It does not matter if it is a crowded “chicken bus”, an old pickup, or a rickety lunch table in the middle of a village, the often-heard Guatemalan phrase “There’s always room for one more!” applies. This phrase embodies the hospitality of the people of Guatemala and has served as an example to us.

As a part of our normal week, we get to visit friends who live in small pueblos near our home in Antigua. There are weeks when we have a definite purpose for our visit and there are weeks when we just show up. Every week, however, we are invited in and warmly welcomed. We have been fed delicious “tipico” food by families who are barely scraping by financially and our kids are often given flowers or vegetables from a garden or something woven by one of the family members. There are days when we walk in feeling good about ourselves and our attempts to serve these friends, but that attitude routinely changes when we are given more (proportionally) than we have given ourselves.

Our new friends in Guatemala serve as examples for us. Examples of generosity, hospitality and selflessness in the midst of poverty. I’m thankful that we get to serve in this place but am struck by how much more we gain as we step out to serve.

“In your relationships with one another, have the same
mindset as Christ Jesus: Who, being in very nature God,
did not consider equality with God something to be used
to his own advantage; rather, he made himself nothing by
taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human
likeness.” -Philippians 2:5-7

(This post is taken directly from our May/June Newsletter. If you’d like more, click here.)