Kent Ninomiya - faith

Kent Ninomiya.

Skott engages me in a discussion on religion. He's just doing his job as a missionary. Skott readily admits his spiritual training is behind the rest of dozens of other missionaries aboard our plane. They are easily identifiable by name tags calling the young people "elders". Strange to see teenagers labeled elder. Skott only began studying in earnest a year ago when he had a religious experience while hiking alone in the mountains of Wyoming. As Skott explains it, he sat alone in the rain and was given the gift of faith through a whisper of God only he could hear. He asked for a sign that God exists and the whisper was it. Skott climbed those mountains an unsure boy but came down a man with a mission.

That mission brings him to this seat beside me on a flight to Hong Kong. What a wonderful perspective Skott provides me. I see the world as my playground, my kingdom waiting for me to conquer. Skott sees it as his pulpit, his baptismal pool. He dives in eagerly navigating the currents that will shape his life. Without realizing it he gives me a gift as well. I am again blessed with the eager anticipation I felt on my first leap.

Kent Ninomiya