Feedback on Hospitality Initiative:
Letter From Carol Niles

Dear Karen,

Your book, Open Heart Open Home, has been my favorite book since I became a Christian in 1978! I made best friends by extending hospitality, and I’m still making friends that way in 2019; that’s about forty-one years (yes, 41 years) of following your godly principles for loving people. I still have my original copy.  I must have gotten it by donating to “The Chapel of the Air”—still my bestest, mostest, favorite radio show ever. (Recently I sent David a letter about a podcast from your past programs if you still have the original tapes available. We NEED this kind of teaching, and it’s rare as a warm day in Maine, in January!!)

We are all just too busy, with great things, of course, to be concerned about reaching out to others, as in cooking a meal and setting the table! Your concrete teaching guided me in how to be hospitable. I didn’t know how. I had no role model. In my first seventeen years of my life with my parents, before going to college, they only invited people over once.

I am pleased to read that you want to re-establish this godly pattern of hospitality. Now that I am a widow, I am more fearful of inviting others over. I don’t want anyone to say “no” because I feel like I’m being rejected. I need to overcome this dread as I do want and need more friends. I also want to invite people who are not Christians so I might extend a friendly, welcoming invitation, as from our Lord. Maybe you could address some of my issues:

• “Hospitality for Singles,”
• “Hospitality for the Aging,”
• “Hospitality for the Scaredy-Cat,” or
• “Hospitality for Those on a Limited Budget,”
• And with everyone (almost) on specialized diets in 2019,  “Hospitality for those who eat ONLY Vegan, Organic, Dairy-Free, Full Fat, No Fake Butter, Nothing From Outside the USA, Vegetarian, Paleo, Non-GMO, Mediterranean Diet, Free-Range Eggs and Grass-Fed Beef, No Sulfites, Low- or No-Fat, Sugar-Free or No-Fake Sugar.”

I could use lessons on all the above situations! When I started extending hospitality in 1978, I could serve a chicken leg quarter, string beans from a can with a glob of butter on top, and fake mashed potatoes. People were happy. Times and tastes have REALLY changed! Help!!

At the church I attend, we have a wonderful example of a family, husband, wife and four kids extending hospitality. Naturally, they became leaders (and servants) in the church because of this gift. First, they started inviting/ministering in their neighborhood, taking a dying man into their home until he passed away, then on to inviting the pastor’s family of nine (yes, 9) children, and on it goes. She is head of the hospitality committee for the church. She babysits for non-Christians just to be their friend. They have a weekly Friday night meal and meeting of college and career folks, host baby showers, play groups, and someday (I hope) an “old age” group … of course behind this talented, hardworking, extremely organized, bread-baking woman with a constant smile, is a man with godly but humble leadership qualities. She would be a wonderful person to interview! She knows how to extend hospitality in 2019 and is willing!

I’m so glad you are better!

Carol E. Niles

As you can tell by the above letter, Carol Niles is a delightful person. She has been a friend of our ministry for decades and sent a donation for the year with her note. We became even better acquainted when she joined one of the teleconference memoir classes, and I have phoned her to work out a deal. I’ll review the manuscript she’s working on in return for writing up a profile of the hospitable family from her church. (Due to financial restrictions of the last quarter of life, we aging ones are down to a bartering economy BIG-TIME!)

Here’s the deal: Carol has listed several areas of hospitality outreach she needs ideas on. (Check out the bullets above.) If you shoot me some ideas (email: karen@hungrysouls.org), as a thank you, I’ll brainstorm a writing idea with you, review a manuscript in the making, send you a couple of books free (lots of Open Heart, Open Home around, Going on the God Hunt, Making Sunday Special or Friends and Strangers) that you can keep for yourself, give as hostess gifts, or pass onto a younger generation.

See, we are REALLY bartering here!

Then we’ll keep the ideas a-comin’ and test and compile everything into a manual or put on the eventual website we are all building. David and I are building a podcast idea that we will dialogue on together so all of these contributions could be included in that as well. Melina Gallo, Director of Global Distance Learning for Literacy & Evangelism International, has volunteered to set me up with a digital classroom for teaching on hospitality. Louise Danielson, who generously keeps me abreast of thoughts and books that are nudging her, is a great email companion. Don’t be afraid to be part of the dialogue! It’s so much fun to get to know you all better.

COMMON REASONS FOR NOT PRACTICING HOSPITALITY
(According to focus group responses I ran in 1990!)
1. Too busy. (This is the most frequently given answer.)
2. I don’t have enough energy.
3. It’s expensive!
4. I don’t know how to (set a table, prepare a company meal, make conversation, etc.)
5. I don’t know who to invite.
6. My house is too messy.
7. It’s too much work!
8. My mother was always uptight before company, and that gave me a bad taste for entertaining.
9. With work (or school) or single-parenting, etc.), I simply can’t manage anymore.
10. People just don’t invite folks over; I don’t even know my neighbors.
11. I’d love to extend hospitality, but my spouse (or housemate or roommate)  thinks a home should be a refuge from people.
12. We don’t have enough room (or the right dishes, enough place settings, decent furniture, etc).

Karen Mains

Reminder!

The Soulish Food e-mails are being posted biweekly on the Hungry Souls Web site. Newcomers can look that over and decide if they want to register on the Web site to receive the biweekly newsletter. You might want to recommend this to friends also. They can go to www.HungrySouls.org.

Hungry Souls Contact Information

ADDRESS: 29W377 Hawthorne Lane
West Chicago, IL 60185
PHONE: 630-293-4500
EMAIL: karen@hungrysouls.org

Karen Mains

BOOK CORNER

A Life That Says Welcome: Simple Ways to Open Your Heart & Home to Others
by Karen Ehman

I’ve been buying up books that I find from online secondhand book dealers. I thought this one on exercising the gift of hospitality, A Life That Says Welcome, was delightful, exceedingly practical, and right-on in addressing many of the above dilemmas people name that keep them from inviting other folk into their home.

Buy A Life That Says Welcome from Amazon.com