When you live overseas you develop an awareness of newcomers and other folks making the transition from other lives and places to this new one. While we work hard to interact with locals, it’s just a reality that ex-pats also keep tabs on one another and we hear about new arrivals. SungHo is one of these new arrivals. He comes from South Korea where he just finished university and is taking six months to see a bit of the world and pray about his future vocational direction.
He’s with a different organization than ours and is supposed to be staying with a family from his organization who will help him get situated for his time here in Medan. However that family had to leave the country to resolve visa issues and instead of their visas being ready yesterday as anticipated, it will take at least another week before they have things in place and can return. So they asked us to reach out to him and make sure he’s OK!
He’s doing well, but appreciated the opportunity to meet with us and share some fellowship and food. We chatted for a bit at our house before walking to a local cafe for Indonesian food. Then we headed back to our house for some home-baked dessert – shortbread. Paired with some lovely green tea from Sri Lanka, it was a nice completion to the evening. He speaks English pretty fluently and will be studying Indonesian for the next six weeks at the same language school we attended.
It was nice for us to be hospitable, something that has been difficult to do the way we used to do it in the States. But as our family situation shifts and we have a little more time and space, we hope to be doing more welcoming to others coming to Medan for language and culture study as well as perhaps work. Sometimes hospitality means cooking, sometimes it means helping introduce others to some of the things we enjoy about living in our adopted home.
Please pray for SungHo and others who leave their homes to follow the Holy Spirit’s leading. We know first hand the Spirit will make it clear to them where they should be and how they can serve. We also give thanks for our work visa that enables us to live without visa hassles for a year!
The Nelson Family Indonesia 