Where we call home
Since this is my very first post at HUMBLE WELCOME, a website to encourage people to welcome strangers to their homes, I thought I should begin with a little bit about our home. In many respects, we are a very ordinary midwestern American family. Megan and I met shortly after college and were married in 2007. We now have three children (Jude, Elijah and Eden) all of whom keep us busy with school and extra curricular activities. We have a dog, Olive, who is the perfect snuggle buddy during Cleveland’s long winters. Although we began hosting international students in a cozy little bungalow in Fairview Park, we relocated to Lakewood to be close to the downtown community where Cleveland State and Case Western Reserve University educate students from around the world. We have five bedrooms in our home, and two of them are reserved for our international guests.
Some students will join us for a few days, others have stayed for years. Some arrive with virtually no English, while others seem more fluent than we are. Some guests arrive with significant financial resources, others are barely able to pay for a bus ticket. Our goal is simply to welcome, as best as we are able, those whom God brings us.
Since we are an active family, we’re not able to “entertain” and micro-manage our guests’ schedules. We treat them as adults and allow them to manage their lives the way they see fit. But we do seek to include them in our family’s lifestyle the best we can. Whenever possible, we invite them to join us for family dinners, gatherings with extended family or friends, and even to tag along for mundane activities such as running errands and youth basketball practices. And, we love it when they join us.
In the future, I’m eager to explore all things related to hospitality; its joys and challenges. We have stories that are hard to believe and beautiful moments that have changed us for the better. We’re eager to share them with you and to encourage others to open their doors and share their lives with others as well.
