photo by Ted
Once a week, on Tuesdays, I do not work in Cornerstone but volunteer to give German lessons to a group of immigrant ladies. (With Cornerstone being so close to the German border and with my family actually living in Germany, this is possible.) Some of these ladies have lived in Germany for many years, but being unschooled and busy with kids and family they missed the chance of learning German in younger years. Others have come to Germany only recently. Many of those are very intelligent and keen to learn the language quickly.
Christmas time gave me the opportunity to invite these ladies to my house for a Christian/cultural experience of an Advent afternoon with candles, Christmas music, lots of goodies, the Christmas story in simple German and the song ‘Silent Night” in different languages.
Nine ladies responded to this year’s invitation. They came from four different nations and languages. All of them are Muslim.
The term “hospitality” in the Bible has the connotation of changing outsiders “from strangers to guests” (Malina 1998, 115)
HT