Nationally known as The Tabb-Slaughter-Diggs House, the 19th-century home in historic Garland Hill of Lynchburg, Virginia, has a divisionist history. Its second owner, Charles Slaughter, advocated for Virginia’s joining the Confederacy. The house’s history is now being rewritten to be welcoming for all.
Desiring to provide a haven for missionaries, refugees, and people visiting or returning from overseas, Rev. Shawn and Sarah Hyska, of Westminster Presbyterian Church, purchased the home in 2021, renaming it Haven on Garland. Sarah, who served as a missionary in Uganda through WorldVenture, knew the struggles of living in a different culture and the unique out-of-place feeling of returning home from a community-based culture to an individual one.
“I still feel like a square peg in a round hole,” she said. She describes this as “a sense of homelessness” and wanted a space that both provided dignity and privacy of a home, but also a feeling of family.
In 2023, Haven on Garland received their first guest. A friend at the University of Lynchburg asked them to sponsor a young Afghan woman who had a scholarship but needed financial sponsorship and a place to live for her visa approval. The answer was clear. Three years later, Haven on Garland provides sponsorship, room, board, and a safe haven to six women from Afghanistan who are studying at Lynchburg. With the arrival of each woman, Sarah and Shawn thought they’d reached capacity.
“Every time we’ve said, ‘This is enough,’ or anytime you think, ‘God, this is enough,’ it’s like God says, ‘Just you wait,’” said Shawn.
In 2021, the United States withdrew from Afghanistan, and the Taliban took over the collapsed government. The Taliban has a strict interpretation of Islam, and it prohibits women from working or speaking outside the home, appearing in public without male chaperones, and attending school past sixth grade. These restrictions were not implemented overnight but through a slow process over the years. All of the women at Haven on Garland were in some state of high school or higher education when the Taliban arrived in 2021. The Taliban was unaware of any plans to study abroad, thanks to confidential work from on-the-ground people and organizations such as the Afghan Girls Financial Assistance Fund (AGFAF).
The journey to study at Lynchburg included college applications and traveling abroad with a male family member to a U.S. embassy since the one in Kabul had closed. Traveling without a male chaperone meant the Taliban would stop them. The journey to arriving in America concluded with an overwhelming sense of gratitude. Shawn and several of the Afghan women describe it as taking “a million miracles.”
“I dreamed of studying in the U.S. before the Taliban,” one woman said. Once connected, she recalls wondering what her host family would be like.
“It was a question mark in my mind,” she said, and it was better than expected. “[Haven on Garland is] like a real family. I forget they are a house family; They feel like my real family. They are not just about giving us a room or something to eat. They’re taking care of us. I can’t even say how grateful I am to them.”
Another of the women said getting into university abroad was a struggle. “Every door I wanted to try, didn’t answer, or something happened, and it didn’t work. Finally, I applied to universities in the U.S., and I was accepted. The first time I came here, the first months, I was not really good because I was apart from my family. And then whenever I was sad, Sarah and Shawn asked, ‘Are you alright?’ It was just like a family.”
A third woman lost her sponsorship shortly after arriving at Lynchburg. “I was so stressed. I couldn’t focus on my studies,” she said. The university arranged for her to have dinner with Shawn and Sarah, who agreed to sponsor her. “I felt very welcome, and that dinner was my first Afghan food in two months,” she said.
Visa sponsorship is complex. Students must show evidence of financial ability to pay for their education and living expenses while studying at a U.S. school, both during the F-1 visa application process and after it has been granted. The university must report if the financial status changes, which jeopardizes the student’s visa. Haven on Garland submitted to be sponsors of the first four women during their application processes and assumed sponsorship and housing support of the last two after their prior sponsors backed out.
After undergrad, most of the women plan to pursue some form of graduate degree or program. One student, majoring in public health, wants to be a driving force in the world for ethical and caring policies impacting people’s general health. The others are studying business, medicine or related medical fields.
“My house is a tool to love over people. It’s not a sanctuary for me.” — Sarah Hyska
Their studies keep them busy, but there’s always time to share meals. Sarah and Shawn cook during the week while the women study and attend classes. The Hyskas have sourced halal options and meat, traveling to Washington, D.C., and North Carolina to stock their freezer. On the weekends, the women prepare meals, introducing Shawn, Sarah, and the wider Lynchburg community to their culture. This past year, the Haven on Garland group even participated in Ramadan together, a month of fasting, prayer, reflection and community central to the Islamic faith.
Sarah and Shawn believe in radical hospitality, which Shawn describes as “a hospitality that costs us something. There’s a sense that we’ve given up our privacy intentionally. We desire this. That’s what’s radical.” For Sarah, radical hospitality speaks to how American individualism sees “having people in our homes as the exception, not the rule. Uganda radicalized me in that my home was an open door. My house is a tool to love over people. It’s not a sanctuary for me.”
Their message extends beyond Haven on Garland, affecting the wider community.
“Radical hospitality steps beyond the physical” — Pix Mahler, a board member of Haven on Garland and member of Westminster Presbyterian Church
“Radical hospitality steps beyond the physical,” says Pix Mahler, a board member of Haven on Garland and member of Westminster Presbyterian Church. “It is emotional, it is spiritual, and it goes beyond anything you could physically touch.”
Jesus reminds us that welcoming strangers and showing hospitality is akin to welcoming God: “For I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me’’ (Matthew 25:35-36).
This type of hospitality begins with vulnerability, trust and community — and it can be as simple as sharing a meal. When the first woman arrived on campus, she was the only Afghan. Now, with 24 Afghan students in attendance this year, the university celebrated the Afghan Persian New Year for the first time.
Haven on Garland supports six women, but the need is much greater. Alongside AGFAF, Shawn and Sarah continue exploring opportunities to become an umbrella organization and sponsor more students. Shawn and Sarah are committed to providing for the current students at Haven on Garland for at least the four years required for their undergrad.
The work has just begun. “Spirit keeps moving and saying, ‘I’ve given you the strength for this, but there’s more to come. I’ll lead the way.’ And we say, ‘We’ll follow,’” said Shawn, speaking of the future. Although thousands of puzzle pieces must fit together, no one is doing it alone. Each action creates many miracles and a continued unfolding of radical hospitality. Everyone has a small bit to do, but as Sarah says, “We get the best bit of it.”
