hospital-ality

First I want to say thank you to EVERYONE who was willing to host us for the past 5 weeks.
I thought it was funny that so many houses had disease and we escaped 90% of it. We had 2 girls who had a fever for less than 24 hours.
I want to talk about hospitality.
It is amazing that there is such a thing as the gift of hospitality. There are so many things I saw this trip that were so different but I would still consider to be great hospitable people.
I had some people who wanted to do EVERYTHING for us. There were some people who wanted us to feel like part of the family and pitch in. Some people had their houses decorated to the hilt, some people had very simple decorations (and maybe piles of dirty laundry everywhere for me to fold).
Some people had toothbrushes (and even one house that had robes for everyone in the family) in case we forgot and some were pulling towels out of the dryer as we got there.
No matter what I saw that they were trying to make us feel welcome at their house.... and we totally did. No ones house did we feel out of place or nervous. No one made us wish it was time to leave.
so what is hospitality and what makes it a gift?
Hospitality is making someone feel at home... and making it seem seemless. That is where the gift is.
So, thank you for your hospitality even if it included trips to the hospital for you.