ANGELES, PHILIPPINES—It was four long airline flights and nearly 32 hours since waking up at home in Edmond, Oklahoma, before our heads could finally hit the pillows at our hotel. My family and I were over 8,000 miles from home, excited and exhausted.
We spent a day orienting ourselves around Manila, adjusting to the foreignness of our surroundings—people, accents, language, money, food, flow of traffic, pace of business, living conditions. Then something amazing happened—something that truly made us feel right at home.
We met God’s people.
A few of the Filipino Church members picked us up to take us to services for Atonement. Their warmth and sincere kindness put us at ease. And when we arrived at the meeting hall, the Filipino brethren gave us such a big-hearted welcome, we knew that we were among family.
They marched up to greet us, their faces glowing with ear-to-ear smiles. They gave us hearty handshakes and introduced themselves energetically. They showed off their spouses, children, brothers, sisters and cousins. They bombarded us with glee.
I have to say: This was a wonderful way to help a foreigner—what the Bible terms a “stranger”—rejoice in one of God’s feasts!
It reminded me of God’s command in Deuteronomy 16:14: “And thou shalt rejoice in thy feast, thou, and thy son, and thy daughter, and thy manservant, and thy maidservant, and the Levite, the stranger, and the fatherless, and the widow, that are within thy gates.” That is God’s way of saying that at His Feast, He wants us to make everyone—children, servants, ministers, foreigners, orphans, widows, you name it—to know they are part of the spiritual family. We need to go out of our way to make sure no one is neglected.
The Quezon City congregation beautifully applied this law with my family. Now, I do realize that I am a visiting minister from headquarters, and the brethren here already know me. But the thought occurred to me: Why couldn’t every feast-goer, at every Feast site—every child, senior, teenager, student, single, couple, prospective member—be made to feel so welcome at God’s glorious Feast of Tabernacles?
Think about this: Wherever in the world we come from, whatever our race, sex or economic status, we have more in common with the brethren we encounter at the Feast than with the people who live in our own neighborhood at home!
As the Apostle Paul tells us, “There is one body, and one Spirit, even as ye are called in one hope of your calling; One Lord, one faith, one baptism, One God and Father of all, who is above all, and through all, and in you all” (Ephesians 4:4-6). This is reality: We are all brothers and sisters in one spiritual Family—children of the same Father—begotten by the same spiritual seed! That Spirit is stronger than blood, stronger than race. That begettal—our spiritual family bond—transcends anything that would divide us. It makes us children of Abraham and inheritors of the promises to spiritual Israel (Galatians 3:26-29).
How marvelous! There truly are no foreigners—no strangers—in God’s Family!
What can each of us do to embrace and envelop every last person at every single Feast site with God’s abundant family love? Certainly we can endeavor to be generous with all the things that cost nothing but our effort: warmhearted smiles, eager handshakes and hugs, hearty fellowship, unreserved laughter. And whatever we can extend in hospitality, we can put out effort to do so to every precious person we possibly can.
Perhaps you—like me and my family—can take this lesson from your brothers and sisters here in the Philippines: This Feast, challenge yourself to make a stranger know he’s family!