My oldest child is graduating and leaving home in four weeks (sniff, sniff). Would you indulge me as I share a reflection of God’s work in Him and through him?
After getting through customs in a small dirty room in the Ndola Airport, I exited the back of the airport to see a man with skin as dark as cocoa beans and a big smile that showed off his bright ivory teeth. He welcomed me to his country of Zambia and introduced himself as David Mulonga, the pastor of a local church.
I learned that a few days earlier Mr. Mulonga had been attending a pastor’s conference in South Africa and noticed Chris’ nametag. “Chris Stull…are you by any chance related to Dillon Stull?” They visited about our son and Chris told him I would be coming into Zambia a few days later, so he came to the airport to greet us.
As he shook my hand, he told me my son had ministered in his church two years ago and made a great impact on his community. He shared how one young man had grown in his faith, treasuring the Bible Dillon had given him. “Dillon may have been a boy on the outside, but he was a man on the inside,” he said.
Mr. Mulonga was referring to a trip Dillon had made with a small team from our church when he was fifteen years old. The eye doctor, who at the last minute could not make the trip because of kidney stones, asked Dillon to take his place and trained him in some basic eye tests. Little did the team know how much that opportunity meant to Dillon, as he had felt a call in the fourth grade to serve others through medicine.
Dillon stepped up and, with a registered nurse who was more than twice his age as his assistant, fitted hundreds of Zambians with eyeglasses. The highlight of the trip for Dillon was having the opportunity to fit the Chief of the Copperbelt Region, who presided over more than a million people, in glasses.
Since that time I have seen his heart turn more and more toward that land. His room is decorated in an African theme, we often find him poring over books teaching Zulu and Swahili, and friends on trips to Africa with him have told me he threatens to “lose” his passport multiple times. I’ve known since his first trip to a remote village in South Africa that part of his heart stayed in Africa.
So now it’s time to share a little more of him. In four weeks, just after high school graduation, he plans to depart by himself on a 37-hour trip to a training school in Mozambique, Africa, where he will be until mid-August, just a couple of days before he starts his college education at Baylor University. Though it will be painful for us to let him go, I thank God for answering a prayer I have prayed since before he was born – that God would use him to impact the world for the Kingdom of God.
I envision traveling with my husband to Africa when we are old and gray and someone coming up to us and saying, “Mr. and Mrs. Stull? Are you related to Dr. Stull? He came to our village and God used him in powerful ways to help us.”
“I have no greater joy than to hear my children are walking in the truth.” 3 John 1:4
Dear Father, I want to lift up all the graduates this year, graduating from kindergarten to first grade, middle school to high school, or high school to college. We thank you for their growth and the learning opportunities you have blessed them with and the opportunities they will have as they look ahead. Help each of them to understand your deep love for them, and give them a vision for what you have planned uniquely for them to do. May they walk in your Truth, living this next season for your honor and glory. Amen.