#55: Adventures in Neighboring

#55: Adventures in Neighboring

Note: The Love Thy Neighborhood podcast is made for the ear, and not the eye. We would encourage you to listen to the audio for the full emotional emphasis of this episode. The following transcription may contain errors. Please refer to the audio before quoting any content from this episode. 

JESSE EUBANKS: You’re listening to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. This type of storytelling and journalism is made possible by people just like you. So to keep this content coming to your podcast feed, head over to lovethyneighborhood.org/podcast and donate today. Again, to support our work, head over to lovethyneighborhood.org/podcast and donate now.

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RACHEL SZABO: Okay, Jesse, here is a softball question for you. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay. 

RACHEL SZABO: What are the two greatest commands in the Bible? 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, I mean, love God, love other people as you love yourself. 

RACHEL SZABO: Right. Love God. Love your neighbor. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah. 

RACHEL SZABO: And that’s, like, the whole preface of the story of the Good Samaritan, right? 

JESSE EUBANKS: Mm-hmm.

RACHEL SZABO: But question is – what does it mean for us to really love our neighbors?

JESSE EUBANKS: Mm-hmm.

RACHEL SZABO: If you think about your neighbor, what does it mean to love them? And so the company realtor.com decided to find out, so they did a survey asking Americans – “What makes a good neighbor?” 

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh, okay. What they, what, what came back? 

RACHEL SZABO: Well, any guesses? Top, top three. Top three traits of a good neighbor. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Top three traits of a good neighbor. Uh, they’re quiet. Um… 

RACHEL SZABO: Okay. 

JESSE EUBANKS: They take care of their property. 

RACHEL SZABO: Okay. 

JESSE EUBANKS: And they’re, they wave hello. 

RACHEL SZABO: Okay. Uh, pretty, pretty close. So top three. Number one was trustworthy. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay.

RACHEL SZABO: So I, taking care of your property could fall into that, I, I think. Number two, quiet. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah. Yeah. 

RACHEL SZABO: Number three, friendly. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, wave hello. Yeah. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, exactly. But here’s what’s interesting – the trait that got the lowest score for being a good neighbor was friendship. 

JESSE EUBANKS: What? Why? 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, so people want their neighbors to be friendly, but “don’t be my friend.” 

JESSE EUBANKS: Uh. Like, be personable, but don’t be personal. 

RACHEL SZABO: I guess. Yeah. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, like I can kind of understand that. You know, like as a husband and a parent with two kids, I’m busy. And in America, when you have a busy schedule, you just, you know, don’t have a lot of margin. You don’t wanna be too involved. You don’t want people to want too much from you. 

RACHEL SZABO: You’re tired. 

JESSE EUBANKS: You’re tired. It’s not okay. I’m not excusing this. I’m just saying that there’s a reality that a lot of Americans, that’s how we approach things. Like, I’m busy. I don’t think that that’s what Jesus had in mind though. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. So the question is like – what did he have in mind? If, if it’s not that, then, then what is it? What does it look like to be a biblical neighbor in today’s context? And that’s what we’re gonna talk about today. We have three short stories of people reaching out, trying to follow God’s call to be good neighbors.

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JESSE EUBANKS: You’re listening to the Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. Today’s episode – “Adventures in Neighboring.” Welcome to our corner of the urban universe.

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RACHEL SZABO: Okay, so I don’t know if you have noticed, but we are currently in what has been called a loneliness epidemic. 

JESSE EUBANKS: I have very much noticed. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, so a Harvard study found that 36% of Americans report feeling lonely frequently. 

JESSE EUBANKS: 36%. I bet that is low, and I bet it gets higher the younger a person is. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, that’s true. That’s – studies have shown that young adults are feeling the most lonely right now. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah. 

RACHEL SZABO: And I bring that up because feelings of loneliness is actually where our first story today starts. So this story is from a couple named Chris and Elizabeth McKinney, and it starts with probably how a lot of us are feeling right now. They were lonely. Here’s Elizabeth.

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: Well, it started in one of the most stressful and busiest seasons of our lives. Chris was, um, getting his seminary degree. He was also directing the campus ministry here at the University of Missouri. We had four kids in five years, so we had our hands full. I mean, I was literally that lady at the grocery store that people were like, “Oh, I feel so bad for her.” 

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh, they had a lot going on.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. Needless to say, Chris and Elizabeth, like, they were busy. They lived near the University of Missouri. They were doing campus outreach. They had four young kids. But like I said, even with all that stuff going on, they were lonely, and, you know, sure they had folks they knew from work and from church. But here’s the problem is that building relationships outside of those things – it just didn’t seem feasible in their current season of life, like they didn’t have time to add one more thing to their already hectic life. 

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: We knew we needed community and, and we knew if we had to drive across town to get it, it wasn’t gonna happen.

RACHEL SZABO: So they had this thought – “Well, what about all these people that we live around? Like, what about our neighborhood?” But as soon as they had the thought, it immediately seemed like a dead end. Here’s Chris. 

CHRIS MCKINNEY: And our neighborhood was very isolated and very, um, not connected at all. There were, I mean, I think for the first three years there, we didn’t have like a single trick or treater come by.

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh, wow. Yeah. Seriously. That is isolated. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, so Chris and Elizabeth lived in a suburban neighborhood of about 250 homes, and the vibe was very much like, “You don’t bother me, I don’t bother you. I have my space, you have your space, and we don’t cross.” But Chris and Elizabeth – they were desperate. 

CHRIS MCKINNEY: You know, cars would pull into the driveway, go into the garage, close the door, and so I think for us, we’re like, “Man, there’s no connection in the neighborhood.” It’s in this season of life it’s hard to, like, make plans to go see people. You know, we are kind of just left with the, like, we need to maybe push into seeing some friendships or seeing something develop in the neighborhood, at least try something. 

RACHEL SZABO: So the company Next Door Incorporated found that simply knowing at least six of your neighbors actually decreases feelings of loneliness. Well, six seemed like a long shot, so Chris and Elizabeth decided to start with two. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, yeah, like, person on my left, person on my right. That feels doable. Okay. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. So the first person they met in the neighborhood was the guy who was the easiest to spot – a guy named Bingo. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Bingo.

CHRIS MCKINNEY: So Bingo’s like seven feet tall. So he played basketball at the University of Missouri. So he was easy to meet as a neighbor. It’s like, “Okay, I wanna meet that guy.” Like he, I’m, I’m a big guy, and he, like, makes me feel like a, you know, like a shrimp. So we met them –

RACHEL SZABO: Them meaning Bingo and his wife. So they invited them, along with their immediate next door neighbors, over to their backyard for a fish fry because dinner was something that they already had to do anyway. 

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: We love food. We’re kind of wannabe foodies, so we thought, “Well, let’s do some fish tacos.” 

RACHEL SZABO: And it was a good start. Everybody said they had a good time. They would love to get together again. So since Chris and Elizabeth had kids, about a month later they decided to do an Easter egg hunt outside and they invited a few more neighbors.

CHRIS MCKINNEY: Eight kids were there, four of them were ours, and we met this other couple who we would’ve never met if we hadn’t done this little Easter egg hunt. And they were like, “What do you guys wanna do next?” And we’re like, “I, we have no idea. We’re not trying to, like, start anything crazy.” 

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: We’re just trying to get through today. 

CHRIS MCKINNEY: Yeah, we’re just trying to meet some neighbors. But they said, “Let’s try a block party.” And we were like, “Okay,” but given where our neighborhood was at and all the obstacles and just the intense amount of the lack of connection, I was very skeptical. I was like, “No one’s gonna come to this.”

JESSE EUBANKS: This feels like it’s, like, spinning out of control very quickly, like at first they’re just like, “Let’s meet two neighbors,” and now all of a sudden it’s like, “Let’s throw a giant party for everybody.” Like this feels like it’s getting away from them. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, totally what’s happening. And this other couple – they were insistent like, “Let’s do this big block party,” and they wanted Chris and Elizabeth to help put it together, but naturally, like, they were kind of nervous about that. 

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: And as we did, I, I wondered in the back of my mind, “Are people thinking that I think I’m like the mayor of Wyndham Ridge?” (laughter) Like, no one put me in charge, and yet here I’m like, I’m, I’m hosting this. Um, so yeah, it, it felt kind of awkward at first.

JESSE EUBANKS: (laughs) This is funny. It’s like, “Who’s this lady? Like, why is she, like, calling the shots all of a sudden?” 

RACHEL SZABO: Right. It’s like, “Yeah, we’re doing this block party and I’m in charge and I don’t know why I’m in charge, but here I am.”

JESSE EUBANKS: Especially in a place where, like, nobody knows anybody. So, like, they all live together, but nobody knows their neighbors and so they’re like, “Where’d this lady come from?”

RACHEL SZABO: Right. Right.

JESSE EUBANKS: She’s just calling it.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. But they push through the awkwardness and they had the block party – complete with hot dogs, cotton candy, games – and it turns out it was a huge success. 

CHRIS MCKINNEY: But we had people show up. We had like 50 adults and kids come to that first block party, and that’s kind of where we saw like, okay, on the outside everybody looks like, “Hey, we’re fine. We’re living our lives,” but they were just as hungry for connection and community because we’re all created in God’s image. We’re all created with that deep need to be connected to, to others and to him.

RACHEL SZABO: So through this block party, Chris saw that his neighbors were not any different from him, that they were lonely and longing for community too, that behind the routines of people coming home from work, shutting their garage, going inside, there were people who were lonely just like him and his family. And it seemed like these people had just needed someone to make the first move.

CHRIS MCKINNEY: And so that’s when we began to say, “Oh, okay. I think maybe we could push through some of these obstacles ’cause we see that people really are wanting this.” 

RACHEL SZABO: So after that Chris and Elizabeth found any excuse they could to invite neighbors out and get together – everything from Arbor Day… 

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: When our kids were younger, we planted a tree. Together actually all the kids kind of dug it out and planted it together, and then our neighbors together purchased 345 seedlings to be planted in the neighborhood. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Wow. 

RACHEL SZABO: They did a 4th of July parade. They got everyone to trick or treat in the neighborhood on Halloween. 

CHRIS MCKINNEY: My neighbors still talk about that first Halloween. They’re like, “That was one of the best nights, best Halloweens we’ve ever experienced,” just getting to see all the neighbors out and interacting and that sense of community.

RACHEL SZABO: And this whole time they’re doing this, Chris is in full-time college campus ministry and they’re not even really making the connection between ministry and neighboring. In fact, they didn’t even think those two things were related. 

CHRIS MCKINNEY: You know, it could be fun to get to know our neighbors, but like we hadn’t heard any sermons on it or anything in church.

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: Well, we had heard, we had heard The Parable of the The Good Samaritan, but I didn’t think about it in terms of my next door neighbor. 

CHRIS MCKINNEY: Well, that’s true. Yeah. Yeah. 

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: I didn’t think about it in terms of my literal neighbor. 

CHRIS MCKINNEY: Yeah.

JESSE EUBANKS: It’s so funny. It’s like we do that as Christians, right? We’re like “big, broad neighbor term” and we mean it as, like, anybody and everybody and then we’re like, “Oh, it also can be literal.” 

RACHEL SZABO: Right, right. So as they’re spending more and more time with their neighbors and they’re hosting all these events, Chris starts thinking like, “Wait a minute, does this have something to do with my faith? Like, could this have anything to do with ministry?” 

CHRIS MCKINNEY: You know, how does slinging cotton candy for two hours at a block party fit in someone’s story of coming to know Jesus? Right? Is it valuable? Is it not? If you don’t talk about God, does that still count? 

RACHEL SZABO: And certainly, like, their neighbors knew they went to church and knew that they were Christians, but Chris starts wondering like, “Is that enough?” So along with the block parties and the holidays, they started a small Bible study in their home. And a few neighbors came, but certainly not as many as would come out to their big events. And so for Chris, that question was still looming – you know, “Does all this time that I’m spending being friends with my neighbors mean anything?” And that was a question that hung in the air actually for seven years.

JESSE EUBANKS: Whoa, seven years. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. Seven years. And then one day, seven years later, as they were walking into church, they saw a family from the neighborhood. 

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: If I’d made a list of a lot of the neighbors and, and asked like, “Who would be the last people you’d expect to see in church?” It would’ve been this family.

RACHEL SZABO: So they saw the family walking out of the last service as they were walking in, so they didn’t, like, get a chance to say hi or anything. So when they got home, Elizabeth sent the mom a message. 

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: And so I Facebooked her and said, “Hey, do you come here often” kind of thing. And, and she wrote me back and said, “We had started coming to church because our kids said they didn’t believe in God, but as we’ve started coming we realized that we need a relationship with him ourselves and we’re wondering if we can join your small group.” And so it was like, wow. Here’s a couple who – they knew us from all the different events, they knew we were believers, and so when they were at a point where they were ready to give their lives to Christ, they, they knew they could have instant community. And so that next week they walked through their front yard, through our backyard, and into our living room.

CHRIS MCKINNEY: Well, and another thing is we knew them. 

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: Right. 

CHRIS MCKINNEY: We knew them as they walked outta church. 

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: Right. 

CHRIS MCKINNEY: It’s like they could have just gone to church and kind of been isolated and maybe continued, maybe not, who knows? But like us knowing them, you know, was a, a cool outworking of all the, the neighborhood stuff. And I think for me too, it’s really helped me engage and embrace, like, just the small acts and, and you really trust that God’s at work.

RACHEL SZABO: So for Chris and Elizabeth, this was huge. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, it’s cool. It’s like all of these, like, tiny little micro moments they’ve been having, you know, through all these years – they kind of came together. It’s like they mattered, you know. They weren’t irrelevant or, you know, inconsequential. And it was like, it’s almost like, um, like you watch a movie and there’s, like, all these little plot moments and you go like, “What was that for?” And it’s like suddenly the payoff kind of comes at the end. All those little parties they were throwing and little hellos to their neighbors – it all added up into this moment. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. Totally. 

CHRIS MCKINNEY: It isn’t fast. It isn’t, you know, seeing these things happen real quick, but it’s embracing that, that one conversation, even if the topic of God doesn’t come up. We’re asking ’em how their day is, how their parents are doing, or how’s that, you know, graduate degree going, and those little things – God uses all of those ultimately to continue to help people move along, some slower than others, but it opens your eyes that God could be at work in every single little act of love and, and of kindness and service. 

RACHEL SZABO: So after Chris and Elizabeth saw that family go to church and become part of their small group, they decided to dedicate all of their time to the importance of being a good neighbor. So they wrote about their experiences in a book called Placed for a Purpose, and now they work full time in helping equip Christians to be good neighbors wherever they live.

CHRIS MCKINNEY: He is calling us to, to move towards our neighbors, like the Good Samaritan move towards the person, the man beaten and left for dead in the ditch. And so if I walk out my front door with that in mind and I think, “Okay, God’s at work. My address isn’t an accident, and neither is my neighbors’,” I get to join in on that story and that’s gonna shape how I spend my time and how I see my neighbor and, and see my place in the neighborhood.

RACHEL SZABO: To hear more from Chris and Elizabeth, including how to get their book, you can check them out at PlacedForAPurpose.com. When we come back, we’ll be hearing a little known story about America’s quintessential good neighbor, Mister Rogers. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh yeah. 

RACHEL SZABO: Stay with us.

COMMERCIAL

JESSE EUBANKS: Love Thy Neighborhood podcast. Jesse Eubanks.

RACHEL SZABO: Rachel Szabo. 

JESSE EUBANKS: So today we’re hearing stories of people trying to be good neighbors. 

RACHEL SZABO: That’s right. And let’s be honest – we cannot talk about neighbors without having a story from Mister Rogers. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Or as I like to call him Saint Bread Rogers. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yes. So this is our second story, and this one comes to us from author Shea Tuttle. So Shea wrote the book Exactly as You Are: The Life and Faith of Mister Rogers because like a lot of folks Shea herself was fascinated by Mister Rogers. And this audio comes from an interview she did with the Voices in my Head podcast, so you’ll be able to hear their host in the background. Here’s Shea.

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: Yeah. You know, it’s funny. I, um, I adored Mister Rogers as a, you know, a preschooler when I was kind of in his target audience. I watched the program. I really loved it. I’m pretty sure that I would cry if I had to miss it, you know, um, and I think like a lot of kids I really, um, felt connected to him. But it’s funny because when I look back, I also remember loving Pee-wee’s Playhouse, which (laughs) was not nearly of the same quality as Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood. So I’m not sure that I had any particularly discerning taste, but I do know, I do know that I loved Mister Rogers. 

RACHEL SZABO: And of course, when it came to neighboring, Fred Rogers had his own sort of neighborhood through television. 

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: You know, one of the questions that I brought to this, um, book was whether Fred saw his work as ministry, and it didn’t take long for me to get the sense that, yeah, he totally saw, he totally saw his work as ministry. 

RACHEL SZABO: But Fred Rogers’ television show wasn’t just a neighborhood on-screen. He created one off-screen too because the people who worked with him on the show experienced Fred like a neighbor who cared about them and loved them, and on more than one occasion the way Fred was a neighbor to those around him was in this strange, almost mysterious way.

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: He would sort of feel some kind of a, you know, a nudging. He would, he would say the Holy Spirit, you know, would direct him somehow. There were lots of people who had this sort of strange experience of having Fred show up at the moment that they needed something and he would appear. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Like what – like what does she mean? 

RACHEL SZABO: So like out of the blue, Fred would just show up for people when they were in a moment of crisis or they needed help, and it would be in these moments where, like, these people hadn’t even expressed a need or, like, no one knew what was going on. It was just like Fred somehow knew they needed a neighbor in that moment.

JESSE EUBANKS: Wow. So, like, they would have this, like, secret need that no one knew about, but somehow Fred Rogers was there right on time. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, totally. One such story happened to Francois Clemmons, the man who played the character Officer Clemmons on the show, and perhaps his most iconic scene was when he, an African American man, and Fred, a white man, both sat with their feet in a kiddie pool together.

JESSE EUBANKS: Oh, I totally remember that. Yeah. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. It was a very classic moment showing how neighboring extends past ethnic boundaries, but the story that he remembers about Fred being this mysterious good neighbor was actually on the day of Martin Luther King Jr.’s assassination.

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: After, um, Dr. King’s murder, um, that, yeah, these, these riots were happening and that he was, I think, in his apartment and he was, he was terrified. 

RACHEL SZABO: So these riots following King’s assassination are known as Holy Week 1968. Nearly 200 cities across the U.S. faced rioting, looting, arson, sniper fire. 58,000 national guardsmen were deployed that week.

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, I mean, I can’t imagine what it would be like if I were a black man and I just realized that the face of the civil rights movement had been assassinated. Do I go out and protest, you know, and run the risk of being hurt or killed myself? Do I stay home and keep to myself? But that sort of feels like a betrayal of everything that the movement stood for. I would feel a lot of fear and a lot of conflict. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, and that’s like an internal struggle, right? I mean, of course those who know him will know that this is impacting him in some way. But like no one knows that he’s alone in his apartment. No one knows that the riots are making their way to his neighborhood. No one knows that he feels trapped because he doesn’t wanna step outside and run into the National Guard. Like no one knows in this moment that he’s really scared. But then, who shows up at Francois’s apartment? Fred Rogers. 

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: And somehow, like, Fred just appeared and said, “Francois, come on. You’re coming with me,” and loaded him into the car with, I don’t know, a suitcase or whatever and took him, um, probably back to his house, I’m not sure, but took him somewhere safe until things settled down. Francois has talked about just how much that meant that, you know, Fred was there for him and, and helped him to feel safe.

RACHEL SZABO: But perhaps the most profound story Shea heard about Fred’s sort of good neighbor nudgings was from another person who worked on the show, a woman named Lisa.

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: So Lisa worked for the neighborhood. I think she worked with Mr. McFeely – whose real name I’m blanking now – but he, he was public relations director for, for the neighborhood and she worked with him in public relations. But then I think as often happened, she ended up playing a part too in the neighborhood of Make Believe. She was Purple Panda, and she actually was only there for a few years.

RACHEL SZABO: So Lisa mostly worked in public relations for the show, but she also briefly played the role of Purple Panda in the neighborhood of Make Believe. And she hadn’t been around the show that long when her husband Scott was diagnosed with cancer.

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: Her husband, they were both, you know, very young, and he was diagnosed with cancer. You know, I think Fred had been a support throughout his journey through cancer. 

RACHEL SZABO: And then one day Lisa ended up having a horrific experience. 

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: And then there was one morning that I think she, um, woke up and realized that Scott had died. 

RACHEL SZABO: Her husband had actually passed away in his sleep, and she woke up to find him dead beside her.

JESSE EUBANKS: Ah, that’s heartbreaking. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah.

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: She was, you know, distraught and had no idea what to do and was in a panic, and then, um, she heard a knock at the door. 

RACHEL SZABO: Now, keep in mind, this is, like, very early in the morning, like not the time for someone to be knocking on your door.

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: And she went to the door and opened it, and, and Fred was there. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Wait, wait, wait. How in the world was Fred there? Like did they have, like, a meeting scheduled or something? 

RACHEL SZABO: Nope. 

JESSE EUBANKS: He just showed up? 

RACHEL SZABO: Yep. He had no idea what had just happened. He was just there. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Whoa. 

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: She remembers that he was licking his lips, which is something that she said he did when he was uncomfortable, like he wasn’t happy to be there. He was uncomfortable about it, but he said “I was” – something like – “I was praying, and I felt that you needed me.” 

JESSE EUBANKS: Wow. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. Fred had just felt that sort of nudging and had just shown up having no idea about the grief that Lisa had just experienced over her husband. 

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: She, you know, brought him inside and explained what had happened, and she said, you know, Fred is the person who was, he’s the person who called the funeral home. He wept with her over Scott’s body, and she said nobody else ever wept with her over Scott’s body. 

RACHEL SZABO: Lisa said that Fred even helped her talk to their young son about what had just happened. So, you know, I think we would all agree that Fred Rogers was an amazing man who did amazing things, but some of his most amazing stories are ones that maybe don’t get told that often. Stories of simply following God, showing up, and being a good neighbor no matter the situation. 

SHEA TUTTLE CLIP: Fred, you know, of course had told the staff about Scott’s death, but he had never said, “And by the way, I showed up at her door.” I think she said, you know, “I’m probably one of hundreds of people with stories like this.” But so anyway, it, it was a, a powerful story and, um, and just a real testament to the kind of, um, the kind of quiet ministry that he had that nobody ever, you know, hears about.

JESSE EUBANKS: Alright, so we’re down to our last story, and this one actually comes from right here at Love Thy Neighborhood because around here, you know, trying to be a good neighbor – it is not a foreign concept. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, that’s right. You know, neighborhood outreach is something that the young adults who come serve with us do every Saturday, like it’s literally built into their schedule to meet neighbors. 

JESSE EUBANKS: And for our interns who live in the Shelby Park neighborhood, there’s one simple way to meet people, and that is to head out to the basketball court. The reality is that there are always kids and teens out there. I mean, it’s just the hangout spot, a fact which year-long intern Hong Siu decided to take advantage of. So Hong served with us back in 2017 and he’s really into basketball, so it was a natural decision to spend his outreach days out on the court. But Hong’s outreach took a turn when one day a new guy walks up. Here’s Hong describing this guy. 

HONG SIU: He is African American, has a ton of tats, and he was also walking up with a large pit bull that had a chain around his neck and he just looked like a straight thug.

JESSE EUBANKS: Now before coming to LTN, Hong had actually spent some time in the military, so there’s not a whole lot that Hong finds intimidating. 

RACHEL SZABO: Oh, sure. 

JESSE EUBANKS: But this new guy – it was clear he was trying to take his intimidation factor to the max. 

HONG SIU: He, like, didn’t talk to us, and then as soon as the game was about to start, he, like, took off his shirt, basically, like, flexed on me. Coming onto the court, uh, is just kind of that culture, you know, you gotta let everyone feel who you are as soon as you come into the court. 

JESSE EUBANKS: So this guy’s, like, showing off his stuff, right? 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Like he’s, like, trying to, like, shake him down basically. 

RACHEL SZABO: He’s like “big man on campus.”

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, exactly. Okay, so the basketball game begins, and like this guy is like, he’s dominating everybody. Uh, he’s pushing Hong around. He could jump higher than everybody else on the court. But then something happened that, like, made him step out of the game altogether.

HONG SIU: But at one point he went up for trying to dunk and someone else, like, hit his hips. So that’s pretty dangerous. 

JESSE EUBANKS: And this guy’s, like, furious, like he is really, really upset about it. Hong said that it looked like a fight was gonna break out, like right there in the middle of the game. 

RACHEL SZABO: Oh gosh. 

JESSE EUBANKS: And this guy suddenly, like, walks over to the opposite court, which is empty, and he just starts shooting ball by himself. So Hong finishes up his game and he’s about to leave, but then suddenly he just feels this nudge like, “I don’t think I’m done here, like I think I’m supposed to go talk to this guy.” 

RACHEL SZABO: Mmm.

HONG SIU: Honestly, it just felt like a weight, a conviction on my chest, and I was like, “I have to invite this guy over.”

JESSE EUBANKS: So Hong inviting this guy over, like that’s not all that unusual. Like here at LTN, our interns try to invite neighbors over for dinner every Saturday night, and so Hong’s kind of going with the rhythms and the design of our program. And so Hong decides – what neighbor is he gonna invite? He’s gonna invite the most dangerous guy on the basketball court to come into their apartment to hang out with them.

RACHEL SZABO: That seems like a good decision.

JESSE EUBANKS: Right. Hong feels like it’s not all that risky because the guy’s probably just gonna say no anyway. 

HONG SIU: And so I walked over there and I was like, “Hey man, um, we’re having some pizza and just hanging out if you wanna come over,” and he had the most skeptical look in his eye and he just looked at me and I could see him, like, think about it.

JESSE EUBANKS: And he gives Hong an answer, and surprisingly the answer is not no. 

RACHEL SZABO: Oh.

JESSE EUBANKS: Instead, the guy responds, “Hey, do you play NBA 2K?” 

RACHEL SZABO: Wait, what? 

JESSE EUBANKS: Okay, yeah, so NBA 2K, it’s a basketball game for Xbox. It’s a video game. 

RACHEL SZABO: Oh. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Uh, and our interns – they actually don’t have TVs in their houses. And so Hong tells him, “Man, actually I, I do like that game, but we don’t have a TV and we don’t have an Xbox. And so the guy says, “No worries, I’ll just bring my TV and my Xbox over to your place.” 

RACHEL SZABO: Wait, what? 

HONG SIU: And yeah, we went to his place, we grabbed his TV and his Xbox. It was just crazy ’cause it was just like he doesn’t know us at all and he’s bringing, you know, $600 worth of items into our apartment and he’s just gonna hang out with us and chill with us.

RACHEL SZABO: That is insane. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah, so Hong learns that the guy’s name is Jay, they exchange phone numbers, and then Hong and Jay – they start texting, trying to find time to play basketball together, but also Hong just wants to hang out with Jay and have him over. So they start hanging out on a regular basis for several months. Eventually Jay started going to church with Hong. They shared their life stories with one another. I mean, if it tells you anything about the nature of their friendship, whenever Jay’s son was about to be born, guess who he called? He called Hong to make sure that he was gonna be at the hospital to meet his baby.

RACHEL SZABO: Oh wow. So they’re like pretty good friends. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah. They became really close. And then there was this one time when Jay was hanging out with Hong and his roommates that Jay actually had something to say. 

HONG SIU: We were just hanging out with him, and he just said, “I really like you guys.” And I said, “I, I think that’s a good thing. I didn’t want you coming over here only to eat our food.” Um, and he was like, “No, but for real, like, there’s nowhere that I can go without having my guard up.” And he’s like, “And there’s nowhere that I can go without, like, carrying a weapon other than here.” He was just like, “When I come here, I, I don’t need to watch my back and I don’t need to have a weapon. I just know nothing like that’s going to happen and you guys aren’t thinking like you’re gonna take my money or do anything to me.” 

JESSE EUBANKS: And then Jay says, “I never really thought God was real until I met you.”

HONG SIU: “Because you guys live in such a different way that the only way you could live like this is if God existed.”

JESSE EUBANKS: So their simple friendship had shown Jay something he had never experienced before – the love of God. And for Hong, it was easy to love Jay. They had similar interests, he was fun to be around, and he loved going to church and talking theology. It’s not hard for us to love people who are doing the things we know they should, but for Hong, that love was actually about to be tested because Jay actually had a secret. One day Hong received a phone call and it was Jay and he was actually calling from jail because he’d been arrested. 

RACHEL SZABO: Oh, wow. 

HONG SIU: That happened March 14. I actually remember the day because he got arrested on the day that he was supposed to come over and have some spaghetti and meatballs. 

JESSE EUBANKS: So Hong actually wasn’t sure what was going on, but he knew that he wanted to see his friend. So Hong actually just jumped in the car and drove down to the jail to go see Jay. 

HONG SIU: So when I first went to visit him, it was like – seeing his face, he literally was, like, so joyful. But at the same time, when I started talking to him, he’s like, “Dude, I didn’t think you’d show up.” And I was like, “Why?” He’s like, “Because why would you show up?” He’s like, “What, what’s the reason?” And I’m like, “Well, because you’re my friend, and I don’t know, like, I, I love the Lord and the Lord calls us to love others, and so why wouldn’t I show up? Like you are someone in my life that I care about.” And he’s like, “But like I’m, I’m a very bad person.” 

JESSE EUBANKS: So Jay actually went on to explain why he was in jail.

HONG SIU: He ended up telling me more about his life, and so from the very start of our friendship, he had actually been on the run from the authorities. And so the entire time I was hanging out with him, I didn’t know this but I was hanging out with a convicted felon. (laughs) And he was like, “I, I really wanted to tell you this, like the past, you know, couple months, but, like, I just didn’t think that you’d still be my friend.”

RACHEL SZABO: Oh, wow. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah. I mean, the truth is that Jay just wasn’t the person that Hong thought that he was. And now sitting in the jail, Hong had this decision to make – either he could stop communicating with Jay, which he would be totally justified in doing, or he could extend grace, undeserved grace. And Hong remembered the words that Jay had told him just weeks before – “The only way you could live like you do is if God really existed.” And so Hong told him, “Of course. Of course we’re gonna stay friends.” 

HONG SIU: “It’d be a really hard place to be at, but I’d still be your friend.” And he’s like, “You’d still hang out with me?” And I was like, “Not in public.” (laughs) But um, yeah, it just opened up another level of friendship for us.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, like that’s amazing for Hong to extend that friendship even after, you know, maybe feeling deceived or feeling like there could be some mistrust there, like what a great example of the way that God loves and cares for us that he’s extending now to his friend. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Yeah. When we truly believe that God has loved us and accepted us despite our own betrayal of him, we are then more able to give that grace to other people.

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah. 

JESSE EUBANKS: And it, it’s just an example of like, Hong was able to receive God’s grace and that allowed him to give God’s grace. 

RACHEL SZABO: Yeah, I think that’s beautiful.

JESSE EUBANKS: Even after his internship with us ended, Hong actually continued to be friends with Jay, and what that friendship has taught both of them is what it means for God to be the God of grace.

HONG SIU: The grace that God has for people – there’s so much grace and there’s so much love and forgiveness there. As Christians, we have to be able to offer that to people because if I for one second at all judge Jay for anything that he’s done in his past, he would’ve ran out of there, you know? And he would’ve ran out of there with the thought process of “Christians are fake and there’s no grace and there’s no love, therefore there’s no God.” And so the impact there has just, like, opened my eyes how much grace and love in itself. You don’t have to go and sacrifice your life absolutely right then and there for them to see that. You can just invite them over for a dinner.

RACHEL SZABO: So our modern culture might think that being left alone is the best way to love your neighbors. But in the story of the Good Samaritan, both the priest and the Levite did leave the man alone and they were not commended for being a good neighbor. Instead, it was the Samaritan who stepped in and showed up. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Loving our neighbors doesn’t have to be complicated. It’s simple, but it does require that we make the first move. And if you find yourself feeling lonely, chances are your neighbors actually do too. So make the first move. Show up with some cookies or fish tacos or simply with a card, letting them know that you’re there because you never know what God will do with a simple hello.

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JESSE EUBANKS: If you benefited at all from this podcast, please help us out by leaving a review wherever it is that you listen to podcasts. Your review will help other people discover our show.

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JESSE EUBANKS: Special thanks to our interviewees for this episode – Chris and Elizabeth McKinney and Hong Siu. Special thanks also to the Voices in my Head podcast for Shea Tuttle’s audio. 

RACHEL SZABO: Our senior producer and host is Jesse Eubanks. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Our co-host and producer is Rachel Szabo, who recently turned down an offer to star in the latest Hallmark movie.

ELIZABETH MCKINNEY: I think I’m like the mayor of Wyndham Ridge. 

RACHEL SZABO: Anna Tran is our audio engineer. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Music for today’s episode comes from Lee Rosevere, Poddington Bear, and Blue Dot Sessions. Theme music and commercial music by Murphy DX. 

RACHEL SZABO: If you want a hands-on experience of missions in our modern times, come serve with Love Thy Neighborhood. We offer internships for young adults ages 18 to 30 through the areas of service, community, and discipleship. You’ll grow in your faith and your life skills. Learn more at loveyneighborhood.org. 

JESSE EUBANKS: Which of these was a neighbor to the man in need? The one who showed mercy. Jesus tells us, “Go, and do likewise.”