Hospitality

It is hard to talk about General Conference here in Fort Worth without talking about the saints that surround us . . . in blue and red vests, saying, “How may I help?”

No, I’m not talking about Wal-Mart!

The pastors and lay people of the Central Texas Conference have bent over backward to make everyone welcome. They don’t seem to care whether the name tags are in blue covers, green covers, black covers, or red. They treat everyone with a smile and an earnest wish to be helpful.

The ultimate hospitality I’ve seen so far was last night for a group from Africa who flew in around 9 o’clock. They arrived with no money and they had not eaten supper. They were counting on the per diem the General Conference offers to each delegate as their cash flow once they got here. And that office was closed by then.

One of the clergy in the group of volunteers found a translator and learned of their plight. His first step was to ask me to lend him four hundred dollars! He’d done me a number of favors already and I wanted to oblige him. I didn’t have close to that amount for the whole two weeks I will be here. He grinned and told me to go on. He’d “figger somethin’ aout.”

The way he said that last word, it was in three syllables.

When I saw him this morning, I asked how it was resolved. He said that he went to their hotel with them. The dining room was still open. They were allowed to charge their meals to their rooms. Problem solved and my friend didn’t have a funny looking entry on his VISA card bill to explain to his wife!