Run of Hope/ Czech Hospitality

Today I made a new friend, saw the shortest marathon ever, and heard Ephesians read in Czech.

The park behind Bethel was host to a Run of Hope today. I still do not know what the hope was for, but since many people were around, I’m sure there was a lot of hope. The run was about one lap, so they must have hoped very hard for the duration.

I helped work a table for Bethel, to sign people up for English classes and a soccer tournament later in the day. My new friend Ahnja was there as well and has been so kind. She speaks English and has spent the day translating and interpreting for me, plus feeding me as well. The feeding started at the race, when volunteers set up a refreshment table.

Cured meat is very popular here, along with lots of different spreads to put on bread. I wished I hadn’t eaten so much yogurt for breakfast, because then I would have been able to eat more pepperoni and sauce sandwiches.

Later in the afternoon, I walked with Ahnja to her house on the outside of town. I was told that it is bad manners not to clean your plate in the Czech Republic, which became a problem when Jana’s mother served me a three sausages and a pork fillet, after I had eaten a bowl of lentils and a salad. I thought being sick all over her nice yard would have been worse manners, so I ate a little of all the meat, smiled and thanked her profusely as I waddled out of her home to walk to youth group with Ahnja. I have never been so glad for a twenty minute walk. I think my heart would have exploded if I had just sat there after eating so much.

I have been thinking a lot about hospitality and what it means in the Christian life. I had never thought of hospitality as a spiritual discipline until recently, when it was a topic in my spirituality class last term. Hospitality, which is certainty warm and welcoming when we experience it, is also a model of our relationship with Christ. To be hospitable shows us how to unconditionally love and care for an outsider, even and especially one who is very different, very foreign. To receive hospitality show us the humility of receiving grace that we cannot pay back.

In less than a week, I have already received overwhelming hospitality. Something as simple as leftovers in a nearly stranger's home feels like a shady spot on a hot day. I am trying to find ways to reciprocate this hospitality, which will take some creativity. I think I will buy strawberries to share next time I am at the market. After all, hospitality is not just how you treat a guest in your home. Hospitality can and should be part of our daily living, in how we always make those around us feel welcome and honored. I am not good at this, since I am usually so focused on being independent and self-supporting that I end up being self-centered and ignoring the needs of others. I am going to try to make deliberate steps each day towards showing hospitality with my actions.