Guess who's coming to dinner

Hospitality, pt. 2

Two days ago we were given an assignment to do random acts of hospitality anywhere in Chicago. During the day a few of us sang hymns at a nursing home, others gave out flowers and played chess on the street with homeless folks. One guy (Mark) from Canada in our group struck up a conversation on the L with a man and ended up having lunch with him. He found out during lunch this man was a gay Lutheran, in a long-term committed releationship lasting 13 years. Over a subway sandwhich, two men from very different backgrounds (who according to the world are supposed to be enemies), shared their lives with oneanother in mutual love and respect

Filled with the spirit of the days activities, I decided to skip dinner at JPUSA and instead ask someone on the street to join me for dinner at McDonalds. My friend Marie decided to join me, and just like that we set out. When we first arrived at JPUSA, our group was warned not to walk down the alley between our house (Eastwood) and the main building. For two weeks now we have been cutting through JPUSA to avoid this alley, but two nights ago we decided to make the “perilous” trip and find ourselves a guest for dinner. Marie told me there was a woman sleeping on the steps of a Baptist church across the street so we planned to invite her. However, as we emerged onto the street I saw a man sitting on his sleeping bag. I smiled and he smiled back. It was only later I learned as we passed him Marie and I were both thinking the same thing, “so here you are Jesus.” 

There we stood on the street corner, unsure if we should find the woman on the steps, or turn around and talk to this smiling man in the alley. An answer came easily when I realized I was stuck on this spot. I wasn’t able to take even one step forward, something was pulling me to this man; it was like gravity. I turned around suddenly and said, 

“What are you doing right now?”

“Nothing.”

“Would you like to have dinner with us? Our treat.”

“Sure”

“Great, let’s eat!”

So the three of us sat down and began getting to know one another. We learned Tarran (or TJ) is only 23! He has been livingin uptown for two years and is currently waiting to find out if he got the job he applied for with a cleaning crew. About 5 mins into our dinner, he excused himself and stepped outside. Actually what happened was that he ran across the street into a store and then came back over and sat down. 

“What was that?”

“I had to tell my fiance’ I was over here eating dinner with you.”

“You have a fiance’??? Bring her over!!”

Candy is 20 yrs old and together she and Tarran have 3 kids. They talked about them all through dinner; how beautiful they are, how the girls love the swim, how old they are, etc, etc, etc.... They had pictures so we actually got to see them. Unfortunately they live in Kansas right now with Candys sister because she and Tarran lost their apartment two years ago. I won’t go into unesscessary detail about the rest of our conversation, only to say we talked about EVERYTHING! Chicago, true love, God, life and how surprising it can be. We even talked about Tamars multiple-personality disorder. He has three personalities that come out when different emotions rise up in him, and they all have different names. The whole evening felt like 3 old friends getting together after a long seperation. Not once did they ask us for more food, or money or anything. Infact, we asked them for dinner so they didn’t even ask us for that. Oppositely, they told us all the places we could go for a meal or shelter, all over the city. I realize now we're all rich and poor in different ways. Tarran and Candy are rich in love and family... I hope you're lucky enough to meet someone like them today.

 "Remember, our Message is not about ourselves; we're proclaiming Jesus Christ, the Master. All we are is messengers, errand runners from Jesus for you. It started when God said, "Light up the darkness!" and our lives filled up with light as we saw and understood God in the face of Christ, all bright and beautiful." 

-2 Corinthians 4:5-6