Salvadorian Hospitality

About a week ago I returned from a trip to El Salvador and I’m still trying to process things a bit. In a lot of ways, I really just want to go back there – especially to an orphanage kind of place that I spent a couple of days at. They are such wonderful, compassionate, welcoming people there. I think that generosity and selfless service for others were a few of the big lessons that I came away from the experience with. Such things are seldom found in American popular culture and I remember being struck by the drastic contrast between these Salvadorian values and the individualistic, selfish, get-on-top sort of attitude usually promoted in the U.S.
As American Christians, we must remain diligent in the need for service and hospitality as a part of our faith and of our lives, not only showing kindness to our friends and family, but most especially to the stranger, as was so wonderfully modeled for me in El Salvador.
“For if you love those who love you, what recompense will you have? Do not the tax collectors do the same? And if you greet your brothers only, what is unusual about that? Do not the pagans do the same?” (Matt 5:46-47)