We find him sitting on a bench with some others. “Pashtun?” He nods his head. We cheer. I can see the smile on his face as we acknowledge who he is. I think in my head, “He’s probably never felt this good about who he is. So proud.” We draw a crowd with our excitement, making it a bit more difficult to get the answers we seek. He then invites us to come to his home and proceeds to lead the way.
After about 10 flights of stairs, which changed building materials 4 times in the process, we found ourselves being welcomed into a beautiful little apartment. We’re led into an open room with overlapping Turkish rugs and thin mattresses set out for us to sit on. His beautiful wife brings us some pillows and instantly begins preparing us tea as we take note of the two little ones running around with carrots and knives.
We sit there and talk and learn this man’s story before making plans to come back the next day for lunch.
We come back the next day, food in our hands–ready to serve lunch for them all. We wish we could have invited them to our home this time but well, it’s the World Race we don’t really have a home so food is the best we can do. We bring food for 8, expecting the whole family this time, only to find the same 4. The older ones are out working again. Working for this family entails sorting through trash and returning it for the deposit. As we hand them what we brought, we see they’ve prepared food. My heart instantly sinks. How many days worth of garbage picking was this food? Here was a family, illegally in this country, barely enough money to scrape by, and they are making us food. It makes our little Chicken doners look like dog food or something (though are in fact delicious and have been quite the blessing from God). We bought a Turk Cola (and some other beverages) only to see they bought us some Coke. Here we were thinking we were blessing them and they were literally sacrificing for us.
Lord, I don’t understand this hospitality. I didn’t understand it in Hungary and I don’t understand it in Turkey. But I thank you for it.
We continue to talk and spend time with this family when he drops the bombshell on us. “Can you help me get to your country?” The next half hour or so was spent talking about green cards and immigration and filling out paperwork and such as this man so wanted our help. Help we wanted to offer, but could we? “Where do we draw the line?” I thought to myself, as he passed around the visa pictures of his family. This man who had traveled from Afghanistan to Pakistan to Iran to Turkey all for the safety of his family. This man who had offered his very home for us stay, his own food for us to eat–how do we help him from here?
Lord, be with this man. Be with this family. Bless them in ways that we can’t. There are things that we’ll see, there are needs that’ll exist, that we simply cannot handle on our own. So we lift them to you, Father. We lift this family to you. We pray that their papers get filled out, visas get granted, and opportunities arise. We pray Lord that their hearts be softened to the truth that you offer and they may cling to the hope that you bring. I thank you Lord that you brought them into our lives and for the hospitality that they’ve shown us. May you bless them a hundredfold for the way they blessed us.
