Adventures in hospitality #1

The Doctor's family, our one-bedroom apartment days, and what happened when we challenged ourselves to be hospitable

our firstborn, always reading! see the mattress propped up against the wall?

The eight of us sat around a small wooden table in our living room. This was the living room that also doubled as our bedroom, bicycle storage, home office, and with guests over that day, a dining room. I sat on my blue birth ball, my husband Sterling on a bucket of oats, our toddler in his clip-on highchair, and our company on the few chairs that we had.

Our family size has now surpassed theirs, but at the time we had only one kid and were expecting our second. It seemed like a big deal at the time that they had three little girls. How would we entertain them in our one-bedroom apartment? Would they eat my food?

Getting ready for that day I was filled with doubts and insecurities. Sterling’s new friend was a doctor. The family lived in one of the nicest houses in town, right on the lake. I had met the doctor’s wife before they even moved to town because she stopped in at the local coffee shop in-between house showings, and our husbands later met because Sterling worked on his car at the automotive shop he worked at.

They ended up going to the same church as us, and we had recently decided on a new goal for our family: we would invite someone over from our church once a week for a meal. I know this sounds like a lot, but Sterling is very social, and community has always been very important to him.

Also, the agreement we had was that if he invited someone over at the last minute, say, with 30 minutes notice after church, he would help me get the meal on the table. Sometimes that meant picking up pizza, sandwich supplies, or making chicken ranch wraps. Now he denies ever making this deal with me, but we did, and he would help! I don’t need as much help from him now with last-minute guests because we’ve done it so many times.

Eight years ago, when this family came over, it might have been easier if it had been thrown together at the last minute. No, this meal had been planned weeks in advance to accommodate their busy schedule. There was ample time to think about feigning sickness or rescheduling until having a better living arrangement, something that didn’t involve our mattress propped up against the living room wall. (Later, Sterling made a murphy bed for the space, and it is still our best and most useful piece of furniture). But this was our goal, to have families over, and we really did want to pursue friendship with them even though on the surface it seemed we had little in common.

There we sat, eating lasagna soup and bread in our cozy space: beige living room carpet, road bikes in the corner of the room, a tiny kitchen just one step away, beyond that a bathroom with cracked blue tile floor, and our son’s bedroom. We prayed together, laughed together, shared life stories, talked about kids, marriage, work.

They showed up that day as new friends, and by the time they left we felt like old ones. My husband remembers it feeling like a very awkward moment when they first walked in. Maybe we read their faces wrong, but it seemed they were thinking, Oh. This is what they meant by a one-bedroom apartment. But after that initial uncomfortable moment we all settled in for the meal, birth ball and all, and had a great time. After they left, I didn’t care anymore if the food was perfect, and I didn’t care anymore that my entire apartment was about the size of their kitchen. I cared about them.

They weren’t scared away by our small home and our lack of seating. In fact, this first meal led to meals at their house, coffee, drop-ins, and more engaging conversations together. The story doesn’t end there though.

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We were at their house one day hanging out. I remember us talking in the kitchen—isn’t that where all good conversations are had? They were moving soon, across the country for a new job, a great opportunity that they didn’t want to pass up. The way that the housing market was at the time and the fact that their house was at the top of the market, they knew it wouldn’t sell for a while. Thinking that a lived-in house would sell better than an empty one and wanting someone around to keep an eye on the place after they moved, they thought of us.

The conversation went something like this:

“We want you guys to house-sit for us. We’d want you to just treat it like its your own, do any maintenance that comes up, and we’ll let you know if you need to get it ready for any house showings, but we’re not expecting any more than once a month or two.”

“What? You want us to live here?” We asked, unsure what they meant.

“Yeah! We’ve thought a lot about this. It might take a year to sell for the price we want, and we don’t want it sitting empty. We thought you guys would be the perfect people to stay here.”

“But…why?” We still weren’t sure how to take this offer. We were putting all our extra money during that time towards buying our first house debt-free. This would be huge, not having to pay rent for a year, not to mention living in a beautiful home on the lake.

They explained that even though they had made a few friends after moving to town, we were the only ones during that time (about a year, if I remember right) to have them over for a meal.

“It meant a lot to us. Consider this like a gift to you in return for your hospitality.”

We went home that night and talked about it. Our apartment lease would be ending anyway right about the time that they were moving. The house was far beyond what we needed for space (4,000 or more square feet?) and it still seemed too nice to accept their offer. We laughed. We shrugged. Why the heck not? It’ll be an adventure. There not only were lakefront views, but there was lake access in the backyard too, because of a little inlet.

Amazingly, we did end up living there for a full year. There were only a few house showings we had to get the house ready for during that time. Our third baby was born while we lived there, and I had three kids under the age of three for a while.

The Lake House and its large size offered us many opportunities to host gatherings, and have family stay overnight from out of town. There were many afternoons spent watching my young toddlers play in the backyard while I sat nursing, enjoying beautiful lake views. That year held some of the most difficult times of parenting and marriage but at the same time, God’s goodness was so present throughout. Part of that goodness was seen through that amazing gift from our friends, who didn’t have to let us live in their house but did. It felt underserved.

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the apartment living room, complete with murphy bed. this really was a great place. good memories.

What I learned from the experience was this: where you are, there you are. Any problems we had in our life followed us there. Financially, it was helpful, but things weren’t magically better or easier just because we were in this perfect house. We were still “us.”

The other lesson I learned: just have the people over! No one really cares how dated your kitchen looks. People want you; they want connection, they want to be seen and cared for. If you have to pull out the birth ball and bucket of oats because you forgot to count chairs, so what.

My husband has this line anytime we’re at someone’s house and they start apologizing for their cluttered living room or their basement. He says, “Hey, I live in my house too.”

So go live in your house, whatever kind of house it is, and have some people over.

Have you had any adventures in hospitality, good or bad? I’d love to hear about it in the comments.