Advent 2020Sample

What love tastes like

This Advent I have been remembering an inspiring woman I met called Areej. A couple of years ago, she welcomed me into her home under canvas in a refugee camp in the Bekaa Valley in Lebanon and fed me the feast of a king...all cooked on a humble camping stove. 

I was an unknown traveler passing through; a stranger. And yet she and her family were so kind, welcoming and full of joy. If Areej, with so little, could be so generous, what could I do with my own plentiful and overflowing kitchen? Her hospitality has definitely encouraged me to reach out to others to share the happiness of food.

I believe being kind to strangers is at the crux of faith, and during the national coronavirus lockdown, we have done this more than before. Somehow, being confined within our four walls made us think more of our lonely and vulnerable neighbors, because didn't we all feel a bit like that?

Like Areej I encourage you to practice generosity in an act of kindness.

By Martha Collison, British baker, recipe writer, and Tearfund ambassador.