but very Chinese on the inside) and our two adopted Chinese boys at home who have special needs. Since being back in the US, my husband has taken up cooking Chinese food, with a specialty of Lanzhou beef noodles (where we used to live and where our boys are from), giving us a taste of “home.” You can follow our story on my blog. I am also on Instagram and Facebook.

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July 16, 2018July 14, 2018

A Shared Burden in Germany {guest post}

By Elizabeth Hinnant | Twitter: @LizHinnant

I’ve always prided myself on being able to take care of things on my own – not so much because I value self-sufficiency, but mostly because I don’t like being a burden on others. That’s just good sense, right? Ironically, it took a house full of extremely sensible German young people to show me that needing help doesn’t make me a burden, and even when it does, burdens are always better when they are shared.

After graduating from college in England, I moved to Germany to start a PhD and work in a Chemistry lab. The country was beautiful, but my experience wasn’t great. My boss was emotionally abusive, and it turned out that I liked learning about Chemistry more than actually doing it. A year into my project, as I was slowly figuring all this out, I left for a conference and returned to my basement apartment to find almost every surface covered in fuzzy, white mold. The heavy wooden furniture. The cork backs of pictures on the walls. My boots. My faux-leather jacket. Most of my clothes and coats. Completely covered in mold.

It turns out that without air conditioning, it’s important to leave the windows open for a few minutes every night in the summer in order to keep the humidity levels down. I had noticed the apartment was a bit muggy and even bought a dehumidifier, but nobody had clued me in to this crucial bit of German housekeeping. I spent the next two weeks staying with friends and spending an hour or two each night scrubbing every inch of the apartment and dry cleaning most of my belongings. I even had friends from my church come help me finish cleaning off everything that had been affected.

Apparently, it wasn’t enough. Eventually, as I prepared to move back in, the elderly owners of the house told me in broken English that my boxes of belongings in the basement hall were making it difficult for them to sleep because of the mess. They got increasingly agitated until I started calling every number in my phone to find someone who could translate.

One of the first people I managed to get in contact with was an acquaintance from church, a girl I had hung out with a few times but didn’t know super well. Once she heard what was happening, she didn’t hesitate. She told me to hang on and that she would be right over.

Twenty minutes later, she listened patiently as the couple – with whom I thought I had established a good relationship – listed all of my faults in humiliating detail. My German wasn’t great, but I caught the gist of the conversation: I didn’t sit out in the garden enough. I let my recycling stack up. They could see through the windows that I sometimes left clothes on the floor. I was a terrible housekeeper. They had been renting out that room for decades and never had a problem until I moved in. As much as I’d tried to be a good tenant, I had become my worst fear: a burden. My heart fell into my shoes.

As soon as they were out of earshot, my friend asked if I understood what they had said. I nodded. She looked me in the eye and said, “You’re coming to stay with me. Tonight. You don’t need to stay in a place like this.” I didn’t know what to say, but she insisted. I’m pretty sure I started to cry. She said she was certain that if they knew I could understand, they wouldn’t have been so harsh, but she was going to help me get out anyway. She helped me gather my things, and we biked across town to her apartment.

I ended up staying with her and her roommates for a month as I searched for another place to live. We had amazing group breakfasts, and she made me watch Friends with her when she found out I’d never seen it. At one point, she told me she was going out of town for a week, and to make myself at home while she was gone. I later learned she had exams and went to stay with her parents in the next town so that we would both have the space we needed.

Towards the end of the month, I realized I needed to leave the lab I was working in, and I eventually decided to move back to the U.S. altogether. Another friend later told me that the mold problem was likely due to the super-thick windows that my landlords had installed shortly before I moved in, and even if it was my fault, I was clearly doing everything I could to make things right, even if I wasn’t living up to their standards for domestic bliss (which were apparently exceptionally high in that area of Germany).

That month is still something of a blur in my memory, but I’ve never forgotten my friend’s hospitality and generosity. She taught me that even when you have nothing left to give, true friends value you for who you are. Where other people treated me poorly and found all kinds of ways justify their actions despite my best efforts, she treated me well – even to the point of inconvenience – for no reason at all. She saw the situation I was in and gladly picked up the burden so that it could be shared. She didn’t want me to struggle alone in a place where I didn’t know the language and didn’t have family nearby to assist when things got tough. She made space for me just because I needed it, and because she had resources I did not.

She made space for me just because I needed it, and because she had resources I did not. @LizHinnant

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I’ve spent the last seven years trying to learn to see myself (and, by extension, others) the way she saw me – as a friend in a tough situation, not as a problem to be solved or criticized or ignored. I don’t know that I’ve quite succeeded, but if I ever do, it will be because of the unparalleled hospitality I experienced.

About Elizabeth:

Elizabeth Hinnant lives in Atlanta with her husband Neal and a corgi/shepherd diva pup named Heidi. She (Elizabeth, not the dog) writes about science, tech and chronic illness and sometimes tweets @LizHinnant.

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July 12, 2018July 12, 2018

South Africa, Funerals, and My Vegetable Peeler {guest post}

By Debbie Horrocks | Instagram: @hopebreathes

My vegetable peeler was the first thing on my list of ‘Stuff to Take to South Africa’. It was a wedding gift and has always worked miracles on a butternut squash. I had no idea what life in the township of Soshanguve would look like, but I knew I would cook. Perhaps just for my family, but hopefully for others too, I dreamed of nourishing friendships in our new community. In the last minute rush the peeler was left in the kitchen drawer, but it quickly made its way from Scotland by post.

The peeler did indeed tackle many a pumpkin and potato during my three years in South Africa. My fears of people not enjoying my culinary offerings gradually disappeared with each clean plate, and each tupperware filled with leftovers. But I never expected that ‘peeling’ would also be a way to love and support my neighbours.

Funeral practices can be enlightening when learning a new culture. In Soshanguve funerals were almost always on a Saturday morning and there was an expectation that the neighbourhood would gather and be well fed. Following a death in the community, neighbouring families would contribute financially towards the food. There was an almost wordless understanding that local women would gather at the home of the bereaved on Friday night to prepare the food. As the women peeled vast quantities of carrots and squash, and sliced buckets of cabbages, onions and beetroot, we showed solidarity with the bereaved.

The first time I went ‘to peel’, a summer storm hit and the rain dropped through the joints in the temporary shelter. I didn’t know to take my own utensils, so I was left peeling squash (and occasionally my finger) with a dull knife and no chopping board. I panicked about what to chat about with all these ladies, who eventually suggested I do a slightly less dangerous task. Through the awkwardness, I found comfort in the simple, practical task in front of me.

The next time, I possibly offended the family by leaving before the end when we would drink rooibos tea and eat simple cakes together. I soon learned to take my own peeler, which was much admired for its ‘strength’. I also learned that it didn’t matter that I wasn’t fluent in the language, or that I had no idea what to talk about. I was welcomed and accepted, standing shoulder to shoulder over colossal metal bowls. It simply mattered that we were there, utensils in hand, showing the family that we hadn’t forgotten, that we were together.

We went to a lot of funerals in our neighbourhood, it seemed there was too much sickness, tragedy and death in that place. Towards the end of my time in Sosh a dear friend passed away. She had been a colleague, cultural guide, teacher and mother to me, and she always looked out for me on those Friday evenings. The night before Mama Jane’s funeral I went to her home to help prepare the funeral food. The absence of her reassuring smile across the tables of vegetables made this funeral more personal. I realised that I needed this gathering too.

Yes, it was important to comfort and support the family, but this custom also created a community to share my grief with. Standing alongside those women and sharing our task meant that we were each less alone.

Back in my home culture and in my mother tongue, I often still don’t know what to say. But I have learned the importance of conveying solidarity; I can reach for my peeler and prepare a dish to show that I see and care and grieve too.

Peeling. Chopping. Nourishing. Grieving. Being. Together.

About Debbie:

Debbie loves, learns and lives in the East End of Glasgow, Scotland with her husband and two wee boys. People, food and stories are her favourites, preferably combined. She writes at Hope Breathes about nurturing our souls and engaging with our communities. Follow her on Instagram!

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Our next theme this month is “Hospitality Around the World.” Email me at scrapingraisins @ gmail (dot) com if you are interested in guest posting. Guest posts should be between 500 and 900 words. Be sure to include a headshot and bio. And if you’re not a writer, be sure to follow me on social media (links in upper right) to keep up with the latest blog post or sign up for my newsletter below for links to thought-provoking articles, a digest of blog posts, and a few things I’m into these days! xo

Sign up for the (occasional) Mid-month Digest and the (loosely) “end of the month” Secret Newsletter for Scraping Raisins Here:

July 9, 2018July 9, 2018

By Most Country’s Standards, I’m a Terrible Host

I always forget the coats. Growing up in Florida, we left on our flip flops, threw our bags on the hallway floor, and made a B-line for the cooler full of ice-cold soda. I haven’t lived in the south for 20 years, but I still forget to take people’s winter coats at the door. They stand there with them awkwardly draped over their arm, or else pile them in a heap on the living room floor.

I’m a better summer host. That way I can lock the doors and usher guests directly to the backyard through the side gate, then pray no one has to use the bathroom. Yards are forgiving of drips and spills and don’t require hours of cleaning before the guests arrive.

But what I’m learning (and what I’m writing a book about) is about how really, no one cares how good of a host you are at all. Mostly, they care to be invited. People want to be seen, heard, and included. They just want to be asked.

We recently had an Indian family live with us for a month. The parents of our grad student renter, they had never been on an airplane or left India before. We were gone for two weeks, but while we were home, I constantly felt like a failure as a host. We slept and ate at different times; they tinkered around in the kitchen as we brushed our teeth to go to bed. I worried about my raucous children being too loud, and they worried they were in my way in the kitchen.

After they had been with us for about a week, I decided to ask them along on one of our outings. “I’m taking the kids to a nature area to go on a walk–do you want to come along?”

And the next day, “We’re heading downtown so the kids can play in the fountain–do you want to join us?”

They said yes.

As a survival-mode mom with three kids at home, age five and under, I couldn’t make them the elaborate meals I knew they would be making for me were I a visitor in their home, but I could do one thing: I could invite them along in what we were already doing.

I once read a book called Family on Mission. The gist was that we do not need to have a million separate ministries or service projects to live out our calling to love God and love our neighbor in the world. Instead of burning ourselves out, we are better off inviting people along on the adventures we are already having, asking them to join us in our right-now lives instead of waiting until we have a surplus of time.

Instead of feeling like we need to divide ourselves to hand a fragment to every person we know, we do our thing, and invite others along for the ride.

This applies so well to hospitality. People are not waiting for us to get our act together and wow them with our kitchen wizardry. Instead, they just want to be asked.

People want to be invited.

Do you cook dinner? Why not invite a neighbor to join you? Are you going to the park? Ask another family to come along. Do you enjoy playing board games? Find another family that likes them, too.

I’m certainly not an expert, but I am learning the art of simple hospitality. What matters most is not the stuff, the plans or even the food, what matters is the people.

What matters most is not the stuff, the plans or even the food, what matters is the people.

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Our next theme this month is “Hospitality Around the World.” Follow along on social media (links in upper right) to keep up with the latest blog post or sign up for my newsletter below for links to thought-provoking articles, a digest of blog posts, and a few things I’m into these days! Email me at scrapingraisins @ gmail (dot) com if you are interested in guest posting. Guest posts should be between 500 and 900 words. Be sure to include a headshot and bio. Personal stories work best!

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By Most Country’s Standards, I’m a Terrible Host

August 30, 2017

Why I’m Not Apologizing for My Kids and Doing Hospitality Anyway

Lately I’ve been asking myself if I still enjoy hosting people in my home. Gathering around the table, feasting, having deep talks over plates piled high with food in the glow of candlelight is the goal, right? The adults belly laugh, dabbing tears from the corner of their eyes, then grab another steaming roll to dip in their homemade soup while the children run off to laugh together in the backyard. This is my expectation. No, this is my illusion.

Instead, hospitality looks more like this:

I wait until the absolute last minute to tell my three children we are having guests, because they turn into crazed creatures pulsating with energy the second they know more attention-giving bodies will be in our home. Instead, as soon as my pre-arrival stress is about to erupt, I plug them into a movie to do the last minute meal prep, sweep the floor, pick up the toys and issue marching orders to my husband-turned-servant. Seconds before our first guest arrives, we scan the house, noting that it is worth having guests over just to have a decluttered home even if for just a second. But then the reality check arrives.

The doorbell rings and one of my children hides, while the other rushes to the door, suddenly all disheveled hair and stained clothing and immediately drags any newly arrived kids to their messy bedroom. The guests make their way to the kitchen and plant themselves at the kitchen island. My husband delivers drinks while I try not to screw up the whole meal in minutes because I am now not only stressed and hungry, but distracted. The kids race through the house, dumping the toys from every basket, crashing trucks over our feet and racing them on the hardwood floors. They reach grimy hands over the counter to blindly grab at olives, cheese or chips at the edge of the counter.

I calmly and slowly remind my children of “what we talked about before our guests arrived”—they should play outside or in designated rooms. Go there right now. Please. They ignore me. I stand there, hands covered in garlic, knife in hand and keep smiling at my newly-arrived guests.

Welcome to our happy home.

We had a family over last weekend with three children the ages of our children and one man who came solo. We spent the entire afternoon preparing. The food was overcooked and too salty, and I learned the downsides of the popular “open floor plan”—namely that the child chaos ricochets around the room and is impossible to escape. The four older children (all five and under) sat alone at the kitchen island, dueling with the plastic knives they had snuck out of the drawer and turned their food into ships and guns. The other mom and I tried to feed our babies finger food and unsuccessfully police our other children all while trying to talk about plans for a new small group. The older kids finished and the three-year-old girl caught her finger in the sliding glass door and wailed the remainder of the time. We all stood up, leaving our one male friend eating his apple pie alone at the table.

When the baby, too, began to cry, the parents abruptly announced their decision to abort mission. What was meant to last 2 ½ hours lasted 1 ½ hours. They were all out the door in minutes, leaving my husband and I standing in the kitchen, counters piled high with dirty dishes and over-stimulated kids running through the toy and food-littered floor. “Let’s go for a walk,” I said.

And so in the quiet after the chaos, I did what any halfway sensible adult would do and reflected on the wisdom of continuing the stress, anxiety and humiliation of having people to my home during this season with little ones. Maybe this isn’t the time of life. Perhaps I just said I liked hospitality because it seemed like the Good Christian Thing to do. “God, is this really…” And before I could even formulate the thought into a prayer, God interrupted.

“You do it anyway.”

Wait, what?

Do hospitality anyway. You do it in the stress and the mess and the raisins smashed into the carpet. You do it even though you are hollering over three preschoolers telling knock knock jokes with no punchline and talking about poop and pee at the table. You do it when your children throw tantrums and blatantly disobey you in front of your friends and family. You do it because doing life together means not hiding behind closed doors, but inviting people into your actual life. And real life is not pretty. It is not organized, perfect or pristine. Hospitality is not comfortable, clean or controlled.

Hospitality is not comfortable, clean or controlled.

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Three of the four books in the Bible about Jesus’ life and ministry tell a story about his friends trying to keep the kids away from Jesus. I’m sure the children then were not so different from kids today. They had dirt under their fingernails, food on their faces, didn’t know how to use inside voices or walk—not run–inside. They didn’t know they shouldn’t ask people why they are fat or handicapped or black. They probably announced that food was “yucky” and peed on the floor when they forgot to go to the bathroom. They probably fought to hold on to their favorite toys and didn’t like going to sleep in the dark. Those Jewish children probably acted just like my kids.

And yet instead of being embarrassed, Jesus invited those messy, noisy, belligerent children to come to him. He didn’t tell them to clean up or straighten up first. Instead, he reprimanded his well-meaning friends who were eager for a constant atmosphere of contemplation and miracles. “Don’t stop them,” he scolded them. “For the Kingdom of God belongs to people like these.” The Kingdom does not belong to the perfect adults (ha), but the imperfect, loud, obnoxious kids.

Somehow, the Kingdom of God belongs to those with the greatest impropriety.

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Somehow, the Kingdom of God belongs to those with the greatest impropriety. The ones we are embarrassed of are the very ones to whom the kingdom belongs. Instead of working for our children to be seen and not heard, perhaps we should be doing more inviting, listening and learning from them.

I’m not advocating for a child-centered existence, but I am wondering if there is something to Jesus’ command that I’m missing when I expect my children to be anything more or less than what they are–children. Perhaps I need to hang a sign by my table as a reminder: “She is three years old. He is four years old.” Because I forget and expect them to act like adults.

My children are peeling away my masks, forcing me into true, messy relationship without the pretense of perfection. And Jesus says that if I don’t learn to receive the Kingdom of God like one of these kids we apologize for and try to hide, then we will never receive it.

So I’m doing hospitality anyway. In the noise, fuss, mess and chaos. Don’t wipe your feet at the door. Just come on in.

How are you doing hospitality anyway?

Category: hospitality

How We Welcome {guest post}

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Building Bridges with Chinese Muslims {guest post}

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A Shared Burden in Germany {guest post}

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South Africa, Funerals, and My Vegetable Peeler {guest post}

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By Most Country’s Standards, I’m a Terrible Host

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Why I’m Not Apologizing for My Kids and Doing Hospitality Anyway

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