…and is well known for her good deeds, such as bringing up children, showing hospitality, washing the feet of the Lord’s people, helping those in trouble and devoting herself to all kinds of good deeds. 1 Timothy 5:10

Pastor Mark Nsimbi and friends have been preaching on hospitality and it is an inspiring series. My hope for you is that as we learn and apply God’s principals of hospitality, they will become generational in your family. For so many families in our church you are naturally hospitable because that is in your blood and every act of generosity is honoring your family that came before you. During this transition time in our church, we have been sustained by the generosity of such families. People who have remembered the dream of Washington Cathedral: “to build the greatest caring network the world has ever seen”, They are like the Iron pillared people in the book of Jeremiah:  Behold, I have made you this day a fortified city, an open pillar. And bronze walls against the whole land - against the kings of Judah, against its princes, against its priests, against the whole land.

When I was living in Israel, we had a day off from school so a friend of mine and myself were running a wadi through the desert on inner-tubes. A great fun experience except for the sunburn of a lifetime we received.  I can’t tell you how hot and tired we were and feeling like we were going to die of thirst. So, we pulled over to use some survival techniques to purify the wadi water that we were floating on.  As we were trying to “MacGyver” a remedy we were discovered by a group of Bedouins on their camels with rifles. They took us to their beautiful tents which were not far away. They asked us to sit on the rug with hand motions. They did not speak English, and we did not speak whatever dialect they were speaking.  They had a family member come to entertain us with some version of a sitting guitar. They brought us an extravagant dinner of (well we didn’t know what it was), but we were too afraid not to eat it and they brought us hot tea served in some sort of China dishware. They even gave us Coca Cola Arab style. Same coloring and symbol but with writing in Arabic. It was even kind of cool because they had cooled it in sheep manure. When we tried to pay them, they were insulted. We tried to take a picture of us inside their tent, but they pushed us out. So, we took one in front of the desert with our cool Palestinian Keffiyeh that they gave us to protect us from sunburn.  We tried to pay them again for the covering, but they refused again. When we finally made it back to Jerusalem the Israeli soldiers, who had become our buddies, teased us by calling us Lawrence of Arabia. 

The Israelis explain that in the Middle East all people from all religions believe in hospitality especially when someone is caught in the desert. They said it goes all the way back to Father Abraham.

Somewhere in storage I have a framed picture of my buddy and I with our Keffiyehs in the desert. Below is a picture of myself and a Maasai warrior who also showed great hospitality to Jackie and me when we were guests in his home made from cattle dung and straw in the African desert.

How exciting it is to be building our own traditions of kingdom hospitality here at Washington Cathedral.

Your friend for life,

Pastor Tim