Blog

Challenge 01 | 02 | 03 | 04 | 05 | 06 | 07

Challenge.06
Take the time to do something nice for your next-door neighbor and get to know them better. You can bake them cookies, buy them a Starbucks gift card, give them a fruit basket, stop by and say hello, etc. Be creative and genuine!

Response.01 - Steve T.

As I was pulling into the driveway Sunday night, I saw my next-door neighbor's kid playing catch by himself. He was throwing a tennis ball against his house garage door. I thought to myself, "Well that doesn't look like much fun." But as I pull into my garage and was ready to close it, I thought to myself, "Maybe I should go play catch with him for a little bit, he looks like he needs a friend. And maybe that can be your response to the mercy challenge!!" Since we were told to be creative and do something nice for your neighbor, I thought, sure why not, let's do it.

I grab my mitt and a baseball and asked Nick (I know the kid's name) if he wanted to play catch for a bit, he said okay, and we started throwing the ball around. It was quite pleasant. We talked about a bunch of guy things like sports, video games, girls and more sports. I found out he's a big Oakland A's fans, favorite player ever was Nick Swisher and he plays his XBOX360 a lot. He's fourteen years old and his mom and dad are not home that often and his brother is going to school at a community college nearby. We chatted and tossed for about half an hour, then it got dark and we both went home.

In the thirty minutes of chatting with him, I know more about him and his family than I did from living next to them for three plus years.

Now here is the sad thing about it...I always see this kid around the neighborhood doing things alone. He is a bit of a loner I would say. Whether it's playing catch, shooting hoops, walking the dog, he seems to always be by himself, always looking bored and lonely. And I always think to myself "Poor kid, don't he have any friends he can play with?" never thinking that maybe I, myself, should be that friend. It took something like these mercy challenges to motivate me to even make an effort (and I think if I had not volunteered to blog about mercy challenge, it might not have happened).

For me, the hardest thing about this challenge was just taking the time out of my schedule to spend some time with this kid. Even as I was playing catch with him, I was thinking about what I was going to do after I finish. And admittedly, I was very anxious to finish and go home. And admittedly, I am not sure why I was in a rush for; I had nothing pressing to do that night.

Sometimes, I have to question my priorities in life. I would rather have went home and watch some reruns on TV or surf the Internet than invest my time getting to know my neighbor more. If time is our currency, then what we spend it on is what we think is important, whether it be with our God, family, friends, neighbor, computer or television. Writing up this little mercy challenge has sort made me step back a little and realize that I waste a lot of time on frivolous stuff when I can be spending my time on more rewarding endeavors. Hopefully, I can learn from this...

Read Response.02

Want to share your story? Please send your responses to grxcatalyst@gmail.com