Here is the meaning of christian hospitality shared by one of the hosts who so warmly welcomed us during the ten days seven of us spent in Liberia:

“Hospitality and Service at Link Aid International:                                     By: Eric Saah Nyuma

Dr. Charles Jones described Link Aid International as a “positive deviant organization”.  In his view, the organization stands tall as a partner in progress. Established in 2015, Link Aid is that bridge in Liberia that represents a culture of transparency and accountability. The vision was birth in the early 90s when its founder, Eric Saah Nyuma was a teenage refugee in the Republic of Guinea. Eric, like many other Liberians suffered the outcome of the 14 years war.

At Link Aid, one of our core values is service delivery. To do this effectively, we since recognized that the people we serve are God’s precious and perfect creation. In serving God’s people, we find unspeakable joy. Upon her returned home, Rev. Sandra Dorsainvil wrote Link Aid – “You not only had us live Romans 12:10, which is a scripture we ask our teams to memorize as part of the preparation and orientation, but we lived and received radical intentional generous hospitality. THANK YOU for everything.”

Hospitality and service delivery, to say the least is a crucial factor in the travel ecosystem. Traveling overseas has its good and bad sides. Those traveling on missionary journey are mostly servant leaders who most often go the extra – simply because they are going with the mind to serve others and not to be served. When planning their trip, key on the agenda will be the attitude of serving others above themselves. Now, this is why we at Link Aid bridged that gap. We believe that partnership and service delivery is a two way street; it should be reciprocated. As missionaries travel to serve, so the local host should serve even more.  The local host must engage the expected visiting guest far ahead to know and try to understand their nationality, age group, gender, their stay patterns and itinerary, and more importantly the main aim and objective of their visit. As a host, once you get to know your target guests, it becomes easier to plan and get ready to serve them understanding diversity and cultural sensitivity.

Few things to consider:

• Pray for and with your guest (before arrival and while in country);
• Take ownership of your guests itinerary;
• Help the guest to be frugal and not wasteful in their expenditure;
• Work hard on your attitude (serve with a positive attitude);
• Build a strong synergy with your guests (be transparent);
• Tell them what they need to know (do and don’t);
• Be sensitive to there needs;
• Be time sensitive and flexible;

Cecelia Momcee Woloquellie:                                                                                 A prolific, modest and perfect example of hospitality service is Momcee (as she’s commonly called). Momcee is a selfless and multi talented young Liberian lady with a heart of gold. At Link Aid, we could not think of any volunteer than her to manage our International Ministries (IM) partners. Momcee is a devoted Christian; a member of Effort Baptist Church in Monrovia, Liberia. She has academic background in business administration – a graduate from the University of Liberia. More to that, she’s a professional seamstress, very good caterer of local/traditional meal and western, she’s a designer/decoration.

We can on to say more about Momcee. As a result of her service-oriented character, she put the IM guest first throughout their stay. The memories are long lasting. During the IM team 10 days (May 26^th to June 2^nd, 2023) visit to Liberia, there were several outstanding moves made by Momcee to serve the guests. One of them was the extra move she made on her day off.

Here’s what happened: on day four of the visit, it was agreed that Momcee would take a day off to rest. True to it, she was off that day. However, given that one of the local partners was calling to speak with the IM team, he repeatedly kept calling them but to no avail. At the same time, he kept calling Link Aid team to put him in touch with the IM guests. As a matter of fact, there was no urgency behind the call. The IM guest local phone was switched off. The local partner reached out to Momcee and explained that he was calling the IM team but to no avail. Momcee, haven, look at the situation, she felt that it was important to take some action steps. She decided to leave everything she was doing on her day off to go in search of the IM team. She went out and found the IM guest and delivered the simple message. That was to tell them that a local partner was calling them but their phone was off. This leadership move by Momcee was remarkable.”

Radical and intentional hospitality and partnership live side by side in this Liberian context. As we received Sister Cecelia’s radical hospitality during the ten days of the Discovery trip, we thank God for her commitment to service. One wonders how she came to embrace this radical way of life, of honoring and loving thy neighbor. May these God moments fill our cups to always serve from the overflow.

Thank you Link Aid International for your ministry in challenging environments.

Thank you Sister Cecelia for your guiding light and being salt all around you.