In Western culture, housewarming indicates a time of inviting others to celebrate your new residence, and friends often bring gifts to create a cozy haven for the new residents and anyone who visits.
One Sabbath, Jesus was mingling with a group of Pharisees at the home of one of their prominent members. As he was often prone to do, he began teaching them and “blowing their minds” (as we would say) by turning their thinking upside down! First, he taught about healing on the Sabbath, then about taking seats of honor at a banquet.
As Jesus wrapped up his impromptu sermon, he shifted to the topic of serving those who will never be able to repay you: “Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous” (Luke 14:12-14).
This week, Casey, leader of the Valor Christian High School (govalor.com) Discovery Team, serving alongside us in Rwanda, suggested that we create a housewarming gift for the family whose home the students worked on. We discussed the idea further with Priscillah, our Family Director. She helped us select items that would be helpful for someone living in a home without running water or a toilet. A sturdy plastic container, typically used for washing, was selected and filled with laundry detergent, petroleum jelly, rice, dry pasta, toothpaste, cooking oil, soda, bananas, passion fruit, tree tomato, papaya and mangoes.
This local family is unable to repay the Valor students for the work that was accomplished, the products delivered or the love that was demonstrated. It was truly a “warm” gift for this house, and we pray that we will be able to see opportunities like this to distribute hope in this vulnerable community. Whose home can you “warm” this week?