What I Learned From My Sis

My sister is the one to learn hospitality from this week. Up here in the North East where the flood waters have made people homeless, my sister is traveling with that most welcome of sights, The American Red Cross.

Over the years, she’s traveled from her home in Lewisburg, to Tennessee, Oklahoma, Louisiana, and now New York. Her career as a Red Cross Volunteer began after hurricane Katrina. She was nervous, a little scared, and not sure she had anything to offer. But she’s there and has been used by Our Father to ease the loss, shock and misery of people who have lost everything. 

This time she’s been away from home for two weeks, and has traveled all over New York state. She drove into Hell’s Kitchen in New York City, quite a feat for a country girl, and then got to sleep in a fancy hotel. On that same trip, another assignment had her sleeping on a cot in a gym and sharing one bathroom with fifty other women. 

My sister does all that pretty cheerfully. She knows how to turn the other cheek and listens compassionately to frazzled flood victims. She makes new friends as she meets co-workers from across the country. She deals with cots, and little sleep, and detours, and even tarantulas when she was in Oklahoma. She just keeps working side-by-side with other volunteers to make life better for the ones who come to her shelters.   

My sister does not have a halo, just ask me, I’m her sister and I know. But she does have a determination to help. She does have years of nursing behind her, and wisdom from following God for a long time now.

She has some good stories to tell too, about the people she has prayed with, and people she has counseled and helped. Just ask her.

This week I just have to say I’m proud of her. I have to ask you to be proud of her too, even though she’ll yell at me when I see her again.  

When the Red Cross calls her, she goes and that’s a pretty good lesson in how to be hospitable.