The Search FOR JOHN

Monday, November 29, 1999

On November 29, 1999, the Monday after Thanksgiving, my wife, Sharon and I arrived in Dallas after having spent the holidays with her family in Wisconsin. We were preparing to return to our home in Brazil. That evening we received a phone call which was to change our destiny forever. On the other end of the line was Paul Banko, our son John’s boss at the US Geological Survey research station in Hawaii.

“I am calling you because John didn’t show up for work today, and usually he has shown such integrity in things like this that I felt I should call,” Paul said. “He was going to attempt a hike across the north end of the island in the Kohala District in 4 days, which most of the guys who know anything about that area say is quite a chunk to bite off in four days.

“I don’t think you need to worry just yet because your son seems to be a very capable and responsible young man. He might have just taken longer on the trail than he expected. I’ll call you as soon as we hear anything.”

Our first reaction was fear, then faith as we realized that John was indeed a very capable young man. We immediately got on our knees and started praying for John’s safety and protection. Our prayer was this; “Father God, we know you are fully able to rescue our son from any danger and any situation in which he finds himself and you know that is the desire of our hearts. We ask you to grant us that desire. But if you have another plan and if we never again see our son here on earth, we are asking you right now to turn our loss into many, many lives saved from the kingdom of darkness and transferred into the Kingdom of God’s glorious light (Col. 1:13).”

Looking back, we recognize that our prayer was birthed and voiced by the Holy Spirit interceding through us. We were expectant based on the hope that God would answer the first part of our prayer....

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