Today, we finish our series on family life by talking about hospitality. I want to start by telling you of some of the greatest hospitality I've ever experienced.
When I was a university student, I went on a six week mission trip to Papua New Guinea. I experienced hospitality like I had never heard of or even dreamed of. We were a team of 6 college students from the USA. We spent the summer visiting remote churches in the mountains and swamps of Papua New Guinea. Sometimes, we were the first white people to ever visit these churches. We traveled by plane, by boat, by bus, by truck, and by foot – sometimes all in the same week.
I remember when we arrived at one church. As we began unloading from the van, the little old ladies (all the ajumas and halmonies) from around the village were so excited that they gathered in the front yard of the church and started screaming (Aaaaiiieeeeee!!!) and waving their hands like they were dying of heat exhaustion. Then, they started coming toward us. We put out our hands to greet them with a handshake American style, but they bypassed our hands and hugged us with their heads in our armpits – still screaming and waving their hands. But once they really got to hugging us, many of the little old ladies would grab our bottoms – not just a pat, mind you, I'm talking about getting a handful and squeezing! Then, they would maybe bounce a little and stand up and start waving their hands and screaming again (Aaaiiiieeeee!!!). Many of them had tears in their eyes. When we got back to little house behind the church, we started comparing notes. “Did that old lady goose you?” “Yep.” “Hey, man, they all goosed me!”
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