A place I called home for the first 19 years of my life and a city that takes pride in a lot of things; Cincinnati, Ohio. A somewhat large metropolitan Midwestern city, located in the Southwestern part of the buckeye state on the border of Ohio and Kentucky; the border being the Ohio River.
When it comes to things we are prideful of, one immediately comes to mind: FOOD! As far as food is concerned, we take a lot pride in being the city with the best chili & best ice cream ever.
Odd combination I know, but you don’t eat them together. Fact of the matter is Skyline Chili is the best chili in the world and Graeter’s Ice Cream is one of the best ice creams in the country. Just type in “Graeter’s Ice Cream best in the U.S.” into google and pick whichever article you want that explains it as such. If you haven’t had this delicious stuff enter your stomach, find an excuse to leave wherever you are and go eat some. I’ll give you permission to pause reading this blog, go onto Expedia or wherever you buy plane tickets from and get yourself to Cincinnati now. If you have had this stuff, you know what I’m taking about and it’s the closest thing to heaven in your mouth as you’ll come on this earth. If you are from Cincinnati and you like Gold Star Chili and some chain brand ice cream you bought at WalMart, child please. One, I’m sorry and two, we may need to have some divine intervention and I’ll pray for you.
Now I’m sure most of you are wondering why in the heck is this guy rambling on about Cincinnati and ice cream. So here is where I’ll insert my story…
Story Time
This month in Thailand has been so amazing in so many ways, one of them being the fact we got to evangelize multiple times. We would go out in groups of three with one of our hosts and a translator into the neighborhood late at night. Our teams would spend time in prayer before we set out into the night hoping to share the gospel with the beautiful people of Maesot, Thailand. In addition, some people from our teams stayed back to continue to pray for our nightly journey.
So we set off into the night and I honestly had no idea what to expect. Wasn’t sure if we would talk to a million people or if we wouldn’t see a soul considering it was so late at night.
We had only been walking for five or ten minutes or so before we stumbled on a family sitting on their front porch. We introduced ourselves from a distance and without any hesitation the family invited us into their home to meet these random strangers from the United States. This was the first act of kindness that blew me away.
Now I know it may seem like a simple gesture on behalf of the family, but it is very uncommon in my eyes. For all of those reading from the United States, how many times have you been sitting outside of your home seeing five random people you’ve never met from a foreign country before; that stop and begin talking to you and you then invite them into your home? I’ll give you my answer…I’ve never done this before
After they invited us into their simple home, they immediately asked us if we wanted something to drink and they gave us all bottled water. Soon after, they also offered us if we wanted ice cream…WHAT? Do we want ice cream? Who doesn’t want ice cream?! This marked the second act of kindness. I couldn’t believe that a family who knew zero English and more importantly knew nothing about us, hosted us out of the kindness of their hearts.
Minutes later the ice cream came and it wasn’t your average ice cream on a stick. It was homemade ice cream and not only that, but they brought out multiple flavors. Thoughts in my head started swirling (no pun intended). So let me get this straight, not only are you giving us ice cream, but we get to choose the flavor? Vanilla, chocolate chip, strawberry, what is going on?!
After we received their generous gifts from this family of seven we began to use our translator to get to know these beautiful human beings a little bit better. They were of Indian decent, but had never been to India itself. They had been from Burma, but moved to Thailand years ago where they reside now. They were all Hindu and that made the experience even cooler knowing Jesus was present in this time between Christians and Hindus.
Time passed by as we created small talk asking about their family life, work life and we also found room for some joking around as well. Towards the end of our stay we told them what we believed and that we worshiped Jesus because of His unfailing love in our lives. Jesus isn’t a religion to us, but rather a personal relationship we have with Him for what He has done for us. He is not just for us because He loves everyone and wants to have a relationship with everyone. In addition, we asked if we could pray for them and they said YES!
So one of my squadmates led the prayer for the family out loud and we all prayed individually to ourselves for them as well. We prayed for one of the younger children of the family because he had an injured thumb. We prayed for the success in their financial lives and for their family lives. Lastly, we also prayed they would come to know Jesus.
After we finished praying for this beautiful family, we said our goodbyes and went off into the night. I didn’t know whether I should smile, cry or do both because my emotions started to get all sorts of stirred up.
Reflection
Now this also may sound like a simple interaction between people, but it wasn’t to me. This was AMAZING because they were open to hear our opinions, beliefs, and cared about what we had to say. It would’ve been so easy for them to say “no” because of our difference in beliefs, but I believe God created space for our presence. He created space for Him and His Kingdom to be known at that exact moment in time.
God also taught me a very valuable lesson that occurred to me multiple days later about LOVE. It said often and something I think is unbelievably important which is to love others. It is also equally important to love yourself just the same. There is a third component that I had never really thought about before in my life and that’s LEARN TO RECEIVE LOVE. Shockingly it is easier said than done and I’m guilty of doing it sometimes throughout in my life. I started thinking to myself, why is it so difficult to receive love? Is it the stubborn side of us where we think we can do everything on our own? Is it the fact that we think we’re okay and don’t want other people’s help or comments?
Well, if someone gives you a compliment, don’t brush it off as nothing. They took the short time out of their day and told out of the kindness of their hearts something about you that is true. So embrace other human beings positive comments about yourself and never say no to love. If someone gives something to you out of love, they are doing it because it is who they are as a person and they want to spread love around and it doesn’t stop there! You embrace the love you received and recycle it back into people you know, people don’t know, and the world as a whole. That family we met that night is a perfect example of LOVE & the presence of Jesus Christ.
What if we showed that kindness in North America, no Central America, NO THE ENTIRE WORLD? How cool would it be to sit outside our homes in the United States and instead of putting up our guard against people who walk by, but instead said hello and offered love to others? What if we finally tore down barriers around ourselves and let us be open for the sake of allowing room for Jesus to move in? I think it may be time to answer these questions with people in our own lives, mine included.
Remember that ice cream rant I went on in the beginning of the blog about how Cincinnati has the best ice cream in the country with Graeters? I tell ya what, Graeters is now second in my book to the ice cream I had with the Hindu family in Thailand.
The chocolate chip ice cream I had in Thailand was the best tasting ice cream I had ever had and ever will have because of the fact that Jesus created room for Himself to be shown. That family didn’t have to share their water or their ice cream with us. Heck, they didn’t even have to say hello to us either, but they did anyway. Love & kindness presented itself between a few friends and a family who were once strangers to us. I pray nothing but best wishes in the future for them and for the family to love Jesus one day; just like He loves all of us and just like that family loved us. I learned a valuable lesson in learning how to receive love which I will carry with me for the rest of my life…
So honest question for y’all, are you willing to share your ice cream with others and are you just as willing to receive ice cream from people you don’t even know?
