Welcoming Those Who Are Different

Dannah Gresh: Jesus showed hospitality in a number of ways that are great examples for us. Here’s Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth.

Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth: I love the way Jesus reached across social barriers, economic barriers, political barriers, racial barriers, to welcome and receive those that nobody else would receive. 

Dannah: This is the Revive Our Hearts podcast with Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, co-author of You Can Trust God to Write Your Story, for April 19, 2024. I’m Dannah Gresh.

We’re in a classic series from Nancy on what the Bible has to say about hospitality. So far, it’s been a meaningful study. I hope it’s giving you a fresh perspective of welcoming people into your home and life. What we’re about to hear from Nancy was recorded some years ago, but I think you’ll find it just as relevant today. Then we’ll hear from a woman who’s putting this kind of teaching into practice as she serves international students. First, here’s Nancy. 

Nancy: We've been talking for the last week and a half about the heart of hospitality and how as we open our hearts and our homes to others, we reveal, we express the hospitable heart of God.

We've seen in the Scripture that we're commanded to be hospitable. This is not an option. This is not a choice. This is an obligation we have. We're to pursue hospitality. And, we're to do it cheerfully—opening our hearts, opening our lives, opening our homes to others.

Now starting today and into next week, I want us to look at some of the practical how-tos of hospitality and what the Scripture teaches and what we can learn out of our own experience about the how-tos of hospitality.

Today, we want to look at the objects of our hospitality. To whom should we extend hospitality? I want to give you a list that has been helpful to me, but there are others that you would be able to add to this list as you think through the kinds of people, the categories of people, to whom we can extend hospitality.

Let me encourage you as we're making this list, maybe to put down some names that come to mind, people that you could extend hospitality to.

As I was working on this, there were thoughts going through my mind, very practical thoughts. In fact, in the middle of preparing for this series, I found myself picking up the phone and calling an elderly couple who live in my neighborhood and saying, "Could you come over for dinner?"

God put a couple on my heart. We haven't had a chance to do it yet, but I'd like to do that. They are a couple that I probably wouldn't have thought about had I not been making this list of the kinds of people to whom we can show hospitality.

Third John is a book about hospitality, the third epistle of John. As we said earlier, the apostle John praises a man named Gaius because he had shown hospitality to God's people.

And he says, "You showed hospitality to two categories of people—to brothers and to strangers." This says to me that we're supposed to show hospitality to people we know and to people we don't know. Two categories of people—people we know: close friends, family members, extended family. It's good to show hospitality to them. But we shouldn't stop there.

We want to show hospitality also to people who are outside our normal sphere of relating, to draw people in, to bring people in, to extend our borders to those people that perhaps we don't know.

Then in Isaiah chapter 58, we read about showing hospitality to those who are hungry and poor, those who are needy—in very practical, physical ways. God is talking in Isaiah chapter 58, about the kind of heart that God wants His people to have.

And he says, "I want you to share your bread with the hungry and to bring to your house the poor who are cast out,” those who don't have a place to stay (v. 7).

I think of people who've come to join our ministry at times in the past. They've come to town without knowing yet where they're going to live. I've had opportunity on more than one occasion to welcome some of those people, sometimes the whole family, into my home and say, "My home is your home. Make yourself at home here. You don't have a place to live right now, and you're welcome to stay here as long as you need to. I'll share my bread with you. I'll share my lodging with you. Whatever I have is to be shared with you."

Those people aren't necessarily poverty-stricken in the strictest sense of the word, but at that moment they're poor, they're hungry, they're needy. And God says, "Bring to your house those who have been cast out, those who don't have a place to go."

I so appreciate as a single woman, this past Thanksgiving, the number of invitations I had to spend Thanksgiving with families. I was living away from home at the time. I was a stranger, if you will, in Little Rock. So many families were gracious to say, "Our home is open to you. You are welcome to come and celebrate the holidays with us."

And then we read in Job chapter 31 about taking care of travelers, those who are traveling. And Job said, speaking of his walk with the Lord and the way he had expressed love to others, "No stranger had to spend the night in the street, for my door was always open to the traveler."

We're to show hospitality to those who are lonely, those who don't have family—maybe a college student who's not able to go home for the holidays. My mom has been so good over the years at different times about having in college students who weren't able to go to be with their family, maybe even their family was overseas.

She would invite them home on a weekend that they would have available. "Those who are widows, those who are orphans," maybe not strictly speaking, but maybe those who don't have believing parents or have a broken home and no place to be where they really feel welcome.

I'll tell you one real mission field for hospitality today and that's kids who are "latch-key kids," who have working moms and don't have a place to really call home during some of those hours when their family is not available to them. And some of you moms who are able to be at home, some of you who maybe your children are grown and you're not having to be in the marketplace during the day, this is a ministry you may be able to have in your neighborhood with some of those children.

Ministry to singles, those who are lonely, ministry to unwed mothers or those who are expecting a child, waiting for the birth of their child. We take a stand against abortion. But are we as quick to open our homes to some of these gals who really don't have a place to go, except perhaps some institution. They need to be taken in and loved and welcomed and helped through this period of their lives.

I know women who've opened their homes to foster children. I think that's a tough area of ministry, but I know women who've done it with dozens of children and found such a means to be a blessing, to open their home to that child until a permanent home can be found. Those who are unlike us, we're to extend hospitality to.

I love the way that Jesus reached across social barriers, economic barriers, political barriers, racial barriers, to welcome and receive those that nobody else would receive: Samaritans, lepers, tax-collectors, sinful women, He welcomed them into His heart and was willing to extend hospitality to them.

I'll tell you a great opportunity here is ministering to international students that are living away from their home country. Many of them have never been exposed to the gospel of Christ, and many of them will never be open to the Gospel of Christ until they meet Christ in someone's home, and they see the love of Christ and they're drawn. This can be a great ministry.

Opening our homes to Christian workers, to missionaries, to pastors. This was something that was such a blessing as I was growing up as we often had Christian workers coming and staying in our home.

I can still remember Dr. Hyman Appleman, who is now with the Lord. He was a Russian Jewish evangelist who led my dad to the Lord back in 1950. I can remember Dr. Appleman coming into our home. He and my dad would have these big spiritual discussions. I would just like to sit in the corner and listen. I can remember him, with his thick Russian accent, praying. It was just the blessing of growing up hearing prayers of men and women of God, meeting missionaries.

I'm telling you, it's my mother's and dad's hospitality in bringing these kinds of people into our home that did a lot to create in my heart a heart for ministry, a love for ministry, as I would be exposed to men and women who loved serving the Lord.

These Christian workers and missionaries have been a great blessing in my own home. I think of a couple who spent several months in my home recently, living there as they were getting ready to go to the mission field and were waiting for a visa.

They thought it was going to be just a matter of a few weeks, but it turned into several months. Jeff and Cheryl were such a blessing in my home. I was sad to see them go. They were encouragers. They prayed for me. We prayed for each other. We got involved in each other's lives. Did it require extra labor? Yes. Was it a sacrifice? In some ways, yes. But what a blessing!

And then, opening our homes to unbelievers. My parents did a wonderful job of this—bringing nonbelievers into our home, sharing the gospel with them. We saw so many people trust Christ in the context of hearing the gospel in our home.

That's what Matthew did, the tax-collector, after he met Jesus. He said, "I've got lots of tax-collector friends. Let me have a party; bring them into my home. And Jesus, would You come and let them get to know You?"

I heard last night about a woman who had a church background, but she had been molested by her father who was active in ministry. And now, as a grown woman, she doesn't want to have anything to do with church.

I said to the woman who was telling me this story, I said, "This is the importance of hospitality. She won't go into a church, but she'll come to a home." You can't resist genuine love. It's in our homes that we can show that love.

Now, Jesus emphasized that we're supposed to show hospitality, particularly to those who cannot reciprocate or pay us back.

He said at a particular dinner he was having at a Pharisee's house, "When you give a dinner or a supper, don't just ask your friends, your brothers, your relatives, or your rich neighbors, lest they also invite you back and you be repaid. But when you give a feast, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind. And you will be blessed because they cannot repay you. For you shall be paid at the resurrection of the just."

And then, finally, one other category of people we need to remember, and that's our enemies. Romans 12:20 says that if “your enemy's hungry, feed him. If he's thirsty, give him a drink.”

Now these may not be people that you would call your enemies, but they may be people that you're not real comfortable with, people who haven't been kind to you. They may be members of your own family. There may be a member of your family that you have not invited to your home; you have not made to feel welcome in your home for years.

You may say, "Well, I don't feel welcome in their home. They've rejected me; they rejected my child; they rejected my husband."

God says, "Find out what their needs are and look for ways that you can get into their lives and minister grace to them."

You know, as we've looked at the Scriptures, we've seen that there are lots of different kinds of people that we can extend hospitality to. When we look around our circle of friends and beyond our circle of friends and say, "Lord, who have You brought into my path that I can open my heart to? Who can I open my home to? To whom can I show the hospitable heart of Christ?"

There may be some people you've never thought of who need to know the love of Christ, and you can show it to them and be a part of their receiving His grace and His mercy as you open your heart and your home.

Dannah: As you have been listening to Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth, maybe someone has come to mind . . . someone who needs hospitality.

Nancy mentioned how meaningful it is to show hospitality to international students. I’d like to explore that idea further by helping you get to know a woman who has put this idea into action. 

Carla Shier is on staff here at Revive Our Hearts. Not too long ago, Erin Davis sat down with her. She wanted to see how Carla and her husband, Tom, show hospitality to international students. Here’s Erin.

Erin Davis: Carla, thank you so much for being with us. 

Carla Shier: Oh, it’s my pleasure. I am so honored! 

Erin: Carla, one of the many things I love about you is that you have this deep passion for international students, which I think is kind of exotic and exciting! Tell us how that happened. 

Carla: It’s kind of unusual. I wanted thirteen children when I got married. 

Erin: What? Wow! 

Carla: Thirteen! I was smart enough not to tell my husband, because I think he might have run. (laughter) And so when we had a boy and a girl, he thought that was a perfect family, and I said, “What?!” 

Erin: That’s a long way from thirteen. 

Carla: So, he compromised and we had another girl and another boy, so we had two of each. And then it was really quite miraculous, because I thought, Okay, he’s compromised twice, and that’s gotta be it. 

Then he came home from work and said this lady told him we would be the perfect family to host an international student, and he asked me what I thought. And I said, “Of course, that would be wonderful!” So it was a sweet answer to prayer. 

The Lord brought us a young lady. She was in the air—in the air!—from France to our house when we got word that we had to move to North Carolina. We did that without any help. You’re not really allowed to do that, but the organization said, “We have people in North Carolina that you can contact if you need help.” 

It was a beautiful year. Tom came to me and said, “Do you suppose we could host exchange students for the quiver that you want to fill?”

I said, “That sounds like a great idea! Let’s pray about it.” 

Erin: I love that, because it’s a creative solution. He’s referencing Scripture, that a man is blessed whose quiver is full of children (see Psalm 127:4–5). We automatically think that’s children we birth, but there was this creative solution that all of these young people would come into your home. God doesn’t fit in our boxes. He can meet the need any way He wants to, is that true? 

Carla: Oh my, yes! I can’t even go into all the miracles that happened that first year in North Carolina. It’s just amazing what He does! 

Erin: Was that young lady a teenager when she came? 

Carla: That young lady was a teenager from France, and she helped my oldest daughter, who was also a teenager, move her junior year of high school. Cara thought her world was coming to an end. And Marie from France was probably ninety-eight pounds, soaking wet, and she looked up at Cara and said, “I’ll help you!” And from then on they were the best of friends. 

Erin: Aww, what a sweet provision for your daughter . . . .and your momma’s heart. So that was many years ago. How long did you and your husband minister to international students this way? 

Carla: We had hosted a student named Sophia the year before for just a short term . . . so from right around 1984 until 2008, which were our last two. 

Erin: So, a long time. 

Carla: Yes. What happened was, we had our fourth student, and he had been placed in our home by a fraud, and so we were very concerned. He was from Sao Paulo. He knew the city, and Tom and I are farm kids, so we had a very challenging year. We had no rep, because she took the money from his parents in Sao Paulo and disappeared! 

Bruno thought he could go on over to Chicago with all the other Brazilian students and have fun. Oh, it was a challenging year! Tom and I talked about, “Well, maybe we could be reps,” because our whole purpose in hosting was to invite a foreign student into our home and expose them to the life of our Savior. Many of them were impacted by that. 

But then when we thought, “Okay, maybe we should place students. We placed 110 over those years. We always prayed that the Lord would let us place them in a Christian home. It didn’t always happen that way, but it was a beautiful part of our life that the Lord has so graciously blessed! 

That young man from Sao Paulo came back and wrote a letter to our pastor and wrote a letter to us, apologizing. He came back to Bethel University in Mishawaka, Indiana on a scholarship to play soccer. He came to know the Lord. He married our younger daughter’s best friend on the volleyball team, and they have lived near here in Osceola. They have three beautiful boys. 

He leads missions trips with soccer. All the kids come to play soccer, and then Bruno sets them all down for popcorn, whatever, and tells them the gospel.

Erin: So his apology was because of his rebellious behavior? 

Carla: Yes, he was a handful! 

Erin: That’s beautiful fruit. I know it doesn’t always happen quite that literally, or even that you know about. But he was in your home. It was challenging and probably at the time you thought, “What is God doing here?” And yet, the Lord brought such a beautiful testimony. 

I also love how missional you were from the beginning, that you were intentionally placing foreign exchange students, hopefully, in the homes of believers, that they might hear the gospel. I think that is a beautiful extension of hospitality that I might not have thought of. 

What did serving these students look like, practically? They came into your home, and then what? What were their needs? What were your challenges? 

Carla: They would arrive in August. One of the things that I remember is: a lot of the students we placed had trouble feeling like they were a part of the family. I learned early on, actually from Dr. Dobson, that if you want a child to really feel connected, you don’t treat them like a guest. 

So our kids love the fact that when we had an exchange student, the chores got divided among another person, so they had a little less! I would tell folks that were hosting, “Make sure that they have chores.” 

[They would respond:] “Oh, we don’t want to do that!” 

“It’s the only way this child is ever going to feel like they’re your child, that you’ve really embraced them.” That was one of the blessings. 

But another blessing, Erin, is you’re always hoping that your kids “get it.” When we had an exchange student, my kids acted like ambassadors of Jesus Christ! They would want to take them to youth activities. It was a beautiful thing to see your children blossom and care for another human being like Jesus would, if it were Jesus. 

Erin: I think that’s one of the beautiful benefits of hospitality that a lot of mommas miss. They don’t show hospitality because they’re in the parenting years. It no doubt is intense, and for sure their children require a lot of them, and they think, I can’t add more people into the mix! 

But you train your children to be others-oriented, hopefully, and then you get to see them, as you described, living out the Great Commission in big ways and in small ways. So I don’t think our kids are a hindrance to gospel hospitality. I think they’re a part of it.

Carla: Yes. Nancy has mentioned that Mary was probably thirteen when she had Jesus, and Mary obviously knew everything about running a home. So, my goal in life with my children was that they would know everything about running the home.

The guys needed to know what the girls had to know and the girls had to know how to change the oil and the tires, etc. on the cars, by thirteen. Well, these exchange students’ eyeballs would get huge, because nobody was doing that. 

It ended up being a beautiful thing because they were learning things in America. Most exchange students when they come think of you as what they see from Hollywood. And then when they find out that it’s not like that, it’s nice for them to have something that they really can say, “Well, I learned how to do this,” or “I learned how to do that.” They gain confidence. 

It’s kind of like practicing a sport. You don’t get better unless you do it. You do it a lot, and you do it excellently. 

Erin: Well, even in the eighties when you started this, Hollywood was not showcasing faithful Christian families loving each other and loving others in the name of Jesus. So, if nothing else, that shifted perspective is so beautiful! And hopefully, they came here because they wanted exposure to those kinds of ideas. 

I know that you hosted fifteen exchange students in your home through the years, in addition to placing those more than a hundred students. How did you see God working through that kind of hospitality? 

Carla: Some of the students were an only child. Because it takes a lot of money for those parents to send them, they loved family. Our family worked, and I had so many of them say, “I hope I have a family like this in my lifetime.” 

If you want me to take a little “rabbit trail,” I have a beautiful story. 

Erin: Yes, go for it. 

Carla: That first girl from France came back to visit us ten years later. My oldest daughter was married and had two little boys by then.

Marie came to me and said, “Would you pray, because I want so much to have a husband and a family and men in France never marry. But I know if you pray, maybe that will happen.” 

So, Cara and Rick and Tom and myself prayed for Marie. She let us know that Christoff had asked her to marry him, and they did go on to have two boys. Tom and I were blessed with an invitation to come spend our twenty-fifth wedding anniversary with Marie in France, and it’s a memory that’s very, very precious! 

Erin: That’s a beautiful story! That’s the blessing of hospitality! Obviously, we show hospitality out of obedience and to bless others in Jesus’ name, but God always blesses the bless-er. There are always these kinds of intangibles. 

Of course, you didn’t invite Marie in so that you could go to France for your twenty-fifth anniversary and see her beautiful family, but what a sweet return on investment that is! 

Carla: Yes, that was precious! We just had a visit from Homero, who was also from Brazil—the northern part of Brazil. He and his wife Tatiana live in Montreal, Quebec, Canada, and they came down and spent time with us. 

And then our “daughter” from Finland was here and spent a week with us and toured through the United States. That’s one of the sweetest things—when they keep coming back and are a part of your life and a part of your family. 

Erin: I’ve been privileged to be in your home many times. You are an amazing cook! One of the other ways you show hospitality is anytime the Davises are in your area—we don’t live near you—you’re sure to invite us and to feed us fresh veggies from your garden, which is always a blessing! 

But your house, if a person watches for it, has kind of this international flair. I’ll say, “Oh, that’s a beautiful vase!” And you’ll say you got it in some far-flung place. So I wonder if your love for the nations and for the world preceded having international students in your home, or it is an outflow of it, or did they happen in tandem. What do you think happened, with your love for travel and your connection to this form of hospitality? 

Carla: Well, I will say I always wanted to be a missionary nurse. When I went to college, I had a professor that had a broken accent. I could not keep up with the chemistry and the physics and all of that, so then I ended up being tested for the computer field and that was how the Lord directed my life. 

But in my heart as a young girl, I always wanted to be in missions as a nurse. So, I find it very interesting that a lot of the students that we hosted came from fractured families. One young man from Korea, the pain in his heart was just really challenging for him. 

He found so much peace by watering my flowers and listening to the birds. It’s just neat to see how the Lord heals hearts uniquely. Each child needs something different. If you just go about your life, God’s the One who does it! 

He’s the One who brings the answers. He’s the One who brings the opportunities. He’s the One who heals the hearts, and it’s a beautiful thing to watch! 

Erin: Yes, I’d be interested in your take on this. I feel like to some degree the international exchange programs have certainly been impacted by COVID and slowed down. My son’s in high school. I think there’s one exchange student in his high school. We talk about it a lot because he’s fascinated by, “Why is he here from Germany?” The exchange student is playing basketball for the first time in his life on Eli’s basketball team. It’s kind of fun to watch a sixteen-year-old handle a basketball for the first time. 

But I just think in this era when political tensions are high, isolationism is an attractive option. Just having your heart open and your home open and letting the Lord bring the nations to you speaks softly in a world that’s really loud right now. 

Carla: Yes, I really hope the international student exchange programs will be able to survive. I know that COVID struck a hard blow. 

Erin: What would you say to somebody who is listening to this and they feel kind of on the fence about hosting an international student in their home? What encouragement would you give them? 

Carla: You will receive ten times more than you ever give! The Lord has a way of touching your soul that I can’t even explain, but it’s a beautiful thing! Those children go back to their home country with an entirely different opinion of America. 

They come thinking we’re rich . . . and we are. I don’t mean to make that sound like we aren’t. We’re a rich country, but they learn about family. They learn about an American, Christ-centered home if they come to my home, and the God that makes it all possible. He’s the One who provides it all! 

So, I would really hope that the faith of the people thinking about it would be strong enough to let Jesus explode the love in their hearts. 

Erin: I would point us all to the Great Commission. It’s for all followers of Jesus, not just for those who maybe feel like they’re uniquely gifted toward evangelism or uniquely called to a foreign mission field. The Great Commission is the calling for all followers of Jesus. God can bring the nations to you through a lot of different ways, which your story illustrates. 

Carla: Yes, and then your children learn about the world. It is really kind of sad, our children [in general] do not know about the other foreign countries like the foreign students do. The foreign students inform your children. 

I mean, you learn a lot! You learn how to cook their native recipes. You learn how to speak some of their native tongue. You just get to be a part of who they are, and they absorb who you are. It’s really quite beautiful. 

Erin: Carla, I know you to be a woman who your home is your place of ministry. It’s open to whoever the Lord brings to you, and you’re happy to serve. You’re happy to host. You’re happy to bless. I’ve learned a lot from you in that way. So, thanks for being obedient to Jesus’s call to show hospitality!

Carla: Thank you so much, Erin, you’re very kind. 

Dannah: Thank you Erin Davis and Carla Shier. They’ve been talking about the benefits of showing hospitality to international students. And before that, Nancy DeMoss Wolgemuth gave us a lot of ideas of the kinds of people needing hospitality.

You’ll be challenged to explore this list further when you get a copy of a Bible study based on this teaching.

It’s a six-week study called You’re Welcome Here: Embracing the Heart of Hospitality. You’ll see how ultimately, hospitality isn’t about creating the perfect surroundings or meal, but about living in full surrender to Jesus. 

It’s great for your own personal study or with a group—which would be a great chance to practice hospitality! This study is our gift to you when you make a donation of any amount to Revive Our Hearts. You can even follow along with extra video content from Erin Davis and others on our website at ReviveOurHearts.com/hospitality. 

Request You’re Welcome Here when you give by calling us at 1-800-569-5959, or visit ReviveOurHearts.com. 

This weekend we’re going to continue the conversation, talking about hospitality as a way to reach others who don’t know Jesus. That’s on Revive Our Hearts Weekend.

And then, we’ll be back Monday to continue in Nancy’s series, “You’re Welcome Here.” I hope you’ll join us for Revive Our Hearts.

This program is a listener-supported production of Revive Our Hearts in Niles, Michigan, calling women to freedom, fullness, and fruitfulness in Christ.

*Offers available only during the broadcast of the podcast season.