Risky Hospitality

Kate Bradford

When a church or school community hears that one of their families has received devastating news a normal first response is that of shock, flight, freeze or fight.  The news might be that of a couple expecting a baby, who has been prenatally diagnosed with a life threatening heart condition which will require surgery within the first days of life. Perhaps a healthy child suffers a seemingly flu-like illness that results in brain damage and limited motor skills, or may-be a teenage boy becomes a paraplegic after skate board accident after Youth Group.  Or a leukaemia is diagnosed, after a routine blood test run on a child who fainted after falling from a swing. 

People wish to help, but feel overwhelmed by the magnitude of the tragedy that has befallen a family just like any other family.  Where does one start? To ask such a question is to embark on a journey - a costly journey of radical, risky hospitality. Hospitality is never an armchair activity.

I am one of a team of paediatric chaplains who visit children and families like those mentioned above. Walking with families as they bear painful realities which our world has pronounced as unbearable or ‘should not be’ requires a willingness to become ‘burden-bearers’. To burden-bear is to pray and act out of the overflowing of compassion that we have in turn received from Christ. Burdon-bearing is risky business.

Caring for a family with a child, or children, suffering from disability or serious illness is ideally done prayerfully by a team of people, so the load is shared and the care has some consistency.  Suggestions of care are best made as concrete offers i.e. meals, or assistance to and from medical appointments, child minding, or gardening.  Suggestions are offered but not imposed, the family needs to feel free to decide what offers they accept and which do not suit them. To be willing to be ‘in’ for the long haul and not promising more than came be delivered are helpful guidelines when considering care. It’s worth noting that when promises to help people get to and from medical appointments etc. are not followed through, deep disappointment may add to the complications of caring for an ill child.  

Like lots of things it is perhaps better to show rather than tell. The following account is of a church who engaged in risky hospitality when a church family received devastating news.*

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As I stood at the grave side, in fading light and drizzling rain, I watched a large backhoe push dirt down onto the small wooden coffin that contained Mira, a little girl that I had cared for, for about two years. Standing there I spoke to the pastor of Mira’s family; I expressed my gratitude to the pastor, and his church, for caring for the family in so many ways over this time. As a hospital chaplain I can care when the family is in hospital but, there are always so many needs we cannot meet.

The pastor replied, ‘Thank you, you know… we took a risk, a big risk. They had only joined our church a few weeks before Mira was diagnosed. We did not really know them at all. You know it was very hard, in fact a massive challenge for our people but as a church, we tried.’

The pastor’s modest statement seemed to me to be a huge understatement concerning the care that I knew his church had shared with Mira and her family. They had walked together in fellowship with Mira’s family every step of the way, every week over the following two years. And I imagine they still do into an unknown and difficult future without Mira.

Mira was the youngest child of a Christian family recently migrated to Australia, arriving as refugees from a conflict in South Asia. I met six year old Mira and her family in the Emergency Department. As a protestant chaplain, I had been called to support the family while an inconclusive, but shocking diagnosis for Mira’s illness was given to her family.  Mira’s mum and I often spoke of extended family in a distant land, cultural differences, church, God and the blessing of faith. I watched Mira’s mum cling to Jesus, drawing strength from him to face each day. Towards the end when Mira’s pain was unbearable Mira would ask people to pray, ‘Please pray. Mummy ask Jesus.’

Over the two years most of our conversations ranged over normal life events, issues concerning juggling a seriously ill child with the rest of the family: schooling, study, work, housekeeping, and the endless rounds of medical appointments. Through these conversations I learned of a church with members who phoned regularly, prayed regularly, provided transport to and from medical appointments, in fact the congregation gave driving lessons to Lia, Mira’s mother to allow her a greater degree of independence in getting to and from the myriad of medical appointments she had to attend. They cooked meals and made it possible for the older children to attend youth group, collecting them and returning them home in heavy Friday night traffic every week.

At Mira’s funeral the whole church family, Mira’s Sunday school teacher and children from her class were there to support the family and say their own grief stricken farewells. All were sobbing and faces streamed with tears for a beautiful girl that we all loved. Her parents had chosen the reading from 2 Sam 16:16-23 to express a painful reality melded together with a future hope. ‘Now [she] is dead why should I fast? Can I bring [her] back again?  I shall go to [my child], but [she] shall not return to me.’

The whole congregation mourned together with them.

I cannot convey how profoundly sad Mira’s funeral was that day, but it was also bittersweet and beautiful. It was a glimpse into a community of God’s people being God’s people in an abundant and risky way.

(* Names and some identifying details have been changed.)

Re-posted with kind permission from Anglican Deaconess Ministries http://www.deaconessministries.org.au/blog-webapp/risky-hospitality