Kate & Hospitality!

Today I have a very special guest here sharing something very near and dear to her heart. Kate at From The Guest Room is not only one of my Sponsors this month, but herself and her blog just ooze that happy, get up and dance feeling, you know?!

So grab a coffee, get comfy and let's hear what Kate has to say!

Hey All! I am excited to have been invited to share my heart with you all today! Allow me to introduce myself. My name is Kate (mK) and I blog over at From The Guest Room! I grew up in South East Pennsylvania, followed by living in multiple locations including Colorado and Australia before settling (at least we think) in Nashville, TN with my husband, Dustin.

When Lish invited me to guest post on her blog, I knew right away what was on my heart to share! Hospitality. This month over on my blog, I am writing like crazy about hospitality and the amazing things that come from living with an open heart, open home mentality.

Gosh, 9 years (already 9!?! Yikes!) while I was attending my first and last year of traditional college, I realized my life was in need of a huge shift. College wasn't cutting it for me, in fact, I couldn't stand it. I couldn't learn the way they taught and I was getting frustrated at trying to be me in a cookie cutter I wasn't met to be shaped as. I signed up to do a school in Brisbane, Australia where my whirl wind of a life began. I traveled through Eastern Australia, Solomon Islands, New Zealand, Asia and Europe, using my hands-on school-training in the arts to bring about good change, encouragement and tell others about God. During that time I met my husband and after a year of skype-dating, I moved to Colorado and we were married a year later and off in another adventure in China. In Colorado, I found work as a youth coach and then eventually as staff with an amazing non-profit organization called Light Gives Heat.

When my husband got a job opportunity in Nashville, I knew I had to let my job go. I loved it, but there was another adventure to chase that I knew with out a doubt in my mind was the right step for us. When we got to Nashville this past October, life as I knew it was nearly non-existent. Aside from Dustin, everything else was pretty much new. I didn't have a job since I had resigned and I didn't know anyone in Nashville, so finding a job I loved via connections was not going to happen. Thankfully I did find a job, but it was massive shift from what I had been doing years previously and so I began to to feel as though I was not contributing to positively changing in the world around me. It's interesting how your mind can focus in on one thing and totally miss the surrounding opportunities that lay obvious around. Hospitality is one of those things.
Something clicked in my mind and I realized I could change the world, one person or one family at a time by living my life with an open heart and open home.

I may not be changing legislation or cradling babies in orphanages around the world, but maybe I can love and encourage the people that will do that one day! Maybe my conversation over a meal at my dinning room table will inspire someone to step out and do something great. Maybe my guest room bed will provide a restful nights sleep to a weary traveler or a widowed woman. We all have an opportunity to change lives and this month I hope you will consider your place in that opportunity. Look around you, what do you see? Who do you see?

I'd love for you to join me in loving the people in our communities. To read more about what I am up to this month in regards to hospitality, go here! I hope to hear your stories! ♥, mK

Hospitality from mk Wise on Vimeo.

Thank you so much for sharing Kate...this really is a wonderful thing that your doing and you are a true inspiration to many of us :) I can't wait to read everyones ideas and stories too :)