Hospitality
Is Medicine for Modernity
Modern life pulls people apart. First Things practices true hospitality at home and abroad, giving people ways to become guests and hosts, place the neighbor before the self, and return to real life together.
We Learn Who We Are With Others
First Things practices true, generous, time honored hospitality at home and abroad.
Abroad, field workers enter local communities as guests. They learn the language, live close to the people, and listen for the ideas already rooted there. Over time, they help move clarity, resources, and support toward local people and the projects taking shape in their own communities.
At home, the table is where the same lesson begins. Hosts open the table. Guests come to the table and receive what is set before them. A Tamada leads the Supra, a Georgian feast of food, wine, toasts, conversation, and attention. The purpose is the cultivation of friendship, fellowship, and communion.
In both places, the work is the same: place the neighbor before the self, and people remember that they need one another.
“Nobody does anything of any use on their own. It’s not possible. We need a neighbor, a table, a host, a guest, and some reason to give ourselves away.”
—John Heers, Founder & Director
COME TO THE TABLE
Be a guest. Learn to Host.
First Things gives people a few ways to begin. Each path begins the same way: receive what is in front of you, sit with the neighbor, and learn how to be together again.
Abroad
Enter humbly as a guest. Meet the people. Learn the place. See how local ideas come to life through trust, patience, and relationship.
At Home
Learn the art of hospitality through food, wine, toasts, conversation, attention, and the guidance of a Tamada.
Stay Close
Hear the stories. Follow the work. Stay close to what is unfolding abroad and at home.
Support the Work
Help First Things keep going at home and abroad.
First Things depends on donors who believe this work should continue. Your gift helps send field workers, keep them in the field, support local projects, train new people, tell the stories, and cover the daily costs that make the mission possible.
This is slow work. A field worker needs time to learn the language, share daily life, and become trusted. Local projects need resources moved toward them with care. The work at home needs people, training, structure, and steady support so it can grow without losing its depth.
When you give, you help First Things stay long enough for good things to grow. You help local people bring their own ideas to life. You help the mission take root at home and abroad.
Keipi Restaurant
The Home of the American Supra
Keipi Restaurant is First Things Foundation’s headquarters in America and the place where the work at home becomes visible.
A Supra is a Georgian feast led by a Tamada, with food, wine, toasts, conversation, and attention. At Keipi, guests may come for dinner, wine, or curiosity about the place. What they find is a table where friendship, fellowship, and communion can grow, and strangers can begin to become neighbors.
It is the place where people can taste what First Things means by hospitality.
Stories That Shape Us
The best way to understand First Things is to meet the people around the table and in the field. These stories show what grows when a field worker stays, a project begins, a host opens a table, and people give themselves for one another.
She was entranced by the “line where the sky meets the sea,” the horizon that represented the unknown, the beyond, and everything outside of her comfort zone…