High school can be challenging, especially if you don’t have any friends. For Andrew Schultz, who has autism, the lunchroom was especially lonely, “pretty much mostly sadness,’ he shares.
Mother, Lisa, was saddened, too, when Andrew came home from school one day and told her that, “nobody was sitting with him in the cafeteria,” so he took his lunch to the wrestling room and ate all alone. “For a mom, that’s very hard.” Lisa was motivated to go to God for help, on her knees, “asking God just to send Andrew one friend…just for one, to fill that loneliness.” Lisa’s heartfelt mom-to-Jesus prayer was soon answered and the blessing was “multiplied beyond my imagination.”
Following God’s lead, Lisa shared her heart on a school moms social media page. Soon God sent a girl classmate and then 10 football players to sit with Andrew! Beyond that, Andrew has been named team manager for the Oswego East (Illinois) sophomore football team.
The football blessing came from head coach Tyler Allison. His mother told him about the plea from Lisa on Facebook. This touched Tyler’s heart and he contacted his players and said, “Hey…don’t let him sit alone. If you don’t have that lunch, find him in the halls, make friends with him.” It was a thoughtful request, not an order. “They responded in a huge, huge way!” Andrew started hanging with the team, and is now helping as manager. “The confidence Andrew has built in these past months has been incredible.” At first Andrew was shy, but now he’s “sitting there, jacked-up there in the games, cheering us on. He’s loving it.” Coach Tyler is very proud of his team.
As a result of his new confidence, Andrew has become a leader himself. Lisa talked with moms from the special needs community to see if their kids would want to get together. That was a revealing question, because “their kids have never hung out with anybody. Their kids have never been invited to anything. They’ve never had a friend over, never went to a friend’s house.” Andrew suggested to his mother, “Let’s invite them to my house so they can have a friend.” He’s now meeting other kids who have autism. “It has just been great,” Lisa exclaims, “because they understand each other” and she smiles at seeing them interact. After a visit, one mom told Lisa her son was “whistling and singing,” his autistic way of displaying happiness.
With what started as a mom’s concern, shared by God’s response, things have come full-circle, with Andrew reaching out to lonely kids with special needs. Maybe instead of ‘paying-it-forward,’ this is a case of ‘praying-it-forward.’
We invite you to hear all the background to this encouraging story from Lisa, Andrew, and Coach Tyler in our podcast just below.
