There was an unusual high school football game played in
Grapevine, Texas. The game was between Grapevine Faith Academy
and the Gainesville State School. Faith is a Christian school
and Gainesville State School is located
within a maximum security correction facility.
Gainesville State School has 14 players. They play
every game on the road. Their record was 0-8. They've only scored twice.
Their 14 players are teenagers who have been convicted of crimes ranging
from drugs to assault to robbery. Most had
families who had disowned them. They wore outdated, used shoulder pads and helmets. Faith Academy was 7-2. They had
70 players, 11 coaches, and the latest
equipment.
Chris Hogan, the head coach at Faith Academy, knew
the Gainesville team would have no fans and it would be no contest, so
he thought, "What if half of our fans and half of our cheerleaders, for one
night only, cheered for the other team?"
He sent out an email to the faithful asking them to do just
that. "Here's the message I want you to send, "Hogan wrote.
"You're just as valuable as any other
person on the planet."
Some folks were confused and thought he was nuts.
One player said, "Coach, why are
we doing this?" Hogan said, "Imagine you don't have a home life, no
one to love you, no one pulling for you. Imagine
that everyone pretty much had given up on you.
Now, imagine what it would feel like and mean to you for hundreds of people to suddenly believe in you."
The idea took root. On the night of the game, imagine the
surprise of those 14 players when they took the field and
there was a banner the cheerleaders had made for them to crash through. The visitors'
stands were full. The cheerleaders were leading cheers for them. The
fans were calling them by their names. Isaiah, the quarterback-middle
linebacker said, "I never in my life thought I would hear parents cheering
to tackle and hit their kid. Most of the time, when we come out, people
are afraid of us. You can see it in their eyes, but these people are yelling for
us. They knew our names."
Faith won the game, and after the game the teams
gathered at the 50-yard line to pray. That's when Isaiah, the teenage
convict-quarterback surprised everybody and asked if he could pray. He
prayed, "Lord, I don't know what just happened so I don't know how or who to say
thank you to, but I never knew there were so many people in the world who
cared about us."
On the way back to the bus, under guard,
each one of the players was handed a burger, fries, a coke, candy, a Bible, and an encouraging
letter from the players from Faith Academy
.
What an incredible act of Christian witness and
kindness and goodness that was. Proverbs 11:17 says, "Your own soul
is nourished when you are kind."
Proverbs 3:27 says, "Do not withhold good when it is in
your power to act."
Be kind to someone this week. Be kind to every
person you meet. You might be amazed at what God
will do with a simple act of kindness.
