Whose Neighbor? Filming the Gainesville Story

Posted on June 26, 2010
Filed Under Community, Marriage & Family | 8 Comments

Which of these three, do you think, proved to be a neighbor to the man who fell among the robbers? Luke 10:36

I am on a flight home from Fort Lauderdale after a week in Florida to film a two-part series for Cross Examine.

The working title for the show is “Whose Neighbor” and our intent is to help people begin to think about how God designed for the needy to be cared for.

The teaching is woven around a story that I wrote about in 2009 that involved an amazing act of kindness carried out by a Christian school at a Friday night football game.

Here is the synopsis:

A young man by the name of Mack White grew up in the inner city of Houston. His dad was pretty much absent and his mom tried to give him away several times. He tried to fill the void through gangs and street life, but that only landed him in Gainesville, a maximum-security prison outside of Dallas. Because of their ages, the state mandates that they attend classes held inside the prison walls. But for those who meet the daily school and behavior requirements, they can also participate in the Texas High School football program.

For those familiar with Texas high school football (or most other states), you know it is a very big deal. Friday nights there are legend. The stands are packed with screaming fans while the cheerleaders and the bands add to the frenzy. Young boys dream their whole life of being on the team and hearing the crowd roar as they make a great play, topped off by the gleam in dad’s eye and the hug from mom after the game. Verbally and non-verbally, they both communicate “I’m proud of you, son!”

But that doesn’t happen for the Gainesville players. I visited the prison. It is stark. It would be more appropriate to call the football field a pasture. The uniforms are old and stored in a dilapidated metal storage shed. There is no weight room or any of the other standard facilities normal football teams enjoy. The only people the coach can count on to be on the bus Friday nights are the security guards. The night I was there, his quarterback violated one of the rules and was held back. And when they arrive at the field there are no bands, no cheerleaders, no parents, no fans. The stands behind their bench are empty…and eerily silent compared to the ruckus on the other side of the field.

But all of that changed on November 7th, 2008.

They were scheduled to play Faith Christian School in Grapevine, Texas.

You can read about what happened in my earlier blog, but basically the Faith coach and their families decided to provide for the Gainesville young men what their own boys got every Friday. They formed a spirit line for them. They sat in their stands. They cheered for them by name. They patted them on the back after the game and said, “We’re proud of you!”.

The impact was profound.

On both sides.

On one side it was Mack White who saw something that night he knew he was lacking—something that he wanted…and needed.

On the other side was the Studer family whose son was a quarterback for Faith. They didn’t know it, but God was going to providentially orchestrate the events that would eventually bring them together.

Fast forward past those events…

After Mack was released from prison, the Studers went looking for him and asked him if he wanted to live with them.

It is a heart-warming story of how God blesses when we do things his way. And God has designed for the needy to be cared for through personal involvement…not the state, not institutions.

Personally.

But it is also a story of how there are curses and consequences when we defy Him.

When the family breaks down, the consequences are horrific. Young men are twice as liable to be incarcerated if they don’t grow up with a mom and dad. Drug use is higher. So is suicide, poverty, and most of the other social pathological statistics.

However, this doesn’t mean one can play the victim game. We are all responsible for our own actions. Mack will be the first to tell you he made some very bad decisions. But when the family breaks down, those bad decisions come a whole lot easier.

And the odds were stacked heavily against Mack. Even though he was released from prison, he went back into the same situation that got him to Gainesville in the first place.

That’s when the personal involvement of the Studer family changed everything.

Now, it is very true that Mack had to do his part, but it began with the Studers taking a risk to do what was right.

We were blessed to have Carmen Studer and Mack White join us in the studio. It was good to see them again and to get an update on what is happening now in Mack’s life.

It will make you smile.

I’ll leave the details for the show. It should release in a few months.

In the meantime, maybe you might want to think about asking the Lord to show you a needy person that He wants you to become personally involved with. They may be a prisoner. They may be your next-door neighbor. They may be a coworker.

But they are there.

And we are supposed to care.

(P.S. Thanks Steve & Christina for the pictures!)

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