return to main article
Clip 1b — begins at 21:43
Gary Chapman: Let me say that all of us are influenced by our history. I mean, whatever home you grew up in, whatever your parents told you, you were influenced by that. But when we get to be adults, and especially when we become Christians, we’re looking to God for guidance, and we’re asking ourselves questions about is what I’ve been told really true? And you read the Scriptures, and you get a totally different perspective on racial differences. God loves everyone, no matter what! And so I think that’s what really helped me. It was a spiritual growth process in my own life. Now, my parents did not put blacks down, and I’ve always been grateful for that. But I know there are many, many who grew up in white homes where blacks were put down by their parents. So I think we’re all influenced but we don’t have to be controlled by what we’ve been taught through the years. And this is where, when we start to relate to someone as an individual, we begin to help them understand that not everybody maybe is [like] what they’ve been told, as well.
And, you know, I think friendships can start in simple places. I remember I talked with one lady, a white lady, she said, “Every week when I went to the grocery store, I kept running into this same black lady. And, you know, we just kind of [would say to each other,] ‘Hi,’ ‘Good morning,’ or something like that, you know. But one day, I told her, ‘This must be your shopping day. I keep seeing you here.’ And she said, ‘Yes, this is my shopping day.’ And I said to her, ‘Well my name is,…'” I don’t know whether it was Agnes or something, and then she gave her her name.
And she said, “Well, I’m glad to meet you.”
And she said, “Is your family doing OK?”
And the black lady said, “Well, everybody but my mother. My mother’s really quite sick right now.”
And she said, “Well, what’s your mother’s name?’ And she told her.
And she said, “I’m going to pray for your mother this week.”
And she said, “Oh, that would be wonderful!”
So, you know, the next week they’re back at the grocery store on the same day, and she asked her how her mother was doing, told her, “I’ve been praying for her this week.” And [her new friend] said, “Well, she’s a little better,” she said, “but she’s still pretty serious.”
And she said, “Well, you know, I’d like to come by and visit with your mother and just pray with her, if that would be alright with you.”
And she said, “Well, yeah, I guess that would be alright. I mean….” And so she got her address, and the next week she took some flowers and went to the house, and went inside and met the lady and prayed with her — gave her the flowers and prayed with her — and the next week in the grocery store the black lady said to her, “My mother was shocked that a white woman would come to our house and pray for her, and give her flowers!”
And she said, “Well, you know, I just…I’m a Christian, and I just believe God loves everybody, and we’re supposed to be loving everybody,” and she said, “that’s what motivated me.”
So, they started having conversations in the store every week. And then they started having lunch together, and then the white lady invited her to a Bible study at her house that she had, and she started coming, and then made friends with all the white people at the Bible study.
So, it can start anywhere, if our hearts are open to reaching out and being friendly with a person of a different race or culture.
return to main article