I want to get involved and experiment with NetBSD, but I don't feel comfortable in C, nor C++ for that matter.
If you really want to get into OS programming, I recommend you start with "Computer Architecture" by Hennessy & Patterson along with a course in C programming.
Well, it might not be such a bad thing to write your stuff in Lua and get the lights blinking as a way to work your way up to C and mainline device driver development. If the device drivers interest the novice programmer, let's encourage that. Its not like there aren't a ton of safeguards between the novice and getting their driver in the mainline.