My friend Albert (not his real name) is a 26 year old Sudanese refugee. I have had the great privilege to get to know him over my first week of being in Paris. Over my first 5-6 days of working in Porta de la Chappele I got to spend about it 2-4 hours with him a day. We got to talk about our families, favorite food (I talked about pizza), and good verses evil.
But in this relationship that was developed I saw presented with something I had never seen before, true hospitality. On our first time meeting a group of us where chatting with a group from Somalia and Sudan. After getting talking for awhile we asked them what part of the camp they were staying at. What seemed like almost immediately they took us to their tents. They then preceded to grab chairs for the girls to sit on as my teammate Andrew and myself were sitting on a concrete ledge. But, they went farther just chairs, they ended up ripping off some cardboard from someone’s makeshift sleeping mate so Andrew and myself didn’t have to sit on the cold concrete.
Throughout this time that we hung out we got to talk and just randomly one of the guys said, let’s go get tea and coffee. So we all got up thinking they were going to grab coffee from themselves, as it was from an organization serving the refugees. No they proceed to grab enough coffee for all of us. Even though we were their to serve them and listen to their stories and show them love. As we were loving them they were loving us.
This got me thinking about the hospitality that Jesus showed to the people of his time. He dined with sinners and shared a meal with them. When Jesus dined with Zacchaeus Jesus showed love by dinning with a “sinner” when no one else would have done that. My friend Albert has reminded me of this amazing Love that Jesus has for us.
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