I find it ironic.

The Middle East is one of the most welcoming cultures around. Almost every visit with every person in every situation involves them offering you tea, coffee, water, Coke, cookies, candy or even a fruit bowl! We haven’t been anywhere on this trip so far where we haven’t been showered with hospitality—good old-fashioned Middle Eastern Hospitality!

At the Caritas Center here in Beirut, we were offered beverages and a gigantic chocolate cake. At our hotel in the evenings, we are greeted with delicious mint tea. At the Migrant Center for vulnerable women and children, we were served an enormous, homemade traditional Middle Eastern lunch (with more cake!) Even in the refugee homes we visit, where their cupboards are bare, they bring us purchased Coke and bottled water, insisting in fact that we accept this gesture. These refugees have so little–so little, in fact, that the parents often go to bed hungry so the children won’t. Yet…they serve us—not only Coke and cake, but warmth and hospitality, love and generosity. They give us so much.

I find it ironic then, that despite all this welcoming to us, the Iraqis can find no country to welcome them.

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