Dear Fellow Members of Host2Host and Hosts everywhere

Baby steps. It’s okay if that’s the best we can do right now. I have to remind myself of this nearly every day. How can we help each other as we try to make our way through a landscape that has become unfamiliar, the terrain shifting, where what we once relied on as predictable and steady seems to have disappeared beneath our feet?

Great strides, grand plans, bold gestures - all worthwhile and often noble - sometimes begin with baby steps. Remember (I say to myself) baby steps are learning steps.

I remember watching my kids learning to walk. At first they were hesitant. They held onto me or the sofa. And they fell down a lot. (I have a picture of my daughter with a big scab on her little nose after a notable face plant on the sidewalk.) What did we do after these things happened? We comforted them. We praised them for trying. And we cheered them on.

Maybe that’s what we are being called to do here and now. Learning to navigate this changed reality, how to walk into this new world of hosting, may feel so awkward that we need just baby steps right now, something or someone to hold on to and to cheer us on.

I like to think that one wonderful benefit of Host2Host is that together we are building a community which recognizes the value of baby steps in this shifting terrain. We are willing to hold out our supportive hands, and to cheer each other on.

This we know: hosting is in our blood. We are working together to find our way to be resilient and successful in this new world of hospitality.

Remember, those children who began with hesitant baby steps, soon were showing off how fast they could run.

Here’s to your baby steps - and running.

Alan Colley, Host2Host President