Local Church Hospitality
During a recent visit to the local church in Penang, Malaysia, I had the most wonderful experience while staying with various college students.
I was visiting Penang with a few of the brothers and sisters from the local church in Vancouver. During the first night, they held a feast in our honor at the meeting hall in Penang. They told us that they had been preparing for months for our coming. Their children, grade-school young people, and their college students had all prepared songs and presentations for our entertainment while we ate. We were treated like royalty.
I was assigned to stay at an apartment of several college brothers. Upon entering their apartment, I realized that they really didn't have many possessions. However, when I told them that I needed to borrow their laundry machine to wash my clothes, they insisted on washing, drying, ironing and folding my clothes for me. As much as I tried, I could not talk them out of serving me.
It was then that I realized that they took such good care of me not because I was an overseas guest, but because I was a brother in the Lord. I did not know these brothers before I came to Penang. I didn't have anything in common with them outwardly. I don't even know if I'll ever see them again in this lifetime. The brothers in Penang went through such measures to take care of me because they loved me, a brother in the Lord. Such a love could not be out of their natural man, but could only be out of a divine love that was infused into them by Christ as the person dwelling within them. In the local churches, we enjoy the ministry where we take Christ as our life and person (Colossians 3:4; Galatians 2:20). This is the real living out of 1 John 3:14, which says that “We know that we have passed out of death into life because we love the brothers.”
Francis Wong | Back to List
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