I was a stranger…

It was the fifth morning of our honeymoon, our last day in the Scottish Highlands. Reading through Matthew, I read chapter 25, in which Jesus says: "For I was hungry and you gave me drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me…"

Our final highland adventure was a little drive to the west coast of Scotland—destination: the small fishing village of Ullapool. At that latitude, the country is not very wide, so our estimated driving time was about 90 minutes.

I have never seen such striking landscape. It was raining, then sunny, then raining again as we drove over the mountains. The sky was dark, the heather deep brown on the moors, and grey water rushed through the meadows. There was not a house or person for miles. It was the perfect setting for my melancholy bent, and I told Morgen, "This feels like home."

Another mile or two down the road, we heard a high whining sound from under the hood of the car.  Morgen thought it sounded like a fan belt.  I'll remind you that we were in a desolate spot.  So we kept driving, and the noise stopped.

Soon, though, the battery light came on, soon after that the engine temperature spiked, the car began slowing down, and power steering failed.  With snow-capped mountains to our right and a field of sheep to our left, I pulled over to the side of the road.  Ten minutes later, no car had passed by, so we decided to try driving further. Would we come to a town soon?  We prayed that we would. 

Thankfully, the car would not accelerate very much, because as we crested the next hill and began descending down the far side, I had to turn to my new bride and announce, "Morgen, we now have no brakes."  None.  As in, the brake pedal wouldn't push down at all. 

We glided along for a half mile or so and finally came to an emergency pull-off lane.  We rolled to a stop with the help of the parking brake, prayed again, and Morgen mentioned that we'd just passed a cottage, with a light on, a few hundred yards back.  So we walked back, opened the gate, ascended the steps, and knocked on the door.

A tall, thin man answered, looking much like you'd expect a Scottish fisherman to look: white beard, lean face, steady gaze.  "Yes?" he asked.

I dragged it out a little, not sure why.
"We're from the States,"
"Yes?"  A little suspicious.
"We recently got married and are on our honeymoon,"
"Yes…" Patiently.
"Our car seems to have broken down just up the road from here,"
"Yes…"
"And we were wondering if we could use your phone."

"Yes, of course," he said, and gestured us in.  He showed us to the phone and phone book, at which point his wife emerged from the kitchen.  We made introductions, their names were John and Ann, incidentally, the same as my parents.  Morgen called the people who had loaned us the car for the week (who told her, "Hold on," and hung up.  Hmm.)

"Well," said Ann graciously, "we might as well not wait here in the hallway, come on in to the living room and have a seat while you wait."  John threw another log on the fire, Ann made us tea and brought plates of cookies and cake.  We sipped tea and nibbled cookies and got to know our kind hosts—John, a retired engineer who had worked on fishing boats, and Ann, Ullapool's village librarian. 

FIVE hours later, we left the home of our new friends.  But not before we took pictures—they were quite taken with Morgen, I think.  I was appointed photographer. 

Sometime during the course of the evening, I had told them what I read that morning, where Jesus equates welcoming a stranger to service to Himself.  Their kindness and hospitality was remarkable—it became the highlight story of our honeymoon—we were complete strangers, and they not only aided us, but truly welcomed us. 

Two thoughts linger for me about that adventure.  First, a reminder that God answers our prayers with either what we ask OR something better, what we would have asked for if we knew what He knows.  When the car first made noise, our instinctive prayer was, "God, help this car not to break and let us continue unhindered on our journey."  Yet if He had done what we asked, we would have missed out on an even better experience.  I know that sometimes it takes years to see the "something better" view of an unanswered prayer, this just happened to be an unusually quick enlightenment.

Second, it has me thinking about hospitality and welcoming.  I don't live on a desolate road in Scotland, and strangers in need don't often knock on my door.  Living in a big city, I find it easy to think that "someone else" will help that man, "someone else" can welcome that woman, someone else…What does stranger-welcoming look like for me, and for us as a community?