Cyndi and David Luth of Muscatine, Iowa are grieving the loss of their 22-year-old son Stephen. He died Friday in a plane crash in Kansas, on the way to Council Bluffs. Of the five people on the plane, only one survived.
Stephen had just graduated college days before. A business administration major at Oral Roberts University in Oklahoma, he was on his way to a Christian youth rally, part of a new job he was going to start this week with a youth ministry called Teen Mania.
His parents remember their son's faith in every story they tell, reading the words he wrote to them on paper plates, a family tradition.
"Mom and Dad, thank you for all that you do," he wrote in one of his notes. "I am blessed to have you both. God has a plan for each of us."
"Stephen had wisdom beyond his years," his dad David said. "I don't know where he got it, but I believe it came from a divine relationship with faith."
Stephen graduated from Muscatine High School in 2008. He was a member of the National Honor Society, cross county and track and field teams, and sang in the choir. Services are planned for Thursday and Friday in Muscatine.