Open homes and poured-out water:

As I write, Kathy and I are "guests" in the home of our friends, Dave and Joyce Owen.  I've stayed here so many times that I think of their home as my home on Guam, a tiny American outpost on the other side of the world.  "Where America's day begins," as the locals like to say.  I put quotation-marks around the word guest because I don't feel like a guest, here.  When I arrived here a few weeks ago, the Owens weren't even home.  The previous house guest gave me the keys to their home and their car, along with an inventory of what was edible, and I settled in, which for a guy traveling alone doesn't involve much.  I picked Dave up at the airport a week later.  He'd been traveling for ministry, then week after that our wives arrived--you readers of the feminine sort will be glad to know that we had a couple of girls from the college where we are working clean up before the ladies arrived.
It has been my privilege to stay in the homes of missionaries all over the world--Ecuador, New Zealand, Ukraine, Italy, Honduras, Virginia, Palau, West Virginia, Kazakhstan, Guam, and I'm probably missing someplace.  I've stayed in homes where the kids were paid a nickel each to kill cock-roaches before I arrived, where the hosts made sure I had a flashlight so I wouldn't stumble on the path to the facilities in the middle of the night, and in pink rooms with stuffed-animals piled in the corner.  I've gone to bed a few feet from a cock fighting arena, surrounded by neighbors displaced by nuclear disaster, and within walking distance of some of the world's greatest art-treasures.  I've been cautioned about going out, because of possible landslides, pickpockets, drivers who have no regard for pedestrians, and dogs who regard walkers as a potential meal.
I'm sure there are missionaries, somewhere, who live extravagance, but I haven't met them. The only extravagance I've experienced in the homes of these who have responded to the great commission is extravagance of hospitality.
I'm sure that the reasons for this open-home policy are as varied as are those who have been my hosts.  For most of the folk I've stayed with--though not all--I represent an element of "back home."  I speak American English, I have at least a passing knowledge of the US sport/news/culture scene, I like hot-dogs and pizza.  Often I have represented institutions that provide support to these missionary families.  As a pastor of church it could be said that I'm kinda-sorta in the same business as my hosts.  I don't think that fully explains it, however.  
I'll probably embarrass my hosts with my speculation, but the hospitality of missionary families reminds me of one of my favorite Old-Testament stories.

David had a craving and said, “Oh that someone would give me water to drink from the well of Bethlehem which is by the gate!” So the three mighty men broke through the camp of the Philistines, and drew water from the well of Bethlehem which was by the gate, and took it and brought it to David. Nevertheless he would not drink it, but poured it out to the Lord; and he said, “Be it far from me, O Lord, that I should do this. Shall I drink the blood of the men who went in jeopardy of their lives?” Therefore he would not drink it. These things the three mighty men did. (2 Samuel 23:15–17, NASB95)  

Having left the home that they love, these folk have a greater appreciation for the treasure that a home is--not primarily financial.  They have such an appreciation that they regard their home in a new land to be a treasure that ought to be used in God's service--poured out, if you will, in worship to Him.

Lord, teach me.  Amen.