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"Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by so doing some people have shown hospitality to angels (messengers of God) without knowing it." --Hebrews 13:2
Dear Friends,
On at our Wednesday staff biblical reflection and prayer time last week, we read Genesis 18 where Abraham runs out to invite three strangers in from the heat of the day and receiving a direct message from God. In Abraham's day, providing hospitality was a life and death reality and it was an expected cultural practice.
Throughout Jesus' life and ministry, he embodied hospitality and reminds us that when we welcome a stranger, we welcome him and when we do not receive a stranger, we do not receive him.
Providing hospitality continues to be a life and death practice today but our culture and government has increasingly defined the stranger as a danger to reject as opposed to a human being created in the divine image and a blessing to welcome. Walls and laws have been created to endanger persons in transit and criminalize them as well as those who provide them hospitality.
We are grateful for your encouragement, prayers, and support that help us create welcoming spaces for strangers to become friends, women, men and children to cultivate their gifts, and persons struggling with addiction to experience hope and healing.
May we have the courage to choose welcome each day.
Peace,
Miriam & Mark
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