Hungry for God

This Sunday August 23rd will be student day in worship. We’ll pray for them in worship and send them off into the school year with their church’s love. If you have a child or grandchild entering school this year, please make it a priority to be here this Sunday. We’d love to see you. This Sunday after worship we’ll vote on the name of our new building. Please see inside this newsletter for the ballot.
We are planning the special ground-breaking ceremony for our new building for August 30th and look forward to welcoming our Bishop, Janice Huie for that day. She’ll preach and help us dedicate that building to the glory of God.
I saw a powerful article in the Houston Chronicle newspaper this week that I want to share with you. It connects in with our focus on discipleship.
A Kenyan who was believed to be the world’s oldest pupil has died at the age of 89, five years after entering primary school so that he could learn to read the Bible, his family said Monday.
Joseph Stephen Kimani Nganga Maruge accomplished his biggest goal – being able to read the Bible – but he remained shy of completing primary school. Mr. Maruge became sick with cancer 7 months ago.
“In the morning he used to wake up early to read the Bible before going to school,” Anne Maruge, 18, said. “Even when he felt ill and you found him basking in the sun, often he would be reading the Bible.”
Mr. Maruge enrolled in primary school 5 years ago after the government made primary school free. He wore a school boy’s uniform and walked with a book bag slung over his shoulder. After his village and home was burned down in the aftermath of the violent 2008 elections in Kenya, he was forced to live in a displacement camp with thousands of others who had lost their homes. He continued his studies however until he became sick. “When he became ill, he started to cry because he was not going to school,” Anne Maruge said. “Liberty means going to school and learning,” he said in an interview before his death. “You are never too old to learn.”
What is special to me about Mr. Maruge is his hunger to learn about God. There are so many truths to be taken from his story. His desire to learn was rooted in a hunger to know God. His age did not discourage him or cause him to think he couldn’t learn something. He seemed like a humble man one who would wear a school boy’s clothes. Finally the last quote in the story about liberty speaks a truth to us. So many think and behave as though freedom means we should be able to do whatever we like, be left alone, or be independent, make a living and a life at others’ expense. “For freedom Christ has set us free,” Paul said in Galatians. Our freedom is a gift not just to be used for selfishness, greed or hoarding or for irresponsible living either but for learning, growing and giving. Mr. Maruge seems to have “gotten it.” He understood freedom or liberty as an opportunity to learn – in his case driven by a deep desire to be able to read the Bible. “O God make us ever aware of that hunger to know you and your Word that is in us all. Amen.”