Among Worlds - Hospitality - March 2022

MARCH 2022

AMONG WORLDS

Vol. 22 | No. 1

Hospitality

Contents

Editor’s Letter Hospitality

The Gift of an Open Door Melynda Joy Schauer

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One Less Chicken: Lessons from a Pakistani Childhood Marilyn R. Gardner

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Hospitality Rachel Hicks

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Going Home Emily Chesley

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Hospitality: The Art of Welcoming Others Brooke Wiens

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Spotlight Interview: Michèle Phoenix

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On Being Understood Beth Matheson

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“Your most unhappy customers are your greatest source of learning.” – Bill Gates

Spreading African Hospitality Lauren Wells

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Um…you can probably guess that this is not where we planned to go with this theme.

Cafecito Elena Mackey

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Torn (fiction) Elena Mackey

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When You Feel at Home Beth Anne Wray

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Thanks for the Memories Amy Paronto

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Tree of Hospitality (poem/artwork) 47 Rebecca and Jacob Lesan

March 2022 • Vol. 22 • No. 1 Cover Photo by August de Richelieu (Pexels) Editor: Rachel Hicks Copy Editor: Pat Adams Graphic Designer: Kelly Pickering Digital Publishing: Bret Taylor

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In preparing for this issue, I did a Google search for quotations on hospitality. Do you know what came up most often?

Quotes like these: “The customer is never wrong.” – César Ritz “Quality is never an accident. It is always the result of an intelligent effort.” – John Ruskin “Courteous treatment will make a customer a walking advertisement.” – James Cash Penney

We were hoping to share stories with each other about moments when we were taken into someone’s home and made to feel like family, no matter the cultural, economic, or language differences. We wanted to hear from you about mouth-watering meals and aromas, about the warmth of welcome offered even in the humblest circumstances, and about what real hospitality means to you.

“Thankfully, this TCK tribe knew what we meant by hospitality.”

Thankfully, this TCK tribe knew what we meant by hospitality. Contributors in this issue discuss what hospitality is and isn’t by sharing their own experiences both as guests and as hosts.

They admit their nostalgia for places and people

with whom they shared food and life. Some of them have been able to get back and reconnect to those places and people, but many of us aren’t able to do so. Guests in this issue share about the people who have taught them what hospitality means, and about their own obstacles to being hospitable people.

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The mission of Among Worlds is to encourage adult TCKs and other global nomads by addressing real needs through relevant issues, topics, and resources.

Because of our global experiences (whether wonderful or difficult) with hospitality, TCKs may be able to enrich others as we intentionally reach out with welcome, especially across cultural differences.

I’ve been thinking a lot lately about the fact that by the end of 2020, 82.4 million people had been forcibly displaced around the world as a result of persecution, conflict, violence, or human rights violations or events (Source: UNHCR Global Trends 2020). Perhaps some of you have experienced a sudden displacement, having to quickly leave your home or even country of residence. We are living in the midst of an era of vast global migration, and not just of those who have been forcibly displaced.

Chances are great that wherever you live, you have neighbors who are not local to your region. Having experienced being welcomed in and treated like family by those in our host countries, we would do well to turn around and do the same for others.

True hospitality treats guests as valuable people and creates an atmosphere of warmth where relationships can grow and deepen. May each of us learn to offer that kind of hospitality in this fractured world.

Don’t forget that we’d love to hear your comments on this issue or past issues, any TCKmoments you’d like to share, or ideas for topics you’d like to see covered in this magazine! Write to us at amongworlds@interactionintl.org. We may print your feedback in our next issue!

Warm wishes,

Rachel

Among Worlds magazine would love to hear from you!

Any comments, feedback, or reflections that you may have on this issue or previous issues are welcome and will be printed in the following issue. Write to us at: amongworlds@interactionintl.org

AMONG WORLDS ©2022 (ISSN# 1538-75180) IS PUBLISHED QUARTERLY BY INTERACTION INTERNATIONAL, P. O. BOX 863 WHEATON, IL 60187 USA. NO PART OF THIS PUBLICATION MAY BE REPRODUCED WITHOUT THE PRIOR PERMISSION FROM THE PUBLISHER. WE LOVE WORKING WITH INTERNATIONAL SCHOOLS AND NGOS AND WILL NEGOTIATE A RATE THAT WORKS WITHIN YOUR BUDGET. CONTACT US AT AMONGWORLDS@ INTERACTIONINTL.ORG OR CALL +1-630-653-8780. THE VIEWS EXPRESSED IN AMONG WORLDS DO NOT NECESSARILY REFLECT THE VIEW OF AMONG WORLDS OR INTERACTION INTERNATIONAL.

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The Gift of an Open Door

By Melynda Joy Schauer

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rowing up as a third-culture kid on opposite sides of the planet, I’ve had the chance to experience hospitality in multiple cultures.

In the American South, hospitality looks like inviting someone over for a meal, sipping sweet tea on the front porch, and letting close friends or family stay in your guest room for a couple of days. The South is known for its hospitality, which extends to strangers striking up conversation in the grocery store—something that often felt bizarre to my friends from other regions when they visited me. As an adult now living in the South again, I don’t think twice about chatting with someone in the grocery store line or at the park; it feels normal to be friendly in public. Even during COVID-19, Southerners chat from behind their masks and comment on the beautiful babies in my “buggy” (a.k.a. shopping cart) on the rare occasions I bring them inside a store with me.

When I was eleven years old, my family moved overseas to Macau, and we experienced hospitality in a new way among the expat and missionary community. Hospitality there often began with a stranger picking you up from the airport, taking you to their home, translating for you, buying you food, setting up your new apartment, and helping you figure out your new roles and how to get to school and ride the buses. These “strangers” often quickly became dear family friends, with many of the kids in our missionary community calling our elders “aunt” and “uncle” as an extended family type of kinship formed over the years of living as foreigners in the same city. When visiting fellow missionary families, we’d leave our shoes outside the door and crowd around the living room with snacks and drinks, perhaps working on a puzzle or playing a game, ready to hang out for a while as the grown-ups caught up.

In the majority Chinese culture where I lived, I learned that hospitality almost always involved

giving a gift upon the first visit—and that when your guest gave you a wrapped gift, you didn’t open it in front of them, but rather waited until they left. You also traditionally receive the gift using both of your hands, a habit that even now is hard for me to break. Two decades after I lived in Macau and Taiwan, my husband and I have hosted many Chinese students in our home as part of our work with international students, and we have almost always received a gift when our Chinese friends came to visit.

“ There is also a risk to hospitality, because it does require some vulnerability and effort.”

Every culture has its own nuanced traditions for showing hospitality, but there are many overlapping similarities.

Hospitality is extending an invitation to come in, sit down, eat and drink, get comfortable, and be known; you are invited to rest and learn and go on your way encouraged and refreshed.

The history of the word “hospitable” comes from the French “hospitable” meaning “kind and cordial to strangers or guests,” according to the Online Etymology Dictionary. The root goes back to Latin for “be a guest” and even further back to the Proto-Indo-European root “ghos-ti” which means “stranger, guest, host.”

In the ancient world, a stranger you’re hosting in your home could become a lifelong friend, but strangers could also be a threat. Interestingly, the “ghos-ti” root word for hospitable, hospital, host, and guest is also the same root for hostage and hostile.

“A guest-friendship was a bond of trust between two people that was accompanied by ritualized gift-giving and created an obligation of mutual hospitality and friendship that, once established,

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could continue in perpetuity and be renewed years later by the same parties or their descendants,” according to Calvert Watkins in the American Heritage Dictionary of Indo-European Roots.

In my thirty-four years of life, I’ve found hospitality to be an overwhelmingly positive experience of deepening friendships with those whom I’ve hosted, and those who have hosted me.

During my somewhat nomadic adolescent years, many people hosted me and my family as we traveled around Asia. I’ve stayed in guest rooms ranging from a high-rise in Hong Kong to a ger in Mongolia. The generous hospitality I enjoyed growing up is a big part of why my husband and I have always kept a guest room in our house, even if it also doubles as an office space. We both value opening our door to traveling friends and family, and even strangers like newly arriving international students who need a place to stay for a few days while getting settled.

I believe extending hospitality is an antidote to the loneliness that characterizes much of the highly individualized American society. Hospitality is more than just a meal or overnight visit—it’s an invitation to community and connection.

But there is also a risk to hospitality, because it does require some vulnerability and effort as you welcome a stranger or even a friend or family member into your home.

Sometimes I wonder, what will they think when they see my unfolded laundry and dishes in the sink? And now as a parent, what will they think of our family if (let’s be honest, when) my kids misbehave? And sometimes selfishly, I question how will my day go if the kids’ nap schedule gets thrown off.

I’m slowly learning that the joys of hosting far outweigh the fear of inviting someone into my imperfect home. As I think back on the friends who have hosted me so well, I don’t remember anything about the cleanliness of their house, but I do remember the warm feeling of being welcomed, enjoying tea and conversation on the couch, and sharing in a meal around their table.

Today, I’m a mom of three kids ages four and under, and we are not in a season of traveling very far or very often. Yet in these last few years, I’ve experienced the rich joy of having the world around my table as friends from Thailand, Taiwan, Pakistan, Egypt, Mexico, India, China, Colombia, South Sudan, Australia, and Turkey have gathered around our table for a meal. We cook, talk, drink tea, play with the kids, go for a walk, share

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dessert, ask questions, and enjoy each other’s company. It’s been a beautiful blessing especially in the last couple of years of the pandemic which have been so isolating for many people.

As a Christian, I also believe hospitality isn’t something for only friendly people to do. All Christians are encouraged to practice hospitality, to both friends and strangers. The apostle Paul urges Christians to share with those in need and practice hospitality in Romans 12:13. In 1 Peter 4:8-9, the apostle Peter encourages Christians to love each other deeply, and to offer hospitality without complaining. Jesus says in Matthew 25 that whenever you offer one of the “least of these” a cup of water, or something to eat, or invite a stranger in, it’s as if we are extending hospitality to the King himself (Matthew 25:35-40).

The great thing about hospitality is that you don’t have to be an outgoing extrovert with a pictureperfect home; anyone can offer hospitality. You can invite a new co-worker to coffee or share a snack in the break room. You can text a mom friend to meet you at the park with your kids. You can reach out to just one person and have them into your home. It doesn’t have to be formal or feel like hard work… ask yourself: what sounds fun? And who is someone I could share that with?

At its simplest, hospitality is an invitation to “come and sit a spell,” as they say in the South.

Melynda Joy Schauer is an adult TCK who grew up in Macau, Taiwan, and Alabama, US. She now lives in Birmingham, Alabama, with her husband and three children. She keeps her international side alive by meeting international students in her city and finding the best bubble tea everywhere she goes!

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“Pakistan raised me, fed me, and nourished me.”

One Less Chicken

Lessons from a Pakistani Childhood

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By Marilyn R. Gardner

’m six years old, walking on a dirt road and holding my mom’s hand. We are in a small village in the southern area of Pakistan. This area is known for its heat (some of the hottest recorded temperatures in Southeast Asia) and its beautiful textiles. We walk in sandaled feet, dust kicking up with each step. Curious children have come alongside me, reaching out to touch my hands and my hair. Not normally a shy child, I’m suddenly feeling shy. They shout greetings of welcome, but I cling tighter to my mom’s hand.

We enter the shade of a modest room made of mud with a thatched roof. Rope-strung beds called charpais are against the sides of the room.

They are covered with quilts made of bright colors with tiny stitches. We sit down and begin to visit. Cups of steaming chai are followed by sweets bought for us at a local bazaar, a treat enjoyed by this family perhaps only once or twice a year. Hours later, we are served chicken curry with chapatis, traditional flat bread resembling tortillas. The hot spices make our noses run and our eyes tear up. It is so delicious that the memory stays with me until this day.

Besides the children, chickens are clucking amiably, oblivious to our arrival. A donkey is tied up at a nearby well and cows are out in fields that It is only later that I realize we left the village are now green from winter rains. with one less chicken. A chicken that lays eggs, giving a family much needed protein for their Our host hears the commotion and comes from diets. A chicken that can be killed for a holiday his one-room home to greet us. His smile is huge celebration, creating a meal for many. A chicken— and infectious. He’s accompanied by other village an offering of friendship and welcome. men. They greet my father with effusive hugs and handshakes. We walk past two more mud-baked Thinking about it as an adult I shake my head homes before arriving at the home of our host. At in amazement at this generous and extravagant this point his wife and daughters come to greet hospitality. Whether it was with a chicken killed us, their smiles equally big. Gold earrings dangle for curry in a village or a cup of tea offered from their ears, nose rings glisten in the sunlight, in a home, Pakistan raised me, fed me, and and bracelets circle up their arms. nourished me.

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As a relational society, Pakistan has hospitality embedded in its DNA; it is a critical part of every interaction. This hospitality through invitations to dinner, tea, or through food brought to our home were so much a part of our lives that we didn’t really think about it. It was the way all of us lived.

I always had an excuse—my house wasn’t big enough, I worked full time; I didn’t really know what people wanted to eat; besides—what if they said no? The litany of excuses was creative and long and it did what I wanted it to do. It kept the doors closed and my life tidy.

Until we no longer lived that way. Until we left.

It was in reflecting on the generosity of my childhood that I realized nothing in my early life had taught me to withhold hospitality. In fact, it was the opposite! My early memory of a mud home in a village was all I needed to recognize that my excuses did not hold up. Convicted, I began to change.

For years after I left Pakistan the memories of Pakistani hospitality would flood over me, often leaving me in tears. I would tell the story of the chicken to amazed listeners as I bemoaned the lack of hospitality in my passport country. I whined about the absence of generosity—I felt affronted by this land of plenty that guarded its time and resources so selfishly.

“ I felt affronted by this land of plenty that guarded its time and resources so selfishly.”

Until one day I realized that I had become that which I resented. I had become the person unwilling to take time to invite people into my home and into my life. My house had become a vehicle of entertainment and the latest new décor instead of a haven of warmth and generosity to welcome a stranger.

The change coincided with a move back to the Northeastern US—an area I had always found cold and inhospitable. In the dead of winter, we moved into an apartment in Cambridge, Massachusetts, a city with several universities and a revolving door of people from around the world coming through. Our dinners began to expand with visiting scholars and their families, students, residents and interns, and our children’s friends. Always the ones to leave, we were suddenly the ones who were staying. And so, we stayed, and as we did, we held goodbye parties for those who left, baby showers for tiny newcomers, and graduation parties for students who completed their studies.

Whether it was carving pumpkins on Halloween or a Middle Eastern dinner on a cold winter night, our home echoed with laughter and stories from Syria, Palestine, Iran, Ukraine, Greece, Turkey, Kurdistan, Romania, Lebanon, Serbia, Bulgaria and more. The walls of our city apartment somehow expanded to accommodate however many ended up coming. But it wasn’t just the walls of our apartment that expanded—it was the walls of our hearts.

As the US decreased the number of immigrants and refugees who could come into the country, the wider our doors and table became. The more governments pushed away, the more important it felt to hold fast and pull in. With every grain

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of rice or bowl of soup served I remembered the lessons absorbed in a childhood in Pakistan: kill the chicken, serve the tea, offer the sweets, step away from scarcity and into abundance, share bread and share life, and watch what happens.

The results are extraordinary.

“ Kill the chicken, serve the tea, offer the sweets, step away from scarcity and into abundance, share bread and share life, and watch what happens.”

Marilyn R. Gardner is a public health nurse and writer who lives in Boston. A third culture kid raised in Pakistan, she has lived and worked in four countries as an adult. She is the author of two books: Between Worlds: Essays on Culture and Belonging, and a memoir, Worlds Apart: A Third Culture Kid’s Journey. Her writing appears in Plough Magazine, Fathom Magazine, Among Worlds Magazine, A Life Overseas, and on her own blog Communicating Across Boundaries.

A TCK is an individual who, having spent a significant part of the developmental years in a culture other than the parents’ cultures, does not have full ownership of any culture.

Elements from each culture are incorporated into the life experience, but the sense of belonging is in relationship to others of similar experience.

- David C. Pollock

Note on the poem: My husband and kids and I lived from 2006 to 2013 in Sichuan province, China. I’m fascinated with how different cultures exhibit hospitality (a way of life with which American culture seems sometimes painfully unpracticed), and how in Sichuan that often manifests in incredible creativity with food. When dining out with Chinese friends who did the ordering, I almost never had the same dish twice.

Rachel E. Hicks is the editor of Among Worlds magazine. She was born in the foothills of the Himalayas and spent the bookends of her childhood in India, with moves to Pakistan, Jordan, Democratic Republic of Congo, and Hong Kong in between. She lived with her husband and two children in Arizona (US) and China.

Since 2013 they have lived in Baltimore, Maryland, US. Rachel writes poetry, fiction, essays, and blog posts and works as a freelance copyeditor. A few of her favorite things include: electric scooters, spicy Sichuan food, hiking, and unhurried time to read. Read more of her writing at rachelehicks.com.

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Hospitality Sichuan, China

By Rachel Hicks In the lean-to kitchen the farmer’s wife juliennes and crushes, shivers of onion flying from the blade, steam hitting cold mist at the open door.

I thrust booted feet at the tin of hot coals under the table outside and wait, wondering how many spontaneous meals have serviced me in my wanderlusting? How much ambrosial heat, sear and spice, plumping bulgar and pitted peach?

It seems to be our needful thing to forage for the magic within our reach— the translucent rice grains, the flesh of all creatures griddled or charred, the way we wonder if nourishment exists in snapdragon, the cathaya’s winged seed— all the tastes we haven’t dared.

And we wonder if the damp earth still has secrets to disclose that could remain wondrous and unstained even by our knowing, our prodding and splitting with the knife or the tongue.

She emerges balancing three dishes on outstretched arms and sets them on the table, shrinking back in pleasure and gesturing with a gentle turn of hand.

Eat! It’s just a little something. *Originally published in Pen in Hand journal, 2017

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Going Home

By Emily Chesley

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eing a TCK is an incredible gift, something I wouldn’t change for the world, but when it comes to finding home, it can feel really painful. Where do I belong? Where and how does my mismatch of places and lives and worlds fit in? How do I explain my weirdness to new friends and colleagues so they don’t back off with skeptical glances?

For years I’ve continued to say, “I’m from Chad” when asked where I’m from. Or, more frequently, “I grew up in Chad and Cameroon, but my parents live in Arizona now.” Or when traveling for work, “I live in New Jersey, but I grew up in Chad.” It feels important to say, somehow, even though it inevitably leads to follow-up questions that can be plenty awkward. But Chad was such a huge part of my life for sixteen years (or eighteen, depending on how you figure). It was exhausting and scary and foreign, yes—but it was also normal and joyful and home. It shaped me— in both wonderful and worrisome ways—and I refused to leave it behind. I simply couldn’t leave out that giant, Chad-sized part of my life story.

Yet lately, I’ve felt like an imposter every time I’ve kept it in the story. I left Africa after high school, more than eleven years ago now. My parents moving and geopolitics and lack of funds were the main reasons I didn’t go back, but I still March 2022

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felt like if I were to call a place home I ought to go there regularly. I kept in touch with some Chadian friends on Facebook, but most of my close (expat) friends had moved away for school, too. Besides, our house in Baro* wasn’t ours anymore; it belonged to the literacy program.

And culture changes. What if I was to return and traditional behaviors and practices had so altered that I felt socially lost? Not to mention I hadn’t spoken Migaama** in those eleven years.

I feared maybe it had been too long to claim Chad as home.

“ Maybe it had been too long to claim Chad as home.”

Returning to Chad as an adult was an emotionally fraught journey. I was so excited— and so scared. I couldn’t wait to give bear hugs to all the people who had loved me into existence, from the time I was a tiny toddler sneaking off to eat boule in neighbors’ compounds to when I was a snippy, sarcastic, asthmatic teenager bossily directing our kids home movies. But I also worried I would discover I no longer belonged, for a myriad of reasons.

Certainly, Chad had changed. From 3G service in our village (years ago we thought it a miracle when we got a two-way radio hooked up to solar panels that allowed us to slowly send text-only emails!), to clean drinking water thanks to UN-drilled wells, to thriving mother tongue literacy programs, to paved boulevards and covered sewers in N’Djamena, to Chadian men acknowledging the problems of domestic violence and gender inequality. The main Mongo market had moved to a different part of town. All the streets in N’Djamena felt completely altered; walking around the quartier was the most disorienting feeling.

But at the core, it still felt right. Even as a shortterm visitor, I felt like I belonged. The reunions were even more joyful and full of tears than I’d imagined. We spent most of our days having long conversations with friends, catching up on the decade-plus of news. I felt at home immediately, in a way that didn’t make logical sense but simply was. Village friends, in particular, were delighted that I still spoke Migaama.

Because, yes, I found myself chattering away in French, Chadian Arabic, and even Migaama.

When I was sitting on grass mats in Baro,

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suddenly I was speaking Migaama again, having full conversations and understanding the others going on around me. It turned out the language I thought I’d long forgotten was hiding away in an attic closet of my brain, just waiting to be needed. I couldn’t tell you how I knew Chadian Arabic either, since I was never very good at it as a kid and it sounds nothing like the MSA or Classical Arabic I’ve studied in graduate school; but listening to conversations and speeches I caught 85 percent of what was being said even if I couldn’t tell you why.

I was eating food with my right hand again, perfectly forming boule and kisarh for dipping in the sauces, spilling nothing on the mats. I still knew how to wear a taraha and a lafay, even though my slippery Caucasian hair is still slippery. I knew how to soak the veggies in bleach and how to flame baguettes and beignets before eating them. I still failed at calculating numbers in the market (you “translate” the Chadian Arabic riyal number to Fuṣḥā, then to English, then multiply by five to get the Central African Franc number to finally select the correct number of coins), but I managed to buy groceries and clothes nonetheless. I knew all the greetings and responses that go on forever.

I knew how to take bucket showers and ride on the “off-road” roads without a seatbelt.

Princeton is my new home, and I’m so grateful for my life and dear friends here (friends who, thanks to said 3G service and iMessage, kept in touch all through my trip). But what a precious, precious gift it was to find that Chad was still home too. This TCK still needs to hold on to her places and people from the past because they make her who she is. Holding competing worlds in tension strains my heart at times, but I must do the work to keep them together. For Chad is still a part of me. *A Migaami village in Chad’s Guéra region **A Chadic language spoken by approximately 40,000 people, ethnically known as the Migaami

Emily Chesley is a History PhD candidate currently living and working in Princeton, NJ, USA. Born in Belgium to American missionary parents, she grew up in Chad and graduated from an international boarding school in Cameroon. During university and graduate school she also worked, studied, and volunteered in California, England, France, Greece, and India.

Headshot photo credit: Sameer Khan/Fotobuddy, LLC

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Hospitality:

The Art of Welcoming Others

By Brooke Wiens

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ospitality, as defined by the Oxford Dictionary, is “the friendly and generous reception and entertainment of guests, visitors, or strangers.” I love this definition because it includes everyone.

I’ll never forget the day I was welcomed into the home of one of my students. They’d recently arrived in the US with just the clothes on their backs and a small backpack. Life for them in Syria had deteriorated quickly, and they found themselves newly resettled in the middle of the United States. They didn’t know much English and I didn’t know any Arabic, but on this particular day, none of that mattered.

I’d spent the previous few Saturdays taking field trips with them to local places that would make their adjustment smoother. We’d gone to a local grocery store one Saturday and even visited a local clothes closet to try and get them some affordable winter clothes. As they welcomed me into their home on this particular Saturday, we smiled back and forth. They taught me a few Arabic words and phrases and laughed at every utterance I attempted. I learned to laugh at myself that day, and I learned that my attempting a few phrases in their language broke down walls and leveled the playing field.

It earned me some trust.

We sipped strong Turkish coffee out of beautiful cups they had found at a local thrift store and

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tasted sweet treats they had made that reminded them of back home and me of travels abroad. We switched to practicing English and the laughter kept going. It may have been a nervous laughter, but the smiles and brave language attempts forged our friendship deeper.

Coffee shared with new friends builds trust, establishes roots of friendship, and connects cultures.

“ We sipped strong Turkish coffee out of beautiful cups they had found at a local thrift store.”

communities? What if it’s the small things we do to make them feel seen and loved: a friendly smile or our attempt at greeting them in their heart language? What if as TCKs we use our cultural foundation as a catalyst for being cultural liaisons to others new to our own country?

As I was getting ready to leave, the mom handed me a small white box. As she typed into her translation app on her phone she told me, “We want you to have these. We thank you for all your help. It is all we have.” I opened the box carefully and was shocked to find several pairs of earrings and rings: beautiful treasures that had escaped war and made it safely to the US, now in my possession as a thank-you gift. It wasn’t that they were high-priced jewels, but yet they held all the value in the world in that moment because they offered gratitude and hope for whatever lay ahead. I was humbled.

I’ve thought a lot about hospitality since my interaction with this family. Maybe it’s not so much about a fancy curated menu, coordinated table linens, and the ambiance we strive so hard to create—maybe it’s more about the heart.

Maybe it’s about the friendly and generous reception we give to others, the feeling we create in the hearts of our guests, the people we know.

But as the definition of hospitality suggests, this also includes strangers. This is a new idea I’m still ruminating on. What if it’s not a physical hospitality like we routinely assume? What if it’s not about actually welcoming a stranger into our home, but more about how we welcome and establish them into our country, cities, and local

This notion is settling its way deep into the fibers of my heart, as many cities around the US are working on resettling hundreds of new Afghan families since the recent fall of Afghanistan in 2021. How can we welcome people from other countries and show them hospitality? I’m willing to bank on the fact that it will start with a few new phrases in their heart language, lots of laughter and smiles, and probably some coffee or tea.

“How can we welcome people from other countries and show them hospitality?”

Brooke Wiens spent eighteen years as a child in West Africa. She taught in Seoul, South Korea, for a year and now calls Kansas City, Missouri (USA), home.

Wiens teaches English to emergent bilingual students at an elementary school that has 25 countries and 23 languages represented. She is a cultural liaison for families navigating a new culture.

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SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEW:

MICHÈ PHOENIX T

his issue’s Spotlight TCK may have spent her childhood playing in a castle, but her life was not exactly a fairy tale. Nevertheless, she is able to draw deeply from her TCK life experiences in writing her own stories. We’re excited to introduce you to author, speaker, and TCK mentor Michèle Phoenix.

Raised in France by a Canadian father and an American mother, Michèle has a big heart for TCKs. She taught for twenty years at Black Forest Academy in Germany before launching her own ministry advocating for third culture kids. She now travels globally to consult and teach on topics related to our unique tribe. Michèle loves good conversations, mischievous students, and Marvel movies. Enjoy our conversation, and we hope that you will also check out her novels!

Michèle Phoenix 19

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Spotlight Interview Tell us a bit about your experience as a TCK. I was born in France to a Canadian father and an American mother. They taught music at the European Bible Institute just north of Paris… which happened to be housed in a seventeenth century castle! So not only did I get to grow up in France, but I spent the better part of my time playing in the hallways and grounds of a place most people can only imagine.

There was a lot I loved about my French years. The language. The cultural quirks. The croissants! But there were also aspects of my childhood that were challenging because of the fatalism and educational style I was steeped in. It didn’t help that I was a naturally shy and sensitive child. Great for playing make-believe in a castle—not so great for overcoming the harsh realities of a culture that wasn’t “built” for people like me.

When did you discover you were a TCK? When I was thirteen, I left the French educational system to move to Black Forest Academy (BFA) in Germany. The goal was to prepare me for college in the US, but there was so much more richness than that to my time there. Within days of setting foot on the campus in 1982, I knew that I’d found kindred souls.

The French-American-Canadian child I was had never felt “normal”—not in the States, not in Canada, and not entirely in France. BFA became home to me. My heart-home. My belonginghome. My I’m-not-weird-home. My someoneactually-understands-me-home. If you cram enough identity-confused teenagers into a small

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space, their abnormalities become the norm and there was so much comfort in that! There was healing in it too. Great healing. Particularly as I had been reduced to a chronically depressed and introverted teenager by the time I started there.

I’ve found that a majority of TCKs of all ages carry something that bears exploring and addressing in order to find health and freedom.

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Can you share a bit more about the difficulties of your early childhood in France?

That’s the thing. My childhood in France was absolutely magical! And it was also hard. It’s taken me a lifetime to understand that admitting to (and processing) the one does not invalidate the other.

I can hold the precious in one hand and the brutal in the other hand and allow both to breathe.

Only then am I living in the fullness of my life’s experience.

The hard parts for me were the French school system in my small town. The teachers seemed to believe that fear and pain were the best way to motivate their students, so it wasn’t uncommon for them to openly tell me that I was stupid and wouldn’t ever amount to anything. To pinch a nerve in my shoulder until my arm went numb or pull my ear until it bled. To put a dunce cap (a hat with donkey ears sticking out of it) on my head and instruct my classmates to mock me.

I came away from those years assuming that it was normal for any adult in authority over me to treat me with cruelty and dismissiveness.

Add to that a couple instances of abuse (at the hands of a stranger and a fellow MK) and a highly dysfunctional family, and it’s not surprising that my sensitive spirit needed some help sifting through the debris years later.

Although the traumas of my childhood are unique to me, I’ve found that a majority of TCKs of all ages carry something that bears exploring and addressing in order to find health and freedom.

I’m grateful for the people in my life—friends, family, and professionals—who walked with me as I untangled the Hard from the Good.

Spotlight Interview Everything I do today is informed not only by the blessings and healing in my own life, but also by those students whose names are engraved on my lifeline in the most beautiful and permanent way.

You’ve published a number of novels. How does your TCKness affect your writing? Do any TCK themes or characters make their way into your fiction?

How have you experienced your TCK-ness as an asset in your career? In your personal life?

My entire career has been focused on TCKs. After a brief stint as a screenwriter right after college, I returned to Germany to teach at BFA. I had no teaching degree, mind you, but we all know that sometimes the best degree on the mission field is having a pulse! So, for two decades, I got to teach music, creative writing and English, direct choirs and school plays, volunteer in residences—and anything else that would allow me to spend time with my students.

Viewing their world from an adult perspective as I observed them grappling with factors that I saw in my life was enlightening and crystalizing for me. Healing too.

It’s because of those years—and a cancer scare— that I reluctantly gave in to God’s prompting and left a place I loved to launch a more global ministry in 2010, still focused on TCKs, but with a broader and more diverse footprint.

All of my novels are “destination novels.” They allow me to introduce people to places I love— like Germany, France, Nepal, England, and Austria. I find the process of translating cultural nuances and geographical details into factors that advance a story an absolutely fascinating process. How to describe the rhythm of the French language? How to put into words the chaos of Nepali traffic? How to convey the subtleties of an Austrian mountain village after dark? My TCK-ness, I hope, allows me to sense and define what might go unnoticed by others, and I love that superpower.

“My TCK-ness allows me to sense and define what might go unnoticed by others.”

Although In Broken Places takes place in Kandern, Germany, it does not focus on the TCK students there. But Of Stillness and Storm is entirely ministry-centered. It follows a young couple from Bible school in the Austrian Alps to Kathmandu, Nepal. Author Elizabeth Musser’s review states that it’s “The Poisonwood Bible for a new generation.” To me, it’s a cautionary tale—the autopsy of a family that did all the right things for questionable reasons, never

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foreseeing the collateral damage their lack of judgment and self-awareness would cause. All my novels are available wherever books are sold.

Have you struggled with or embraced the idea of “settling down” in one location? What does that look like for you?

I’ve been fortunate enough to “settle down” in the States, while being engaged in a work that still allows me to travel. I think I’ve returned to Europe every year since moving stateside in 2010! I know that’s a rare privilege and I’m so grateful for that.

What do you wish you had known growing up as a TCK? What supports do you wish you had had access to?

I wish someone had pointed out to me the “marvelous-ness” of growing up between worlds.

I was viscerally aware of the challenges, and adults who thought they were preparing me for the future only reinforced the fears I carried.

But I don’t remember a whole lot of talk about the unique gifts we receive—along with the challenges—by virtue of our parents choosing to raise us in other cultures. Had I been more focused on those, while still wrestling with the inevitable trials that come along with being a hidden immigrant growing up in the intense world of ministry, I would have had a much more balanced view of myself, the world, and God.

“I wish someone had pointed out to me the “marvelous-ness” of growing up between worlds.”

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What is one of the greatest attributes that TCKs contribute to our world today?

TCKs are natural bridge-builders. The very fact that we don’t fully belong anywhere is the reason we’re able to chameleon our way into subcultures and contexts with more dexterity than our monocultural peers. We’re able to use our powers of adaptation to view well-defined groups through a broader lens, to understand what makes them tick, what their strengths and challenges are, and how to gently instigate change. I often say that our response to a lingering sense of unbelonging shouldn’t be to do all we can to conform. It should be to actually celebrate the blessing of “mostly belonging in multiple places,” because it’s from that gift that we draw our ability to bridge gaps and enhance understanding between unalike cultures and subcultures. This is the reason TCKs are so prized in the workplace, and why we have what it takes to bring understanding and change in both small and significant ways.

Spotlight Interview

Our response to a lingering sense of unbelonging shouldn’t be to do all we can to conform.

In your work with MKs and TCKs, what are some current trends or issues you see in younger-generation TCKs? I just released an article on faith deconstruction last week on my blog. This is perhaps the most obvious trend I’ve observed in recent years. TCKs who grow up in intensely spiritual contexts are finding their relationship to faith challenged by the cultural, political, and social realities they’re facing as they move on from the ministry cocoon—and for many of them, stripping Christianity down to its bones and discovering what it was originally meant to be has become not just a necessity, but an intense drive.

Deconstruction gets a bad rap in some circles.

It’s assumed to be a rejection of faith and of the Church. But I’ve seen deconstruction (or “unbundling”) be a crucial phase of a journey that includes exploring, understanding, and often embracing the faith we grew up with—albeit sometimes different from the form in takes in our parents’ lives.

Born in France to a Canadian father and an American mother, Michèle is a consultant, writer, and speaker motivated by a deep passion for third culture kids. After teaching for twenty years at Black Forest Academy (Germany), she launched her own ministry, equipping TCKs for flourishing, while offering those who care for them the information they need to love them well.

Michèle travels globally to consult and teach, drawing from her thirty years of experience in TCK spaces.

Her articles, novels and podcast are available on her website: michelephoenix.com. Michèle loves good conversations, mischievous students, French pastries, and paths to healing.

Website: michelephoenix.com Twitter: @FrenchPhoenix Instagram: Shellphoenix Pondering Purple Podcast: https://anchor.fm/michelephoenix

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On Being Understood

By Beth Matheson My thoughts can run like a waterfall leave people stunned and spluttering while I sweep by unchanged But you run along with me push over my banks leap laughing from the heights unafraid of rush and weight and together we carve rivers

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Beth Matheson has been shaped by life in the Philippines and Papua New Guinea. She currently serves as a writer with Wycliffe USA.

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Spreading African Hospitality

By Lauren Wells

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e moved in 2020 from Oregon to South Carolina, USA. Having experienced moves before where I put off developing friendships because, “What’s the point? I won’t be here long anyway”—I decided I wanted to dive in and build rich relationships quickly. Upon arrival, I found a book club to attend, a church for our family to try, and a mom group to check out. More than once I met someone whom I felt I hit it off with, we would exchange phone numbers, then I would reach out to invite her and her family over for dinner and I would never hear back. I couldn’t figure out what was going wrong.

A few months after living there, I traveled for work and took an Uber (a car ride service) home from the airport. The driver was a man (we’ll call him David) whose accent I quickly noticed was East African. After talking for a moment, I asked, “Where are you from?”

“Uganda,” he said.

“I grew up in Tanzania!” I replied.

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“Do you speak Swahili?” he asked. Then we chatted in Swahili the rest of the drive home. I learned that while he was from Uganda, he had also spent time living in Tanzania and Kenya. He had moved to America only six months before and hadn’t met many other people from Africa.

He was delighted to have the opportunity to speak Swahili.

When we pulled up to my house, I said, “Can I get your number? My husband and I would love to have you over for dinner sometime.” We exchanged numbers and a couple of weeks later he came over to watch a football (soccer) match and eat Tanzanian food.

While sitting around the table eating ugali with our hands he said to my husband, “Your wife is so African! She said that she lived in Tanzania but when she invited me for dinner after just meeting, I knew she was really African. That is African hospitality. We invite people to share a meal like they’re family.”

Up until he said that, I had never thought of my eagerness to have people over for dinner as a part of my African TCK upbringing. I simply loved cooking, hosting people, and giving people a place where they could come and be themselves.

After thinking about it, though, I realized that it was very connected to how I experienced hospitality in Africa. I have so many memories of meeting someone and being immediately invited over for chai or a meal. Sometimes a new friend would just grab my hand and walk me to their house right at that moment! We would sit around a giant pot and all eat from the mound of food in the middle of the table or floor. It was uninhibited and beautiful and you left feeling like you had become close friends or even part of the family.

I think this is what I had been yearning for. I got a taste of it when David came over to share a meal.

A while later, I was expressing my confusion about a lack of response to my invitations for dinner to a friend who had previously lived in South Carolina. She said, “Oh, it’s no wonder they didn’t respond. That is way too intimate too quickly. You scared them off by being so forward!” She explained that the protocol for spending time with a new friend is that you do something outside the home a few times together (get coffee, meet at the park with the kids, etc.), then you can go out to eat at a restaurant with your family and their family together, then if that goes well and you’re pretty good friends at that point, you can invite them into your home. But you would NEVER start by inviting someone to your home.

“ It was a cultural difference in how hospitality is experienced and expressed. Neither all bad nor all good, just different.”

It was a cultural difference in how hospitality is experienced and expressed. Neither all bad nor all good, just different.

I started to be hospitable in the way it is well received in the culture of South Carolina and found that it went surprisingly well. After a while, we did have some new friends over for dinner and I was able to do the in-home hosting I love.

It is amazing to me that years into my adult TCK life I’m still discovering parts of myself that were impacted by my TCK experience. It was fascinating to find that hospitality is one of those impacted areas.

Lauren Wells is the Founder and Director of TCK Training and author of Raising Up a Generation of Healthy Third Culture Kids: A Practical Guide to Preventive Care and The Grief Tower: A Practical Guide to Processing Grief with Third Culture Kids. She specializes in practical, preventive care for third culture kids and their families. She has worked with over 1,000 parents and TCK caregivers and has trained staff from over 60 organizations. Lauren spent her developmental years in Tanzania, East Africa, and now lives in South Carolina, USA, with her husband and two children.

It all made sense, my desire to show that level of hospitality and the reason why I was seemingly failing at developing new, deep relationships.

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Elena Mackey was adopted from Colombia by American parents. She’s lived in the United States, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic, but the D.R. is/always will be home. She is nineteen and living in Virginia while attending Liberty University, pursuing majors in Writing and Psychology.

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Cafecito

By Elena Mackey “Mamá, hazme un cafecito porfa.”

The perfect ratio is in her blood.

There’s no recipe for me to follow; all my cups leave me cold, only dreaming of home.

My childhood was in this kitchen, hearing her sing of two lovers in the campo.

Her movements always so fluid, it seemed like the coffee pot molded to her hand.

“Mamá, no olvides el azúcar.”

I know she never would, pouring it in until it’s more sugar than coffee.

It’s not preference, it’s our culture.

She hands me a mug of sugar and coffee.

It may be a hot afternoon, but the heat of my mug warms my core.

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Torn ( fiction)

By Elena Mackey

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t was raining outside, and Stella couldn’t stop staring out the window, watching the drops fall from the clouds. She sat in a coffee shop by herself. The sense of normality calmed her and she allowed herself to relax, but she should have known such moments didn’t last. As Stella continued to stare out the window the sounds inside the shop faded away. The sound of the rain surrounding her grew and, suddenly, she was outside. The coffee shop was gone. The buildings she had walked by to get there had changed and become old and rustic. The rain continued to fall, now soaking her skin.

“Stella! C’mon!” a young girl called from down the road.

“Anne,” Stella tried to answer, but it came out as a whisper.

It wasn’t the first time she’d been here or seen this girl. It had been just a few days since she’d found herself at this location, but it looked like years had passed. She watched Anne skip away with her brown hair soaked from the rain. It was longer than Stella remembered. Anne herself was longer, taller. It was as if Stella had been frozen in time while everything around her aged. Wasn’t I somewhere else a minute ago? she thought to herself.

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“Stella! We’ve got to get home!”

She followed Anne down the road. She couldn’t feel the rain falling on her anymore and was barely aware of how her soaked clothes clung to her skin. The farther they went the more her body seemed to remember each step she took, as if she’d walked down this road a million times.

Her eyes recognized the trees and fields she passed, but each looked a little different. Fields which had once been filled with thousands of wildflowers now grew corn, and trees which had been in their youth now had matured.

houses much like the one behind her. A couple sat on the porch of the house opposite her. The wife smiled when her eyes met Stella’s.

“Stella,” a man’s voice called out to her. “You good?”

Finally, they stopped at a small house, the town left behind. Around the house was a yard, the grass overgrown. Two trees on either side of the house had grown towards each other since the last time she was there, and their leaves now touched just above the porch steps. Once Stella caught up to Anne, she grabbed her hand as they walked up to the front door. Before they even set foot on the porch the door opened, and a middle-aged woman stood in the doorway with her hands on her hips.

“You girls will not step foot in my house like that!” she stated.

“But how will we dry off then, Mom?” shot back Anne.

“You can sit on the porch till your skirts are done dripping.” She turned back into the house and shut the door behind her.

Anne plopped down on the steps and sighed, acting annoyed even though Stella saw the smile tugging at her lips. Stella stared at the spot where the woman had stood, or was it her mother?

Of course that’s your mother, she thought to herself. But why, then, is part of me trying to tell me this isn’t real?

She turned and sat beside Anne, taking in her surroundings. Up and down the street were

Just like that, she was back at the coffee shop.

She turned away from the window to find a man sitting opposite her. Luke, her best friend. She spread her hands out on the table, taking in how the wood felt under her fingertips. “You really zoned out there, huh? I’ve been sitting here for two minutes.”

“I was somewhere else.” Stella answered, looking down at her watch. To her it felt like hours had passed while walking through the streets with Anne. However, according to her watch, it had only been a few minutes. Those streets weren’t the ones she saw now as she looked out the window. She shook her head, hoping that the scrambled pieces of her mind might fall into place, and everything would make sense.

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she’d said this to him. He was the first to hear about it when Stella had begun having dreams of this other place. He never called her crazy when the dreams became something more.

“Was it the same place?” he asked, leaning in.

“Yeah, but it’s like a few years had passed. Anne was older and my mom … she was still just as beautiful, but I could see more wisdom in her eyes.”

“Did it feel more real than here?”

“Did it feel more real than here?”

“I don’t know. I just keep getting thrown from place to place. Each time it’s like years of my life are erased in either place.” Panic bubbled up in her stomach. She was so tired of feeling torn between worlds.

“Maybe … it’s a hallucination?” Luke said, hesitantly.

“I’m not crazy, Luke,” she replied, even though she wasn’t sure she believed it herself.

“You know I don’t think you’re crazy. It’s just that none of this makes sense. One of these places has to be real.”

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“What if both are real? Heck, what if neither one is real? Maybe all of this is just a dream, too.”

Stella said with exasperation.

For years Stella had been trying to make sense of the two worlds she seemed to exist in. It was almost as if she was simultaneously living two lives, unable to control which one she experienced at a given time. The one she found herself in now, across from Luke, seemed to prevail over the other, but it didn’t make the other world seem any less real.

“I don’t know what’s real anymore,” she said, feeling defeated.

“Hey, look at me,” Luke held her face in his hands, “I’m real.”

Stella so desperately wanted to believe him. She wanted to believe that she could call this reality her true home. She nodded to reassure him, but her mind was filled with doubt. How could she call one place home when each held a piece of her heart?

Elena Mackey was adopted from Colombia by American parents. She’s lived in the United States, Guatemala, and the Dominican Republic, but the D.R. is/always will be home. She is nineteen and living in Virginia while attending Liberty University, pursuing majors in Writing and Psychology.

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“ When you are offering hospitality based on fulfilling your own needs, you are not offering true hospitality.”

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Among Worlds | Bedouin tents in the barren hills of Toccoa, Israel, 1989

When You Feel at Home

By Beth Anne Wray

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rriving in Gujarat, India, from boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayas, my siblings and I were always met by my parents at the train station in a town some miles away from home. We were then taken to their friend Isudas’s modest house. There, his wife and daughter ushered us in like family, sat us on the floor as is the custom, and served us hot spiced chai and fresh, crisp pooris (fried bread).

This was our joyful welcome after months and months away from our parents. This was the taste of home. This was home. When I returned to Gujarat after forty years, I went to see Isudas’s daughter and told her how much that simple breakfast with her family had meant to me as a child. The next morning, she made me chai and pooris. As we ate, we caught up on each other’s families. That made me feel loved and at home.

That was hospitality.

When my parents were transferred to Israel, I felt out of place and missed my birth country of India terribly. But visiting Arab Bedouin tents in the Negev and the Sinai Desert brought back sweet memories of sitting on the ground amongst our Indian friends. It filled me with a profound sense of home when the Bedouins welcomed us—strangers!—into their humble animal-skin tents and sat us down on worn wool carpets beside the sheep and the sleeping babies. We talked with respect about things we shared, like

our common ancestor Abraham. We played with their children and their goats and camels and we laughed together. Even without basic amenities like running water, they served us—not cups of chai, but tiny cups of thick, strong Turkish coffee, hot off the fire. Even without a stove or a refrigerator they fed us generously from a huge communal tray—not with pooris, but with lamb and rice and yogurt. It was not India; but it was still love and welcome. It made me feel at home.

That was hospitality.

Bedouin tents with camels that provide transportation and milk, Gaza, Israel, 1980s

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Moving to the Deep South of the United States as a young woman, I discovered a new definition of the word hospitality. There, as in the Arab culture, I was invited quickly and freely into others’ homes, even as a stranger. As in India and Israel, I was generously served food and drink. The gestures were the same. This “Southern hospitality” was indeed beautiful and gracious and friendly to a fault. Yet something was missing.

Even as I perched on comfortable sofas and sipped the ever-present sweet tea in rooms filled with very nice people, I couldn’t really relax. As I dove deeper into the culture, I began to wonder why I could not feel fully at home, fully accepted, fully comfortable, like I had in India and Israel. Was it because I was brand new to the South? Was there something about the customs I didn’t understand? Was I saying or doing the wrong things? I was definitely trying to be equally gracious and polite and friendly, always returning and passing on the hospitality shown to me. Certainly, I had more in common culturally with Southerners than with Indians or Arabs. I reasoned that perhaps after a year, or ten, or twenty, I would come to feel a part of that world; I would lose that feeling of other-ness, of separate-ness, of loneliness. But it never happened for me, even after decades in the South.

Bedouin man pouring coffee in a tent in Samaria, Israel, 1980s

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An Arab man in front of his tent, the Negev, Israel, 1980s

How is it that this particular brand of hospitality did not succeed in making me feel at home?

Why didn’t I ever feel I truly belonged? That I mattered? That someone wanted to get to know me, the real me? Maybe because that was never the goal. Perhaps, in the South, true hospitality is reserved only for close family and friends.

Strangers, even those who have lived there for a long time, remain strangers. Or is it possible I experienced a warped version of hospitality?

Were those delicious dinners more about showing off the host’s cooking skills? Was the tea served in expensive vintage glassware in order to display the hostess’s money and taste? Even the stimulating conversation—was it actually intended to prove his or her intelligence?

Since living in India, Israel, and the South, I have traveled to many different countries. Sometimes I have felt warm and accepted like I did as a child; and other experiences have left me with an empty, disconnected feeling. Why is that?

Certainly, there are cultural differences and people can be more reserved or more open based on societal norms. But you can always find exceptions to the rule. There are hospitable and inhospitable people in every part of the world.

Here’s what I’ve come to realize: when you are offering hospitality based on fulfilling your own needs, you are not offering true hospitality. When your motives are to present a picture-perfect image of yourself and your home, you are not offering true hospitality. When you use others to fill your space so you don’t have to face yourself in the mirror or face your family, that is not offering true hospitality. When you ask people over because “that’s how it’s done around here,” and you are just fulfilling social obligations, that is not offering true hospitality. When you invite the boss for dinner because you are angling for a raise, that is not offering true hospitality. When you open your home only in the moments when it’s clean and orderly and the kids are behaving and the food is just right, and it’s convenient for you, that is not offering true hospitality.

“What, then, is true hospitality?”

What, then, is true hospitality? For me, it is reaching out to connect with others at the time when they (not you) need it. Inviting them over when it’s been a rough week and you’re tired, but you know they are more tired. It’s about serving them humbly, and showing respect for their preferences and beliefs. Making a vegan meal even though you’re uncomfortable with that kind of food. Asking the Syrian refugee mom to show you how to cook her food in your kitchen.

Giving them the chance to tell their stories. It’s about creating a calm and welcoming space for someone who feels abandoned or rejected or angry or lonely or lost. And creating a space for joy when someone is happy and they want to share it. It’s putting aside your own daily burdens and worries and showing others that they have a home with you. True hospitality makes others feel like I felt as a child sitting on a rug on the floor surrounded by love.

Beth Anne Wray was born in India to missionary parents and went to boarding school in the foothills of the Himalayas. She found herself in Israel when her parents were transferred to Bethlehem, and attended an international high school in Jerusalem.

Years later, she married her childhood sweetheart from kindergarten in India.

Greg and Beth Wray, visiting Isudas again after 40 years. Surat, Gujarat, India, 2012

Travel photos from trips with her husband are posted publicly on Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/ gabawray/

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“ The paradox of hospitality is that it wants to create emptiness, not a fearful emptiness, but a friendly emptiness where strangers can enter and discover themselves as created free; free to sing their own songs, speak their own languages, dance their own dances; free also to leave and follow their own vocations. Hospitality is not a subtle invitation to adore the lifestyle of the host, but the gift of a chance for the guest to find his own.” ―Henri Nouwen, Reaching Out: The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life

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Thanks for the Memories

By Amy M. Paronto

E

ight hours on a bus to Switzerland. Eight hours of German teenagers jazzed up for a school trip to our Swiss partner school— our poor teachers. When we finally arrived in Zollikofen, the teachers wasted no time in passing each of us to a waiting Swiss student who would take us home to stay with their family for the weekend.

My German classmates said Swiss German was legendary for being incomprehensible to nonSwiss German speakers. Since German wasn’t even my native language, this disclaimer made me very anxious about my Swiss host family. Or, more accurately, about being able to understand them.

My Swiss partner was Rene. Within thirty seconds he revealed himself to be the kind of person who could talk to anyone. He was surprised to learn I was an American, and when he asked if I would prefer we speak English I saw no reason to insist on German. It would have been Swiss anyway. His English was quite good, and he seemed to enjoy using it. I was not only impressed, but relieved—Rene was every bit the host and could serve as an interpreter if I needed it.

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Rene’s family lived in a nearby village, and we soon approached what was very clearly a farmhouse. I gaped at the postcard-worthy Alps looming beyond the farm as Rene got my bag from the trunk. He ushered me into the house to meet his family and announced that I was an American. This set off a flurry of Swiss chatter that was beyond my ability to follow, but body language clearly said that having an American in the house was cause for excitement. (Even now the reason for this is still unclear to me.) Rene’s mother said loudly that they would all need to take care to speak high German while I was there, and then she winked at me while Rene’s brothers and father laughed. I chose to believe it was a joke and not an insult.

His mother led me up a set of stairs to a room with dormer windows that looked out over a lush green cow pasture. The room and the view looked like a page out of an interior design magazine. At the foot of the crisp white expanse of the duvet cover was a neatly folded yellow towel. Later, I almost hated to get into the bed and rumple it.

At breakfast, I learned that Rene’s family had devised a full program for me, with Rene as my personal tour guide. Through the thick Swiss German, I could make out just enough to understand that the morning’s activity had fallen through, and they were discussing how to keep me entertained until the afternoon’s tour at a cheesemaker’s. (I found it surprising how much I was looking forward to this.)

The replacement activity was to spend the morning at Oma’s house. I liked grandmothers, so I was okay with this plan, not that I would have objected if I weren’t. My only concern was that on the continuum of German, Grandma German was on the far side of what I could understand.

Swiss German was certainly living up to its reputation, and I worried that Swiss Grandma German would be even worse.

Rene took me to a chalet on the far side of the pasture with red geraniums spilling from flower boxes in every window. We walked in without knocking to find Oma in the kitchen putting cookies on a plate. One sniff of the air said they were freshly baked.

Rene kissed his grandmother and, after making introductions, named a time at which he would

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come back to retrieve me. Oma insisted he take a cookie. He declined, which led to a brief exchange that confirmed my fears about Swiss Grandma German and introduced a few new ones. Rene left the house with two cookies.

Oma led me to the living room, where she bade me to sit on the sofa while she settled into an armchair. A tea service was laid out on the coffee table, the kind that only grandmothers have, the kind that demands formality and is kept in china cabinets with glass doors.

I wondered how we were ever going to pass the time.

That question was quickly answered as Oma poured the tea and cut right to the small talk. She spoke high German for me—light on the Grandma German—and used the informal form of “you.”

“Rene says you’re at the German school but you’re from America.”

“Yes.” “How long have you been in Germany?”

“Almost two years.”

Eventually she sat on the sofa next to me while I looked at photo albums from her lifetime of traveling. She was ninety years old and could remember the story behind every photograph of Portugal, Greece, South Africa, China. Her eyes shone with a young woman’s energy as she told me (in excellent English) about the places and things she had seen and done all over the world.

Even if she had been speaking Swiss Grandma German, she was speaking a language I knew.

I drank cup after cup of tea (anyone who has seen a grandmother’s tea service knows the cups aren’t nearly large enough), one of the best I had ever tasted—black tea with a delicate sweetness that was transformed into pure ambrosia with a splash of milk. We went through one pot, then another. Just as I didn’t want Oma’s stories to end, I couldn’t drink enough tea.

When Rene came to collect me, Oma hugged me as if I were one of her own granddaughters and gave me the rest of the box of tea to take home with me. I was shocked to see it was plain old Lipton. Her gift moved me, and I didn’t know how to thank her, not just for the tea, but for her companionship and hospitality. Leaving felt like a loss I wasn’t prepared to mourn.

Her eyebrows lifted. “Your German is quite good.”

“Not Swiss German.” I was somewhat embarrassed by this particular deficiency in my linguistic competency, but deeply pleased at the compliment. Even though she didn’t have much to go on.

She smiled. Forgiveness, or understanding?

“Would you like to speak English?”

Was it impolite of me to accept? This was her home, after all.

“It’s been a long time since I spoke English.” And then, in English: “I hope you like Switzerland.”

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The tea remained tucked in my duffel bag for the rest of the trip. Back home in Germany, I put it on the shelf, where it sat for several days until I next needed a cup of tea. The aroma that drifted out as I opened the box brought me back to the sofa in Oma’s bright living room and I felt a stab of nostalgia. I reached for a tea bag, and only then did I see that Oma had written something on the inside of the lid in English: Dear Amy, thank you for the memories. Have fun in Switzerland! -Oma My eyes filled with water as the kettle began to boil.

Amy M. Paronto spent her high school years in Germany. After attending college in the US, she returned to Europe to teach English and spent the next five years enjoying the expat lifestyle in the former East Germany. She now lives in Baltimore, Maryland.

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Among Worlds

Tree of Hospitality

By Rebecca Lesan A warm reception at the door: Can I take your coat?

Would you like to borrow slippers?

Noticing what guests need, offering options for their comfort.

The home as our preferred place, warmth in relationship and space.

Rest into the cushions and blankets.

Radiance in eye contact and light candles, acceptance, and grace.

It smells like fresh air in spring, clementines and peanuts in winter.

Welcome with words of affirmation, listen, validate, encourage, laugh.

Make space, let the curious explore.

allow for time to process, reflect.

We like a note in our guestbook and singing together, especially!

Flexible expectations about time.

Ask people about their transitions, those questions invite genuineness.

We are always growing in our understanding of hospitality.

It’s not restricted to a space.

You can take hospitality with you.

Process the hurts of your past, take the time to heal, to refresh.

You will find it easier to see the beauty in others, and to nurture that.

Gratitude and generosity flow From a soul that knows its maker.

It smells like a crackling fall fire.

Rhubarb and plum pies in summer, The rush of warmth out of the oven.

Share the meaning behind the art, your values as a person and host.

There isn’t one right way to host.

Each person shares their own gems: specially prepared show-and-tell, Lego castles, motivational videos, nourishing food to be enjoyed.

Ask about news, burdens, joys.

Be ready to bear, share, celebrate.

Help your guests to feel at home, seen, welcomed, cherished.

Acceptance sees authentic beauty.

Develop projects together, serve,

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Among Worlds

Rebecca and Jacob Lesan met in the US while serving international students in Iowa.

Jacob grew up in Slovakia and Rebecca in Switzerland and Canada. Both were delighted to get to know another TCK artist and have enjoyed getting to create art together for those whom they love.

They especially like to make art around the TCK experience. You can reach out to them if you have an idea for a TCK themed illustration; they appreciate collaborations and commissions.

Rebecca and Jacob Lesan Artwork “ Tree of Hospitality” (Ink & watercolor) March 2022

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Journey with us!

Among Worlds magazine is accepting submissions for upcoming issues. We are looking for original, high-quality writing, poetry, photography, and visual pieces. We invite you to share your stories and talents with us! Click here for submission details.

June 2022

Politics & Public Service Submission deadline: April 30, 2022

September 2022 Open theme Submission deadline: July 30, 2022

If you or your organization would like to purchase bulk subscriptions or advertise your services in Among Worlds, please contact amongworlds@interactionintl.org.

“ People will forget what you said, forget

what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.”

- Maya Angelou