A hospitality sabbatical

After a season of welcoming, we are taking a break

What does it mean to “practice hospitality”? If you’re a regular reader here, you know that it is not just entertaining or impressing, but truly welcoming people. It can manifest in many different ways—and they don’t always have to be inside the walls of your home.

About two and half years ago, my husband Scot and I had a conversation. We’ve welcomed people to our home for short-term stays (anywhere from a day or two to a couple of months) for more than two decades. But what if we considered the possibility of opening our home to someone who needed a place to stay for longer than that? We both felt a tug toward using our now empty nest to welcome others. Were we willing to let someone live with us, rather than just visit? What if we engaged in an experiment, a deeper dive into this practice?

We had friends who engaged in this sort of more intense hospitality ministry. We admired our friends who had made it a lifestyle; we watched them curiously. It’s one thing to have someone stay for a week or two. It’s another to have them move in for a year.

We decided to just see what came our way. To just whisper “yes” to God and see what opened up. Within a week or two, opportunities began to come our way. It was almost as if God had heard us and responded. Chance conversations, phone calls that started, “I thought of you because you have such a gift for hospitality…”

Over the past two and a half years, we’ve welcomed people to live with us, one or two at a time. The latest one was here for a year and a half. We feel called to practice hospitality in this rather intense way. Our long-term guests felt so much like family that they have sometimes had guests, whom we also welcomed for shorter visits. It sometimes got a little crowded in our “empty nest.”

Our guest Nestor with Scot and I, summer 2022.

Scot and our guest Valeria, summer 2024.

This experiment, this deep dive into welcoming, has stretched us, grown us. We’ve learned a lot about hospitality, about ourselves, about God’s provision.

And yet, we find ourselves ready for a reprieve.

Our house is not large. Our guests had their own bathroom and bedroom. We only occasionally invited them to eat with us. They cooked for themselves, but shared our kitchen. This proved sometimes quite challenging.

I believe hospitality is a spiritual practice—something we do with our bodies and lives to help us connect more deeply to God.  There are many ways to practice it, which I’ve written about in this space. Visiting refugees. Visiting people who are sick or in the hospital. Sharing food, whether in your home or by bringing someone a meal. Simply extending kindness to strangers. And in our case, over the past nearly three years, it has also meant inviting someone to live in our home with us. But just like fasting or prayer or meditation, we can practice, and then not practice. Take a break. I’m learning in this season that the practice of hospitality invites us to a rhythm of engagement and rest.

This month, our house is empty (except for Scot and me) for the first time in nearly three years. We’re ready to sabbatical for a season. Our kids will visit, we will travel. (I wrote about our recent travels last week, and the week before that.)

One of our recent adventures.

We’ll of course still invite friends over for a meal or just to hang out. I’ll continue to spend time with my Syrian friends, a welcome I’ve been extending for more than seven years. We’ve already had someone over rather spontaneously for dinner. (Scot to me before playing tennis: “Do we have enough that I can invite Tom to dinner after tennis?” I pull an extra can of chickpeas from the pantry to toss into the curry I’m planning. “Of course. I’ll make extra rice.” Because sometimes hospitality literally means combining a willing attitude with extra rice and beans.)

Spontaneous happy hour with my friend Liza.

The type of hospitality we’ve engaged in for the past 18 months, sharing our home, requires a deeper level of commitment and involvement than just sharing a meal. Because our guests were young, we sometimes felt like adopted parents—offering advice or just a listening ear. It was very rewarding. Kind of in the way running a marathon is rewarding. It’s exhilarating, tiring, fulfilling, occasionally exasperating. But sometimes we discover and experience the meaning and fruit of spiritual endeavors after we complete them.

Just as we felt invited to open our home, we are now sensing an invitation to rest. God leads, maybe not with an audible voice or even a thought—but with a feeling of weariness. It’s something to pay attention to.

This has nothing to do with the wonderful people we have welcomed and grown to love. The young people who stayed with us over the last few years have come to feel like family, like adopted grown children. We have no regrets, and I’m quite certain that our welcoming adventures are far from over. We learned from this experience, and experienced joy and connection. But inviting people to live with you for more than a week or two is an intense sort of ministry.

When Jesus sent out his disciples to teach and heal and so on, they came back to him reporting that their efforts had been fruitful. The mission was successful. They were energized and excited. Yet Jesus responded with a gentle invitation, “Come away with me to get some rest.”

We find ourselves in that very place. Glad for the season of welcoming, ready to take a break. What will be next? We don’t know.

We have no regrets. And we’ll likely open our home again—but not yet.

Leave a comment! Have you ever opened your home to a stranger? What has been your experience? What questions do you have about this kind of hospitality?