Ponui Island - hospitality

One of my favorite run of verses is in Romans 12. It talks about really important things like sincerity and how we should hate what is evil and cling to what is good. It says we should be devoted to one another in love and honor others above ourselves. Be joyful in hope, patient in prayer and share with people who are in need...
and then there is a period... and one more seemingly random note attached to the end of this lofty list.

Practice hospitality.

Gail Bond, and her three girls - Erika, Justine and Megan have been cooking up delicious meals for Ponui campers for the better part of ten years. It was a tradition they started when some of them were young enough to be campers themselves... now they are all married with families of their own.

They don't have any noted culinary credentials (except for the fact that they have been cooking up delicious meals for Ponui campers for the better part of ten years). They dish up three meals a day for a week, feeding up to 100 people, in a kitchen with a wood burning stove, on a private island without grocery stores. Gail does all the meal planning and grocery shopping ahead of time... they all take time off work and don't get paid.

But here is the best part. They were really nice. They didn't flip out if something got burned. They didn't get frustrated if they ran out of tomatoes . They didn't stress if a crazy mom (me) came in scrounging for food with her screaming toddler. Despite the less than ideal circumstances, there wasn't any tension in the air - their kitchen was a warm and friendly place to be. They were "practicing hospitality" not perfecting it. It was a lovely offering and it inspired me.

On our third night - all the campers left base to have a night under the stars. I got the kids showered and off to bed and then headed back to the kitchen for a much anticipated kid-free evening meal. It had been a particularly hard few days getting adjusted and settled with the kids... and receiving the news that my grandmother (know for her feisty spirit and trailblazing sense of adventure) died at the ripe young age of 99.

That evening we bumbled around the kitchen, set the table, grilled the burgers, cut the toppings, and talked. We watched the sunset and laughed. After dinner we had several helpings of dessert sitting on the countertops in the camp kitchen.    

There are times when I am convinced that God knows precisely what I need in a particular moment. This meal, this moment, this act of hospitality "hit the spot". I turned the corner that night. I fell asleep encouraged and ready for the week ahead... thankful for hospitality and all of it's willing practitioners.