Sharing and hospitality bring joy

David and his colleague Mark were visiting Africa, traveling from village to village, visiting people in their huts and offering to teach them improved farming techniques.

I met David and heard him speak about his experiences, and I will never forget what David said about eating in Africa.

Invariably, the villagers invited David and Mark for a meal. It was an honor, the villagers said, to feed them. So if their schedule permitted, David and Mark often stayed for lunch or dinner.

The meal was always the same: chicken and rice.

They ribbed each other as they drove down the rutted dirt roads. “What do you think will be for dinner tonight?”

“Could it be – chicken and rice??”

Sure enough it -always was. They grew quite tired of chicken and rice by the time their month-long educational training trip ended.

On their final day, they were speaking with one of the organizers of the tour, and the topic of meals came up.

David and Mark once again joked about chicken and rice. The organizer told them that the villagers’ livelihood depended on chickens, and that once a year, the villagers had chicken and rice.

David and Mark were speechless and deeply humbled.

In a similar story, a missionary surgeon was speaking to a small group of university students about his work in the Gaza Strip.

On one occasion he had stopped at a peasant hovel to see a woman on whom he had performed surgery. She and her husband were dirt poor.

Their livestock supply consisted of one Angora rabbit and two chickens. For income the woman combed the hair out of the rabbit, spun the hair into yarn and sold it.

For food she and her husband ate the eggs from the chickens. The woman insisted that the missionary surgeon stay for lunch.

He accepted the invitation and said he would be back for lunch after he had gone down the road to see another postoperative patient.

An hour and a half later he was back. He peeked into the cooking pot to see what he was going to eat.

He saw one rabbit and two chickens. The woman had given up her entire livestock supply –her income, her food, everything.

Our perspective here is very different. Perhaps hearing these stories will help us to rethink our understanding of hospitality and generosity.

We may give what is easy, what fits into our schedules and comfort. But these stories show us generosity that costs something – given not from abundance, but from the heart.

Welcoming others, instead of blocking them or slamming doors, may lead us to a greater sense of peace and fulfillment.

Perhaps these stories will challenge us to see our neighbors – both near and far – not as burdens, but as opportunities for love and connection.

In my experience, holding on tight-fistedly makes me more self centered, but being open to sharing and hospitality is that which brings me joy.

Contact Sharon at tct@pageone-inc.com