Taking Hospitality to a New Level

We love entertaining and hosting people in our home. We do it fairly regularly. For the next 4 nights and 5 days we are taking hospitality to a new level. We are hosting two men from Switzerland. Yes, you read correctly, Switzerland. They will be arriving in approximately an hour. Shouldn't you be cleaning? Getting things ready? Those are questions you might be asking, and my answer is NO. I actually just made some coffee in my French Press! You might even be wondering why in the world I'm sitting here posting to my blog and not running around my house making sure everything is "perfect". Well, I've decided to let go of perfection! Now, before you conjure up all sorts of scary images of what my house looks like, let me reassure you that it is ready to go. It is clean and ready for company, I'm just not going to run around like a chicken with my head cut off. My girls have volunteered, or rather were given no choice but to give up their rooms during this time. We don't have an extra guest room at the moment. They will actually sleep in our room on the floor. They spent this morning after they were finished with school putting fresh sheets on their beds, vacumming and cleaning their bathroom. I spent time sweeping floors and picking things up here and there. The house was pretty much clean already. Yesterday I went grocery shopping. Hubby gave me a little extra money so I could make sure I had enough stuff for two extra mouths. We have a conference this weekend at our church so I planned meals that would be fairly easy to prepare. I bought snacks that would be convenient. I even bought "store bought" pie crust to make a pie with my "Apple Pie in a Jar". Hubby e-mailed the men to see if they had any preferences and they said that as Swiss they are taught to eat whatever is put on the table....well, that made it easy for me. I'm simply going to cook the way I normally would just making a little extra. We are looking forward to having them in our home. My hubby's mother is Swiss and she is also hosting a Swiss husband, wife and their two daughters. What a fun weekend this will be. Usually our overnight hosting is relugated to family or friends, rarely strangers. We had met one of the gentleman at a conference in California (which led to this connection and visit), they are coming to check out our church and another church to observe how some things are done. Hosting strangers takes hospitality to a new level in my mind. It's just not on the same plane as hosting friends and family. I could be all worked up and nervous, but honestly, that wouldn't work out very well. I decided to just go with the flow. Well, now I must get off and go get ready for dinner. Chicken and vegetable tacos tonight. With Joy UNquenchable,