Joanna DeLuca grew up in a Christian home with a single mom. Her mother had left her father because he was abusive. They lived with her grandparents for a good portion of her young life until she was 7. Her grandfather became the father Joanna never had, providing a consistent, loyal and moral character that she came to admire.
She was saved at the young age of 6, and grew up in the early days of Valley Forge Baptist’s history. Her mother and her family were our first members in 1984. As she became a teenager she embarked on a trip to the Wilds Christian Camp in North Carolina. There she would have her passion ignited for the Lord Jesus Christ.
She remarks to me that she felt like Peter who stepped out of the boat and walked on water towards Jesus. Peter was bold, courageous and stepped out in faith. But as Joanna entered her late teens she became enticed by what the world had to offer. She began to take her eyes off of Jesus, and she began to sink.
She completely jumped into a worldly life and left church behind. She even reached a point where her own brother proposed a bet. He bet that she couldn’t attend church for a whole month. To spite her brother, she took him on. Having met her future husband, Michael DeLuca, they attended together, just to prove her brother wrong. She would end up losing that bet, but that wasn’t the point. She was in church more than she ever had been in the last few years, and it was convicting her.
She expected to be treated like a pariah, like an outcast. But she received quite the opposite. As she walked into the doors of her childhood church, she was greeted with warm smiles, and delighted old friends who were thrilled to see her. She was back in church and it began to effect Michael profoundly. Eventually Michael accepted Jesus, and Joanna recommitted her life to the Lord. Michael and Joanna were married not long thereafter.
Having grown up in church, and having been missionaries to Greece for a time, she understands church culture very well. She recalls to me a quote that if we’re more concerned about what we are doing for God rather than who we are in God, our focus is wrong. God doesn’t want us to just look like Christians, He wants us to be changed from the inside out.
Teaching K4, she remarks to me, is one of her favorite ministries. Every morning after Bible class, she prays with the children that God will help them show love to everybody, and to be kind, things that children can do. God tells us to have the faith of a child. Four year olds are transparent, and Joanna tells me to never be afraid of what God tells you to do. She has learned that It may not go how you plan, or how others plan, but as long as you know that’s what God has put on your heart to do, the results don’t matter. Because the results aren’t up to us, they’re in God’s hands.
And all we have to do is be faithful.
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