strangers and halloween

One of the things we are learning in our time overseas is what it feels like to be a stranger.

Stranger-hood comes in all forms, like not knowing how to buy the right ingredients at the grocery store because of the language barrier, or being singled out every time we cross a border because our license plate is unfamiliar, or not having anyone to write down on the emergency contact card at school, or not knowing the answers to simple questions like "how exactly does trash collection work around here?" (and then finding that the answer is more complicated than you ever imagined), or not knowing how to celebrate basic holidays.

That's why I told my children that we weren't going to celebrate Halloween this year. We don't have costumes and we don't know what people do.

Then a family from school invited my children over to pick out some costumes from their dress up box. We also got word of a small Trunk or Treat at the local international school. Suddenly, we had something to wear and a place to go. My kids were thrilled!

On the drive to the Trunk or Treat event we were having the usual conversation in the car about expectations and how everyone should behave at the event. These conversations are especially important prefacing the arrival to any place where one Momma will be watching threes kiddos in a crowd.

Besides pleases and thank yous, the girls began discussing what would happen if one of them got more candy than the other in their baskets. The 8-year-old said:
"If I have a lot of candy and I give one piece to you, it would be nice of me. But if I only have one piece of candy and I give it to you, that is the nicest thing of all. Just like the Bible story."

Yes, like the Bible story where a widow puts only a few cents into the offering plate, and it means everything because it is all she has. Generosity is a measure of our heart, not our bank account. The Bible story told with the kid-friendly currency of candy.

In being strangers in a new place, we are learning about the deeper kinds of beauty found in generosity. Not just generosity that we read about, or think about, but the kind that we get to experience for ourselves. Even the children pick up on what it feels like to be invited in, to be welcomed, to be shared with.

We are all recipients of the sincerest kind of generosity. In turn, it is an exhortation to tangibly love the "strangers" we encounter in our own lives. Every celebration, even Halloween, is another excuse to tangibly love a stranger. What kind of stranger will you love today?

We charged the night with a cat, a princess, and a milk-drinking "fire engine man" (as he called himself). He was the most mesmerized by the evening of costumes and games, and a reminder of the magic of being 3 years old.

You can't tell how much our princess loved her costume because she was stricken by a fit-inducing "bump in her sock" at the moment of family photos. Perhaps it was a pea? 

  

The Widow's Offering

"Jesus sat down opposite the place where the offerings were put and watched the crowd putting their money into the temple treasury. Many rich people threw in large amounts. But a poor widow came and put in two very small copper coins, worth only a few cents. Calling his disciples to him, Jesus said, 'Truly I tell you, this poor widow has put more into the treasury than all the others. They all gave out of their wealth; but she, out of her poverty, put in everything - all she had to live on" 

Mark 12:41-44