Unlikely Friends

I was hanging out with some people in a voice call online one night. I started talking about my favorite video game of all time called Mass Effect 2, and it was released in 2010. When I started to describe the game, I was interrupted by a guy I’ll call “Mallow,” who said, “Bruh, nobody plays games from Flintstones times.”

I want to tell you the story of Mallow and how he and I became close friends. I met Mallow on the Satellite Gaming Discord Server. Discord is essentially a cross between a social media website and a video service like Zoom. It is hugely popular among gamers as well as the broader nerd community. We also host Bible studies on our Discord server, and one night, Mallow decided to show up. After Bible study, we hung out on the call for a while and played some video games. I asked Mallow what he played, and I downloaded one of his favorite games so we could play together. It wasn’t particularly deep or anything that week, but it was fun, and he was a very funny kid. The next week, he showed up again, and we played more games. And the next week. And the week after that. Eventually, Mallow was there every week, and we played games after every single Bible study.

Over time, Mallow started to open up more during the small group portion of our Bible study, and I got the opportunity to really get to know him on a deeper level than just through the games. Eventually, Mallow opened up to me about some of the bullying he had been experiencing at school. He was the target of months-long, ongoing racist harassment campaign from a number of his classmates and had been the victim of some truly vicious torment. Luckily, that’s not the end of the story.

Mallow applied to transfer schools and invited me to help him with the letter he presented to the school board. His letter was accepted, and Mallow was transferred to a much better environment for him. Since then, I’ve continued to mentor Mallow, and I’ve seen him grow into a real leader in our online community.

The best was when I got to meet him and his family in person last year when I flew out to help his church run a video game event after they heard about us from Mallow. He’s definitely given me a few gray hairs, which he would probably love because it reinforces the idea that I’m an old man, but he really is a clever and kind young man.  I hope you can enjoy the same experience Mallow and I have had of becoming good friends, true friends, while playing games and through our Satellite Gaming Discord Server.