John Luneta is wise beyond his years. The nephew of Namumu's head accountant, John lives on the Namumu site with his family. Having just recently finished school, John is making every effort to attend college somewhere in the U.S. and, until then, spends his time studying for the SAT's and helping out around Namumu.
Despite his age (I think he's 20), John knows a thing or two about the world. He's intelligent, polite and he loves God as much as anyone I've ever met in my life. He was one of my two best friends during my stay and guided me through the wild world of Siavonga. He showed me around town, introduced me to his friends, and laughed at all my jokes even when they weren't funny. We got along quite well.
My last full day at Namumu this past summer just happened to be July 4th, my birthday. Later, after the Namumu staff threw me a rockin' party (where everybody was twirkin' it), John handed me what I would consider to be the best birthday card I've ever received (sorry, Grandma, it's true...but yours are wonderful, too). On a piece of white computer paper he had written,
"Brother, happy 24th birthday. 24 years is not a joke. You are a big man now. But remember maturity is not with age, but by accepting responsibility. May the almighty God continue adding more years to your life. Read this scripture: 1 Corinthians 13:11. From your brother, John."
In Corinthians 13:11 Paul writes, "When I was a child, I talked like a child. I thought like a child. I reasoned like a child. When I became a man, I put childish ways behind me."
Wow.
Reading this letter again made me snap to attention today. I guess it's time to go ahead and stop spending hours and hours and hours surfing through my parents' movie channels (holy crap there are about 80 and I have watched...so...many. Bad ones. Good ones. I've stopped and watched "Airheads" with Brendan Frasier, Steve Buschemi and Adam Sandler about 4 times in the past two weeks...and in no way is that depressing...) and get to work, refocusing for this trip and getting things together.
On that note, I will try to do more blogging as well. If you need more prayer material this week, pray for John, that if it's a part of God's plan John will be able to study in the U.S. and that he will continue to be a positive role model in Siavonga.
So, after I read this I wanted to immediately write, yes!, I'll pray for John and that I know God is good, so of course he'll answer John. But then I stopped and second guessed that, because who am I to say what God thinks, or what he will do, but tonight I found a verse that showed me that it's ok to be ever so hopeful for John's education, that I can ask Jesus to bless him and then look expectantly for the answer because David had the same desires for his people as they got ready for battle. He says in Psalm 20:4-5 "May he give you the desire of your heart and make all your plans succeed. We will shout for joy when you are victorious and will lift up our banners in the name of our God. May the Lord grant all your requests." So I will pray for John with the hopefulness that comes from knowing that He is good, that he loves John and he has good plans for him.
ReplyDelete-Lindsay