Testimonies from You

The Hospitality of Need is all about caring for one another and seeing our needs, not as barriers or burdens, but as tools to grow deeper in fellowship with one another and with God.

We would love to hear from you! If you have read the book, please take some time to consider how you have experienced the hospitality of need in your own life and community. Then share your story with us here in the comments, and see what others have said as well. If you haven’t read the book yet, we would love for you to pick up a copy and join the conversation. In the meantime, please feel free to read through the comments below. We hope you are encouraged by these testimonies.

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Thank you for being a part of the story!

From your friends,

Kevan Chandler and Tommy Shelton
Authors of The Hospitality of Need

34 responses to “Testimonies from You”

Andy

June 6, 2025

Kevan entered my life when he started dating one of my wife’s best friends. Katie and my wife, Andrea, grew up in the same hometown and attended college together. She was a bridesmaid in our wedding and a continual source of kindness to our family through the years. We always wondered when she would meet someone to share life with and why God’s plan seemed to be so slow in unfolding. Then we met Kevan, and it all made perfect sense.
In the early days of their relationship, Kevan and Katie were traveling through our town and arranged to spend some time with our family. Kevan and I immediately connected over our love for the same books and music, but it was his need of my help in basic ways that allowed us to quickly form a deep friendship. In a world where asking for help or admitting weakness are anathema, his humble requests for aid and genuine gratitude for assistance quickly tore down any barriers to connecting. After that short visit, Andrea and I knew that God had brought these two sweet souls together, and my heart was full of thanksgiving for my new friend.
Recently, we were able to be on the receiving end of the Chandler’s hospitality as they welcomed us into their home for a weekend. Among other things, we were struck by the way that Kevan’s needs infuse their days with an unavoidable slowness – another counter-cultural characteristic of their family. This gift of slowness invited us into the heart of their lives, just as they had swung wide the door of their home, which they affectionately refer to as Sage Haven. When our time with them concluded, this poem of gratitude spilled out of me.

“Sage Haven”

There is an invitation to slowness
away from the things of man
that greets you at the threshold
of Sage Haven,
the tulips waving you into a space
of shared needs and joys,
where coat closets become stairways
and conversations meander like rivers
into the currents of life,
which suddenly feel less threatening
for having been named in the company
of hospitality and love,
each spoken and enacted in the presence
of a Creator who, from the beginning,
has called us out of chaos
and into rest.

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Through engaging real-life stories, Kevan Chandler and Tommy Shelton share what can happen when we invite others into our lives—hardships and all. Ultimately, this is a book about friendship . . . the kind that God has called us to live in . . . friendship that goes deep and flourishes, not in spite of our needs but actually through them.

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