Room for one more

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NICK EICHER, HOST: Today is Wednesday, February 4th.

Thank you for turning to WORLD Radio to help start your day.

Good morning. I’m Nick Eicher.

LINDSAY MAST, HOST: And I’m Lindsay Mast.

Coming next on The World and Everything in It: Welcoming strangers.

On a road trip, you can pay for a motel, crash on a relative’s couch, or camp along the way. But could you stay with a stranger?

EICHER: Turns out thousands of Christians around the world intentionally welcome strangers into their homes. In other words, a Biblical version of “we’ll leave the light on for ya.” 

WORLD Correspondent Amy Lewis has the story.

AUDIO: [Sound of goat bleating]

AMY LEWIS: Kenneth Michael McAdams and his family raise goats in Plains, Texas. Plains isn’t near much of anything. But travelers still go out of their way to stay with the McAdams family.

AUDIO: [Squeak of gate]

Today, the travelers arrive in time to help milk the goats.

STEPHEN: It’s slow for me.

MCADAMS: They like you when you’re slow. You know why? They get to eat longer.

For 15 years, the McAdams have been a part of a Christian hospitality network called “A Candle in the Window.” They’ve used the network to travel inexpensively around the U.S. Their favorite part is sharing stories and making new friends.

MCADAMS: The one family, we had just had a meal with them, but as we left, well, they not only walked us out, but as we drove the half or quarter mile down the road. We look back, they're still all outside, waving. And I go, "Yeah, this is not your ordinary people."

They particularly enjoy hosting. They’ve had families from places like China, South Africa, Jordan, and Mexico.

GPS: In ½ a mile, turn left.

Further up the road, in Salt Lake City, Utah, Elizabeth Veillon keeps a homemade dinner warm for her guests, who are arriving late. She has fresh sheets on the beds and a warm welcome at the door.

GPS: You have arrived.

Several times every month for the past 10 years, the Veillons have invited strangers to sleep in the lower level of their house.

VEILLON: I started when I became an empty nester. I found the house so quiet that I was like, "This is crazy"…

Veillon grew up the youngest of 12 children.

VEILLON: One thing that my mother would always say is "there's always room for one more at the table."

Still, she grew concerned that her focus was on her own actions, what she could do, instead of why it mattered and because of her love for God.

VEILLON: So if you are saying, "Lord, here I am, use me," that’s what Christian hospitality is, even when it's not a convenient time.

Welcoming people into your space can also be uncomfortable. Elizabeth’s husband, Chuck:

C. VEILLON: ...I want quiet, I want peace, I want my time, me time...all the things. And, but it comes down to, they’re, in the end they're selfish.

The struggle of the host to be hospitable is just one side of the coin of loving strangers.

SWANSON: Hospitality is messy.

Tanner Kay Swanson works from home as a mom, a wife, and an editor for Desiring God, where she sometimes writes about hospitality. She has everyday opportunities to practice hospitality, like today. Her mother is in town for work but needs a place to take a nap between shifts. 

So Swanson speaks to me from her patio while her mother sleeps inside.

She says opening a home to others helps model how God drew near to us through his son.

SWANSON: Christ has been hospitable to the point of dying on a cross to make strangers His brothers and sisters. And so I think hospitality is very bent up in the Gospel.

Swanson says Christ’s own sacrifice has a real world impact for His followers, because God commands it. It’s part of His design to make us more like Christ.

SWANSON: So when we don't obey that command, we're actually missing out on what God has for us. We're not protecting ourselves, we're actually hurting ourselves. And that doesn't mean it's not hard…

She says it’s important to pace hospitality so that it’s sustainable.

SWANSON: One thing I love that is in the book The Gospel Comes with a Housekey by Rosaria Butterfield, she and her husband—I believe it's on Sundays—there's an open invitation to their neighborhood to come and have soup on a cold day, and hot drinks, and talk. And that is something that they've built into their life so that they can be lavishly hospitable on a Sunday afternoon….

Of course life can get busy—or hard.

SWANSON: If your hospitality looks like 30 minutes on your front porch talking to your neighbor, that is an expression of hospitality. If it looks like Costco pizza right before everyone comes over—my husband and I just did this last week.

Elizabeth Veillon in Utah says every type of person can be hospitable.

VEILLON: You also don't have to be an extrovert. I'm an introvert [laughs].

An introvert who uses her energy to welcome strangers into her home for Christ’s sake.

VEILLON: Alright, well drive safely. / Thank you. 

Reporting for WORLD, I’m Amy Lewis in Plains, Texas, and Salt Lake City, Utah.

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