3 Most Influential People in My Life for 2019
Sometimes it’s not those who make a large impact and leave but those who continue to show up daily
When I decided to write about the 3 most influential people in my life this past year, I started scrolling through my mind of people who had been in that space in recent years including authors, pastors, and roommates.
This year’s 3 happen to be 3 in the same.
It was April of 2010, when my friends Kyle, Jeff, and Chris were all attending the same retreat. There were discussion questions that would be shared over meals and one of questions centered around the Story of the Paralytic in Mark 2 where three friends dig a hole through the ceiling to lower their paralyzed friend to the feet of Jesus. Verse 4 states, “Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.”
The question for the table was, “Who do you have in your life who would hold the corners of your mat, who would dig a hole through a roof, who would get you to the feet of Jesus, because they know that’s what you need more than anything else?”
There were 20 people at this co-ed retreat and they went around in a circle answering who those people were in their life. Kyle and Jeff both shared, “We know a lot of good people but no one who would do whatever it took to get me to the feet of Jesus.”
Kyle walked up to Jeff afterwards and said, “We both answered the question the same way, would you be willing to start a group and be that for each other?”
It was a vulnerable question for a couple of guys in their mid-twenties, but the ripple effects will last a lifetime.
Kyle and Jeff were both somewhat new to Portland, Oregon as was I.
I had grown up in a rural Indiana community. I had a large group of friends at school and church. After high school, I attended a spiritual leadership academy in Texas where we slept 6 to a room with triple bunk beds and developed, obviously, a close-knit community. After two years in Texas, I went to college in Virginia where community and friendship was a huge part of my college experience. And after graduating and working for a year in Virginia, I took my biggest risk yet.
It was time to follow my dream of working in the NBA and after contunially ‘knocking on doors’, two incredible opportunities came to me at the same time, one in Philadelphia and one in Portland. I decided to take the opportunity in Philadelphia. I’d stay on the east coast, I’d be close to friends and family, it would be ‘easier.’ I was torn though because Portland was offering the position I wanted.
My brother-in-law had me call him the morning I was to make my final decision. I remember him saying, “If you go to Portland, you won’t know anyone. It’ll be hard. You’ll have to discover yourself. …You should go to Portland.” It was everything I’d been praying for and nothing I had wanted, I went to Portland.
Two weeks after arriving in Portland, I wanted to quit. It rained everyday, I was poor at my job but mostly, I had no friends. I had no community. I had no church. There was no one or nothing to fall back on. I decided to finish out my yearlong internship and leave when it was done.
Towards the end of the year, things improved professionally and I received an opportunity to stay for another internship. I gladly took it but community was still a gaping hole in my life.
It was in my 2nd year in Portland when I finally found a church home and started visiting every community group I could find. The church I had tried to connect to had been sending me to their ‘singles’ group so I aborted immediately. That’s for another day, but, no, I don’t want that label, and two, all I really wanted was a friend.
As I visited community groups, I’d show up at church on Sundays and people from the group I met with that week wouldn’t recognize me. I’d be hurt and try a new group. And eventually, I was invited out with some guys after church one night, and one of them was intentional and kind. He asked questions and got to know me. He started a community group and I joined immediately. It was there I met a guy named Isaiah.
All-Star break was around the corner and it was a big deal. We don’t get much time off in the NBA and the All-Star break is our time to get away from basketball. Isaiah told me he’d go on a trip with me so we settled on Seattle. I was so excited to have a friend and actually go do something fun. He asked me later, “Is it ok if I invite my roommate too?” In my heart, I said, “No, I finally made a friend, let’s not mess this up.” Verbally, I said, “Sure.” He brought his roommate Kyle.
A couple of months later, I was joining an accountability group, wait no, a small group, wait no… a family with Kyle, Jeff, and also our friend Chris.
None of us knew each other very well, 3 of us were still relatively new to Portland, but all of us were committing our lives to one another.
We started meeting once a week, on Thursday mornings at 5:30am. No, I don’t like mornings. Yes, looking back, we were crazy. But we were committed and we were intentional. We memorized Scripture together, we studied through the book of Deuteronomy verse by verse (we got through about 2 chapters in 4+ years), and we asked questions. Boy, did we ask questions.
I recently asked the guys in the group if any still had a copy of the questions we used to ask so I could post it here. They were so intentional and invasive that I decided it was in no one’s best interest to post them, haha.
We rotated to each other’s houses once a week, the host cooking breakfast before eventually moving our morning routine to Denny’s where I would order 3 whole wheat pancakes each week.
The 12 questions we asked one another centered around our attitudes, our generosity, our sexuality… and ended with, “Have you been completely honest?” And if someone failed at one, we had to skip a meal. Not the person who failed, the rest of us.
Yes, a bit, no, a lot legalistic, and once again, crazy. But we survived it and we grew in grace and love as we stayed committed to the growth and flourishing of one another.
Jeff moved to Haiti after the earthquake there and lived in Haiti for 1.5 years. Chris moved to Prineville, Oregon to intern with the Fire Department and later moved to San Francisco for a time. I was often traveling the States, city to city, with the Trail Blazers. And yet, we still met once a week, in person, or through FaceTime and Skype.
As time passed, schedules got more hectic and we all weren’t sure we’d be able to keep this pace. But Kyle was bent on the group being committed for 40 years so when one of us tried to get out or wasn’t sure if we could continue, we’d adjust.
And soon, not only schedules, but our lives would change. Kyle married Christel and has two lovely girls. Jeff married Emily. And Chris and I moved into the same house with a couple of other fellas.
2019 was a challenging year for me. Not a bad year, but a challenge and a change of seasons. When my time with Hands of Hope Zimbabwe ending in 2018, a huge void was left in my life and in my soul. I was left hurt, broken, and with a lot of time. I had lost community and many dreams I had for my future.
I needed space from a lot of things. I needed space from people. I needed space from ministry. And I slowly started quitting every group I was leading or belonged to.
But there was still a constant in my life. A consistency that has lasted for 10 years of Kyle, Jeff and Chris and has grown to Kyle, Jeff, Chris, Christel, Emily, Keira, and Ella.
I stepped away from much of my community intentionally this time but I did so knowing that I have a community that will last forever. And that’s why, in a season of stepping away from things, these 3 guys were the most important and influential in my life over the last year.
