Omotenashi

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Malcolm Gladwell introduced me to omotenashi via his podcast series on Lexus.  It is that sort of thing of being treating guests well, better than yourself, serving determining their needs and meeting them without being asked, being a good host.

I have been able to see quite a bit of that of late.  

From pastors leaving their families to get food to others in their communities, sometimes travelling several days, driving, walking...hiking.  

Marvin, our new English teacher (hired about a week before we had to close everything) also knows how to cut hair.  All barbershops are supposed to be closed.  On a limited basis and trying to take care, he was still willing and wanting to help kids from the Milk Project with hair cuts.  Our hair trimmers were broke...so he brought his from home.  

Most of our staff in Tegucigalpa live fairly close.  Some still get picked up in the ambulance every morning (Jorge putting in extra hours doing that...no glory doing that, just him doing it) but doctor Carlos lives up near Comayagua...for a couple weeks he lived with Doctor Darwin to be able to be at work every day.  Then he got a truck from a family member to at least get home on weekends.  

Doctor Darwin's wife and kids (cuties seen here on the left) are about two hours North of us.  For their safety, he has not been able to see them in person for many weeks.  

Unfortunately, much of the country is also living under a cloud of people not practicing omotenashi, starting more forest fires at several different points not just around the capital city but in many (hundreds) of other points.  The dense smoke this is giving all of us to breathe is definitely not welcome. 

Fires used to be blamed on farmers clearing out land for the upcoming planting season.  But now the vast majority of them are just arson...and some point to those around the capital as being set to destroy forests, so the owners of the land can they maintain there are no trees/forests there, so they can build homes/neighborhoods, exacerbating the problem.  

That smoke produced yesterday an ethereal sunrise for several minutes...so odd, purple and beautiful it was that I had a hard time taking it in or believing what I was seeing.

Both kinds of stories like that abound, not just here, but around the world. 

Here is praying we use the opportunities we have for more omotenashi to those around us, being good hosts not just for others but ourselves, our families, and our communities both local and global.