Got ten minutes?

This week, our congregation sent a group to Greeley, Colorado to learn and serve in a community that experienced horrendous flooding last year. On the way, they ate a meal in North Platte, Nebraska. Although I imagine our youth were unimpressed with North Platte, the small city does boast the world's largest railroad yards, Bailey Yard. And it was once the home of a tremendous example of outrageous welcome and hospitality.  

Some time ago, I read a book called Once Upon a Town, The Miracle of the North Platte Canteen by Bob Greene. The Union Pacific Railroad's main line runs through North Platte and during World War II, trains carrying our troops on their way to or from the war traveled through the town. The trains stopped for no more than fifteen minutes for fueling or unloading or to add or change cars. On Christmas Day 1941, thinking their own sons from the local 134th Infantry Regiment were on the trains, the people of North Platte decided to greet them as they rolled through town. Gifts, food, words of encouragement and thanks were lavishly shared with the young men – who turned out to be strangers, not their own. 

The miracle part of the story is that the people of North Platte and surrounding communities made a commitment to greet every single troop train that came through town as long as the war lasted. On an average day, three to five thousand military personnel passed through the canteen, and toward the end of the war as many as twenty-three trains passed through each day. Over six million soldiers were welcomed and fed during the war, day and night, day after day, and year after long year.

Remember, most of the people served by the canteen were there for only ten or fifteen minutes. They gobbled down homemade pie and roast beef sandwiches. They flirted and danced with the young women whose job it was to greet the trains. They accepted sloppy kisses and firm handshakes from women and men who could have been their mothers and fathers, sisters and brothers. And then they were gone. Yet the book describes the life-long impact those ten minutes had on those who gave and received the gift of such generous hospitality. 

Ten minutes. What a lingering impression a warm greeting can have on a Sunday morning! Ten minutes could ward off a sense of isolation and depression for someone who is struggling. A compliment for a well-behaved child, a question about an illness, a thank-you for the lovely music could have a long-lasting impact both on people we already know and those who are new. Maybe outreach and evangelism aren't as complicated and difficult as we tend to think. Ten minutes to intentionally and generously share Christ’s love and hospitality with your spouse, a child, your mother, a visitor, a co-worker, your boss, even a complete stranger – those ten minutes could transform a congregation, a community, you, me. 

Let me know if you have been to North Platte– or if you'd like to borrow the book! Pray for young people and adults on summer mission trips that they might be outrageously welcomed as the spirit of God works through them to welcome and bless others.