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

35 responses to “Testimonies from You”

Sam

May 13, 2025

Kevan kindly asked me to carry him on my back as we hiked near my home in the hills of West Virginia. It’s been a long time since I asked someone to carry me on their back. I want to be strong and self-sufficient, a provider and a protector. I liked carrying Kevan. I gave a ride to him and a gift to him that day. But he gave me more. He consistently gives me more. Kevan is physically weak, yes, but in his hospitable orientation, he has provided for more others than most men I know. He has protected and carried so many, including me.

Like many men, I sometimes think that the only gift I have to give is in my competency and physical mastery. But some of the best gifts I’ve given my children have been when I was vulnerable, and when I have allowed others to help me. Of course, growing into various fields of competency and independence is a good and healthy part of growing up, a gift to cultivate and enjoy. But it is not ultimate. It is not bulletproof. The illusion of perpetual self-sufficiency is a crummy idol, and Kevan’s life is a rebuke to that competing religion, demonstrating its deaf ears and feckless reach. Using our strengths to serve others is right and good. In honest humility allowing others to serve us is also a profound gift, a far rarer one. Kevan is rare, one the strongest men I know. He has shown me in so many ways how to serve others with the gifts we have, even—especially—when it’s a challenge to our pride.

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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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