{"id":197,"date":"2026-04-16T15:18:40","date_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:18:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/?p=197"},"modified":"2026-04-16T15:18:40","modified_gmt":"2026-04-16T15:18:40","slug":"hospitality-on-the-front-lines-the-ministry-of-being-seen-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/?p=197","title":{"rendered":"Hospitality on the Front Lines: The Ministry of Being Seen, Part 1"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Part 1:\u00a0\u200bThe doorway is sacred space\u2014and some people are called to stand in it.<\/em><\/strong><\/h2>
\u00a0Everyone knows Miguel.\u00a0He can walk anywhere in Lebanon and hear his name called. It\u2019s to be expected. Four days a week, he is the first face people see at the Market on 7th, LCCM\u2019s charitable food pantry. He stands at the door, greeting thousands of familiar and new faces each month\u2014with a joke, a handshake, sometimes a hug, always with warmth.\u00a0Welcome to the frontline ministry of hospitality.\u00a0Miguel isn\u2019t just letting people in.\u200b\u00a0He is practicing the ministry of presence.<\/div>
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\u00a0People stop and tell him their stories\u2014about rent they can\u2019t afford, hours that were cut, family struggles that follow them home. He listens. He sees them and hears them.\u00a0\u201cThey need someone to hear their story,\u201d he says.\u00a0At the Market, the doorway is more than an entrance into the registration area. It\u2019s a threshold into something sacred. And\u00a0 \u00a0Miguel is one of its stewards\u2014turning strangers into neighbors, neighbors into friends. This isn\u2019t casual friendliness. It\u2019s intentional, practiced presence. People expect him. They look for him. In many ways, Miguel is<\/em> the welcome.\u200b\u00a0Long before he wore that role, Miguel was simply showing up.<\/div>
Years before becoming an official volunteer, he stood outside LCCM nearly every morning, greeting people waiting in line. Later, he would linger at the free noon meal, striking up conversations with strangers who he wanted to call friends.\u201cI just wanted to meet people and put a smile on someone\u2019s face\u2014especially a stranger,\u201d he says. \u201cIf someone looks sad, I try to break that. Make them laugh. I like to see people happy.\u201dIt\u2019s a quiet calling\u2014but not an easy one.Miguel\u2019s life didn\u2019t begin with a gentle demeanor. Growing up in Brooklyn, he joined a street gang at just ten years old. They called him \u201cLefty,\u201d a nickname earned through constant fights\u2014sometimes as many as a dozen a week.\u201cI come from the hood. You can pray with me\u2014but don\u2019t play me,\u201d he joked.But even then, there was something else at work in him.\u201cWe fought, yeah\u2014but I also tried to help people. If someone was being picked on, I stepped in. I was more like a guardian.\u201dThat instinct\u2014to protect, to stand beside, to show up\u2014never left him. It just changed form.<\/div> <\/td>
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After his brother died, Miguel moved to Lebanon in the 1970s to be near family. He worked at a bakery, but moved back to New York for a time and worked for Time Magazine as a mail room manager. He moved back to Lebanon though, and it was here where he built a life \u2014returning first to the bakery, then worked in hospitality, then worked as a janitor.<\/span>In 2002, he married Cindy, a social worker who would become his partner in every sense of the word.<\/span>Years later, when Cindy became seriously ill, Miguel\u2019s ministry of presence moved from the doorway to their home.<\/span>For two and a half years, he cared for her himself\u2014bathing her, feeding her, sitting with her as her memory faded.<\/span>\u201cShe had no one,\u201d he says. \u201cShe didn\u2019t deserve to be left alone.\u201d<\/span>Even after being bitten by a dog and later struck by a car\u2014injuries that left him in pain\u2014Miguel never stepped away from her care.<\/span>\u201cI wasn\u2019t thinking about my injury,\u201d he says. \u201cI was focused on her. She comes first.\u201d<\/span>The guardian was still there. Only now, the fight looked like staying.<\/span>A few days before Christmas, Cindy passed away.<\/span>And still, Miguel shows up to LCCM.<\/span>He makes the short walk from the home they shared to LCCM, returning to the doorway, to the people, to the work of seeing and being seen.<\/span>\u201cI feel like I belong there,\u201d he says. \u201cYou feel the love, the kindness. Seeing people happy means a lot to me. The more I try to help, the more I feel I\u2019m being blessed.\u201d<\/span>After his shift, he walks home to a quieter house.<\/span>But even there, the ministry of presence continues.<\/span>Some evenings, Miguel makes dinner and sets two plates at the table. On anniversaries and Valentine\u2019s Day, he places flowers beside her picture.<\/span>Still seeing. Still loving. Still showing up.<\/span>Because for Miguel, hospitality was never just about opening a door.<\/span>It\u2019s about making sure no one\u2014living or gone\u2014is ever left unseen.\u200b<\/span>And even now, he still puts a plate out for Cindy.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Part 1:\u00a0\u200bThe doorway is sacred space\u2014and some people are called to stand in it. \u00a0Everyone knows Miguel. \u00a0He can walk anywhere in Lebanon and hear his name called. It\u2019s to be expected. Four days a week, he is the first face people see at the Market on 7th, LCCM\u2019s charitable food pantry. He stands at […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":198,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-197","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=197"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/197\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/198"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=197"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=197"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/heuristic-yonath.40-160-33-16.plesk.page\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=197"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}