A Journey of Hope...: Graduation

Well...not exactly graduation like we Americans think, but today we celebrated the "graduation" of grade 10 students. Before HOPAC expanded to grades 11 and 12, grade 10 was always the end of students schooling at HOPAC so we always held a graduation for them. This tradition has continued on a much smaller scale since grade 10 is no longer the end of HOPAC. However, we do have a number of students who are leaving this year so we wanted to recognize them and to celebrate the completion of their exams. In the upper grades, we do the British ICGSE and A-level courses which all have big exams at the end of them. This year I think the grade 10 took about 25 exams over a period of 5 weeks!

Being the grade 1o homeroom teacher, I got to work with the students to plan their assembly. This also meant that I had a chance to share a challenge with them. I chose to read the Dr. Suess book Oh, The Places You'll Go to them. I then talked about how life is a journey that has ups and downs but that Christ is the one sure thing and challenged them to put their hope in him. The teachers always divide up the students and talk about them during the assembly. We only spent about a minute talking about each student but it was great to hear the memories about each of them and to hear the teachers challenge the students. The students then chose to give a tribute to each of their teachers and it was encouraging to hear them thank the teachers for all that they have done. They all looked great and it was such a good day!

I have enjoyed working with this class so much...never in a million years did I think I would be working with a grade 10 class. I have learned so much from these students and I will miss them all. I started my challenge to them this way "It has taken three years, but I have learned that I like you!" It really has taken three years for me to build relationships with these students and for them to get to the point where they will open up a little more. I think that this year has been my favorite year with this class and I have enjoyed watching them step up to the plate as they prepared for their exams. The class put together a "memory book" for me and it was so encouraging to read the things they wrote to me...things they would never tell me in person, but it is great to see a little of the fruit of my time with them.

Join me in praying for these students as they all enter into the next phase of their life...

Philippians 1:9 "And this is my prayer: that your love may abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that you may be able to discern what is best and may be pure and blameless until the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ - to the glory and praise of God"

Here are a few pictures from their graduation:

The grade 10 class: Cindy, Faith, Savannah, Madison, Lucy, Elsie, Christina, Hannah, Jenny, Melissa, Val, Isaac, Matthew, Naweed, Benji, Mikko, Woorim, Kasha, Marus, Robert and Boniface