Recently I was in Minnesota’s Twin Cities — Minneapolis and Saint Paul — for a sort of “double-header:” the annual conventions of Associated Church Press (ACP) and Religion Communicators Council (RCC).
It was surprising to see such a wide variety of people in the area. I had expected people of Scandinavian and German descent, but there were also many from Asia, Africa and Central and South America.
We Southerners like to talk about our hospitality, but even in northern locales, the biblical admonition of kindness to foreigners is heeded.
At the ACP convention, executive director Joe Roos (“rose,” as in Roosevelt) and his wife, Cherie, introduced their daughter, Anjali, whom they recently adopted in India. They celebrated her first birthday during the convention.
Fathama, the housekeeper for my room, was born in Sierra Leone. Thousands of civilians have been killed or mutilated in the country’s civil war. Fathama’s family spent two years in a refugee camp before being brought to the United States by a Lutheran organization.
One of the biggest tourist attractions in the U.S. is in the Twin Cities area: the Mall of America. It is the largest shopping mall in the country, maybe the world. Planeloads of people come from other countries to do a couple of days’ shopping at the huge, four-level mall and then fly back home.
Specialty shops abound among the hundreds of stores in the mall. But it was also nice to discover that an interfaith group maintains a display there helping the visiting shoppers find local places to worship.
It was a pleasure to attend Garrison Keillor’s popular radio show, “A Prairie Home Companion,” in Saint Paul. Even he went out of his way for a stranger from the South: On the air, he read a note from me to my wife back in Alabama.
Our state’s location and natural beauty draw many tourists here, and Baptists show concern for them. At Howard’s Chapel in DeKalb Association, attendance during a recent four-week period included 432 people, with 214 coming from other states and four from other countries. The congregation meets in DeSoto State Park. Another ministry to tourists is operated by Carey and Clay associations. The services in Cheaha State Park are held Sundays from April through October. Attendance averages 20–30 each week.
Last week our local RCC group met at Jessie’s Place in Bir-mingham. It helps some of our neediest transients — homeless women with children. They get a place to stay, Christian witness and job training. After they get jobs, advisers from Jessie’s Place monitor the work situation to make sure things are working out all right.
You know the Lord is pleased when Christians show such love.
Share with others: