What do the following names have in common? Ansong, Appiah-Poku, Assan, Boateng, Dervishilari, Dwomoh, Fresh, Gualdarrama, Kiser-Miranda, Mitis, Morataya, Pokhrel, Tringali and Wantiru. These are just a few of the last names of students in my class this semester. I feel like I am entering the United Nations when I go to class in the morning. I look at them and wonder where they all came from and how they ended up being with me for three hours a week. Talk about an opportunity to change the world.
America is changing. The world is changing. I know that makes some people uneasy because we don’t know where or what we are becoming. We just know it will not be the same as it was in our childhoods. But, really is this so new? We have always been an open door to the masses. We even brag about it in a poem inscribed near the Statue of Liberty.
It makes me hungry to see the multitude described in Revelation 7. “After this I looked, and there before me was a great multitude that no one could count, from every nation, tribe, people and language, standing before the throne and before the Lamb. They were wearing white robes and were holding palm branches in their hands. And they cried out in a loud voice, ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb.’”
There are going to be a lot of strange names to learn. Then, of course, there are the names of the angels. “Then I looked and heard the voice of many angels, numbering thousands upon thousands, and ten thousand times ten thousand.” Revelation 5:11. How grand to add our names to the crowd. Don’t miss out!
Written by Roger Bothwell on September 19, 2014
Spring of Life, PO Box 124, St. Helena, CA 94574
Rogerbothwell.org