by Rena Turnham, St. David's, Minnetonka

I consider myself a pretty good hostess, with years of practice and joy in the art of hospitality.  I greet people at my door, I enjoy planning and preparing meals, and setting the table is a creative effort for me.  Until now, it had all been in the details for me.

Recently I returned from Kenya with a group of 13 from St. David’s.  Over several years St. David’s has nurtured a relationship with an Anglican parish in Ziwa Kenya.  Working through the Kenya Partnership and the Mama Ada Foundation, we have helped fund students and famers in this poverty stricken area.

The welcome and outpouring of love we received from St. Joseph’s in Ziwa Kenya was a kind of hospitality like no other.  It was overwhelming.  Frankly, it wore me out!  We experienced such love, real love expressed, and sincere welcoming and inclusion at every stop.  The Greek word for "hospitable" literally means "lover of strangers, “friend of strangers," or "fond of guests."  We were greeted with feasting, song, dance, prayer, welcome ceremonies, hugs, and handshakes, at every stop, some people waiting hours for our arrival. We began to think we were being treated as if Christ himself has walked into the dirt floored sanctuary of their church. 

I began to wondering how others in my life would feel if I greeted them with this same openness, making myself vulnerable, stopping what I was doing, welcoming the interruptions associated with hosting, instead making lists of cleaning task and groceries needed.  The people of Ziwa don’t have a grocery store, and they don’t have someone come and clean their house every two weeks as I do.  The kind of hospitality they practice is more like the hospitality of days gone by…guests arrive unannounced, you light the stove, make a cup of coffee (or in the case in Kenya, Chai tea), and welcome guests to the parlor until late into the evening.

Scripture tells us much about hospitality, its importance and its place. We are to welcome and serve one another regardless of who we are, what we have, where we come from and where we are going.  The Old Testament is full of stories of taking strangers.  Jesus of course would be the ultimate host (I guess it isn’t Martha Stewart after all).

As part of our trip we visited local famers that we had helped in the past through the purchase of seeds and fertilizers.  The farmers were so proud to show us what they done with these gifts.  Midway through our trip we had a torrential afternoon rain.  Ziwa is a town covered in red fertile soil, which when wet, creates a really muddy mess.  Children delight in this, and keep on running and jumping, many without shoes.  As we were touring the muddy countryside our pickup truck became stuck.  My son was one of a few people that got out and pushed the truck.  He became completely muddy and his tennis shoes were needless to say, soaked, filthy and unrecognizable.  He delighted like the young children that he was covered in mud, he climbed aboard, and we sped off to the next farm.

We returned to the home we were staying at and my son removed his muddy shoes and left them in an entry area.  The next morning he wore a different pair of shoes, and we discussed just how we were going to clean those shoes, get them home, etc. but that we’d tackle that at the end of the day.  We came back from a day of greeting students that we had helped support and those shoes were clean and drying neatly in the newly mopped entry.  I will never forget seeing these new shoes.   It reminded me of the greatest act of hospitality, that of foot washing.

That night I went to bed, tiered and groggy from another day filled with “extreme hospitality”.  I silently began the Lord Prayer…”Our Father, who Art in…Kenya (?)”.  I believe He was.

I left for Kenya wondering how else we might help these people that from afar, lacked material wealth and the security it can bring my supplying education and food.  Partnerships are relationships between people that are mutually beneficial.  I began to wonder what the people of Ziwa could possibly offer us. 

Let us greet one another as we have been greeted and welcome all into our midst.   The English word "hospitality" shares the same root as the words “hospital" and "hospice." This reminds us that "hospitality" has to do more with care-giving and healing.  I wonder how our world might be healed if we greeted one another with this “extreme hospitality”?

Learn more about this trip on their Facebook page.

In the first picture above: secondary students in Ziwa Kenya, and members of the St. David's Kenya Partnership from left to right: Jesse Bulson-Lewis, Robyn Zeidler, Sarah Shoulak, and Ben Turnham

In the second picture: members of the St. David's Kenya Partnership, headed by Rev. Katherine Lewis and Jim and Sharon Engel, pictured here with the bishop of the Diocese of Eldoret Kenya the Rt. Rev. Dr. Christopher Ruto and his staff.