Letter From God: A Children’s Christmas at Our Christian School

One of the focal points in SK recently has been mail and the activities of a post office. Letter and parcel mail has been moving around the building, including several staff members who have special SK mailboxes which get regularly filled with proud notes and letters sharing their developing printing and writing skills.

Ms.  Stortz  has  given  me  the  happy  responsibility  of  delivering  some  pieces  of  group  “mail”  to  arrive  during lessons. Today,  I  played  the  role  of delivery  person  with  a  baking  recipe for this morning’s  class  in  a  large envelope. One of the students saw me with the large letter in hand and said “Maybe it’s a letter from God!”

A letter from God. What a wonderful way to think about the focus of this unique week of school! Jesus is the Word  made  flesh  (John  1:14).  Immanuel  –  God  with  us. How  precious  is  that Word  enabling  us  to  receive God’s gift of grace. That Bethlehem baby became a living letter to us of God’s unfathomable love and paved the way for us back to a perfect relationship with him.

Between a Christmas program, pasta lunch, carol sing, and school skating we will have many times to gather as a community this week. May we do so with the same awe and wonderment of the shepherds who, bursting with  joy  cried  "Let's  go  to  Bethlehem  and  see  this  thing  that  has  happened,  which  the  Lord  has  told  us about." (Luke 2:15)

The  LCES  board,  staff,  and  students  wishes  you  all  a  faith-filled,  safe,  and  memorable Christmas.  Merry Christmas!

SJ

"Christmas Ready" at Our Christian School

This, this is Christ the King,

Whom shepherds guard and Angels sing
Haste, haste, to bring Him laud,
The Babe, the Son of Mary.

Amid the ‘festive’ merriment of a retail world doing its best to be hope-filled and pretending to be full of Christmas joy, an employee asked me on Saturday “Are you ready for Christmas?”  Sadly, the question was more motivated by the chance to reach deeper in my wallet, not deeper in to my heart.

I know of those with true Christmas joy , who like the wise men of old have smiles on their faces and gratitude in their hearts. Equally present are those with bruised hearts and shaky confidence in believing things are as joyful as the tinsel and tunes tell us they are. News of cancer returning, a job lost, and the despair of struggles with parenting are looming large for several in our community.  

A public prayer I heard once at this time of year comes to mind. It was a petition that this be the “last advent ever.” It sticks with me because I’m not sure I’d ever heard an advent pray like that.  “Come quickly, Lord Jesus” was the intent of the worship leader, longing for the second coming of Christ to complete the renewing of God’s creation back to the perfection of what it was before sin. That’s the true joy of Christmas!

May our celebrations be deeper than the annual return of comfort food, pleasant music, and the opportunity to extend gifts and cards. I’m thankful for Christian education which can remind our students in very real ways that they are part of that story and will share in its joyful ending. Come quickly, Lord Jesus!

SJ

A Candle in Darkness: Hope in our Christian School

At the first sight of snow a few weeks ago, two students approached me and asked about the chance that school would be cancelled the next day. A “snow day” was their hope, at least for the moment. It didn’t come to pass, and quickly passed out of their focus since it was only a short, momentary hope.

Contrast that with the hope of advent:

Come, Thou long expected Jesus
Born to set Thy people free;
From our fears and sins release us,
Let us find our rest in Thee.
Israel’s Strength and Consolation,
Hope of all the earth Thou art;
Dear Desire of every nation,
Joy of every longing heart.

I remember advent in church as a child. The first candle of this annual tradition was the one that was most dramatic. I lived in northern BC, where late November and December where characterized by long nights and short, gloomy days. We craved light. My dad installed grow lights to keep house plants thriving. The burst of a lit match followed by the steady glow of a flame piercing the darkness was mesmerizing to me.

Advent begins with hope. Students, teachers, and parents all crave hope. We cling to the notion that our heart’s desires will be realized. We console ourselves with the hope that some situations will not last forever. We cope with some situations simply because others have given us hope even though we don’t see it or feel it yet ourselves.

We frame our understanding of the world and our place in it with the hope that comes from a long- expected Jesus. What a joy it is to know our students are being led in such deliberate, hope-filled paths on the road of faith as we prepare to celebrate Christ’s birth. Praise the Lord for Christian education!

SJ

Where is the water meter? Connected Learning at Our Christian School

Two grade eight students knocked on my door and asked me this question. They explained that they are getting organized to do a water audit of our school for the next two weeks in an effort to better understand how a community uses water. I was happy to walk them to the mechanical room and show them where it was, how to read it, and talk through first ideas about how to organize the study. Learning about units of measurement, place value of numbers on the meter, variables in a study, sample size of research, and more followed out of necessity. What a relevant, memorable way to learn these things in a process that instantly has purpose!

Kindergarten students are creating thank-you cards for some local businesses that have helped us in maintaining and improving our school building. They have an intended audience for their recently learned communication skills (learning to write) and the beautiful artwork they create.

A junior student has been captivated by data management techniques learned at school. A sample of truck traffic was taken and was interesting enough that the next step was for the student to reach out to the Ontario Trucking Association with questions about what was discovered. The student is interested to see if the letter carefully written and re-written will get a response from this real-world office.

Grade seven geography students recently heard a presentation about a country in Central America they had limited knowledge of from someone who has been there. Elsewhere, three classes will be meeting a falconer tomorrow at school following study of habitats and biodiversity.

This is connected education! While there will always be need for introductory skills and concepts to be taught and practiced, it is exciting for our teachers and students to bring them to meaningful use and purpose in God’s amazing world. Inquiry is a powerful tool that we are interested in using to lead students to learn more about how God’s world works and how they connect to it.

SJ

I Am His: A Story About Belonging At Our Christian School

Our Leaders-In-Training team of grade seven and eight students led chapel recently. Every student was given a dot sticker on the way into the gym. In advance of bullying awareness, the students challenged our student body to recognize what bullying is, what its impact looks, sounds, and feels like, and what can be done when it is observed.

They also led us to sing “Christ is Enough.”  That song contains the following refrain:

Christ is enough for me

Christ is enough for me

Everything I need is in You

Everything I need

Finally, we heard the story of Max Lucado’s “You are Special.” In it, the main character of Punchinello learns to understand that his creator make him uniquely, and with a specific purpose.  He comes to understand that other people’s labels or “dots” only stick to those in his village if they let them. On the way out of the gym, all of the students were invited to remove the dots they had on them and place them on a large banner which read “I made you, and I don’t make mistakes.  -GOD” They left for the remainder of the day with a new nametag on them which read “God’s” or “His.”

I am proud of our students and delight in them hearing this important message at the start of their week together in the classrooms and on the playground. There are loud voices and pressures in our children’s lives and they start early. They want our students to define themselves in foundational ways that are far from the truth that they are first and foremost, God’s children. What a wonderful way to start a week ready to grow in wisdom, love, and service to our faithful God. I am grateful for LCES.

SJ

A Twisted Railway and Remembrance at Our Christian School

We will remember.

“The living owe it to those who no longer can speak to tell their story for them.” Czeslaw Milosz

Camp Westerbork in the Netherlands was originally a safe haven for Jews fleeing Germany just before WWII. After Germans took hold of it, it became a gateway for Jews and others to be moved through to other concentration camp locations throughout Europe. Desiring compliance and control, an illusion of a good, civilized life was created by music, sports, a school, hospital, and more. Each Tuesday more than a thousand left the camp by rail and eventually died at the hands of those who believed absolute power and tyranny could create a better life for some. It was a place of deceit that lead to death for more than 100,000.

When the camp was torn down, a decision was made that the railway line that carried so many in, never to return, should both stand as a memorial and act as a public statement to the future. The two rusty railway tracks were visually made impassable by bending them up to the sky in memory of the loss of life, and so badly mangled to say “this will not happen here again.”

There is great pain in remembering the high cost of peace and the atrocities of war each Remembrance Day. Those who have personally and directly felt those costs have experiences that awaken remembrance within them all the time. Those who have not, which includes most of our students who have no such direct connection or experience of present or past pain, depend on others to prompt them to listen to the stories of sacrifice and the gift of peace. We need to know their story.

Growing in wisdom means teaching the value of remembrance for our students who will live in a time we will not see. Remembrance Day reminds us of a world torn apart by the depths of sin, and yet entirely loved by its creator and rests in his care.

We will remember.

We will participate in a special assembly from 10:45-11:15am on Friday. The LCES community is welcome to come and join us in the school gym. 

We will remember.                                        

SJ

Faces of the Future: Learning in 2020

Last week the “principal brag book” arrived on my desk. It’s a happy coffee break each year for a few moments when I get to review every student on each page, enjoying the unique pictures. Big grins, quirky expressions, and a few smirks made me smile as I enjoyed their unique personality. Our children are precious in our sight, and are dearly loved by the Lord. While we may want to pace them in a holding pattern so they don’t grow older they are steadily moving toward being independent adults.

Surely future tradespeople, service providers, lawyers, entrepreneurs, therapists, pastoral care workers, statisticians, mayors, and a thousand other possibilities are present in our classrooms today. We know and trust that God has a specific role and task for them as part of his Kingdom.

The future for the students pictured in my album is different than my own, and that of my parents, and many past generations. The World Economic Forum has named the most desired skills for employment in 2020. They are:

• Complex Problem Solving
• Critical Thinking
• Creativity
• People Management
• Coordinating with Others
• Emotional Intelligence
• Judgement and Decision Making
• Service Orientation
• Negotiation
• Cognitive Flexibility

I see the first steps of the formation of many of these capacities in our LCES classrooms, starting already in kindergarten with the ways that students are given different ways to explore and learn. I notice students learning about the process and themselves as much as they learn about the “right answer”. I recognize students and their own inquiry shaping how they can solve problems they observe. A teacher as lead learner is a powerful means to increase a student’s readiness to tackle these future ways of working.

How is your child’s world different than yours at his/her age? It is an interesting question to consider.

SJ

Encouraging Excellent Questions at our Christian School

I had the joyful experience of observing a unique lesson last week. The students and teacher were viewing a large picture of a curious scene they had never seen. (Picture linked here) Student questions started simple, but grew in complexity and awareness as a sustained look at something together created more observations and wondering thoughts. What are they doing? Why are they colouring the water? Is it on purpose, or is this an accident? How did they know it was safe to land the helicopter there? Where did the helicopter come from? How far away is the land? Should I be worried about what they are doing?

By watching this interesting lesson, I learned that being able to ask good questions is, like all parts of learning, something that a student can practice and get better at. I also learned that asking questions in a group setting helps everyone learn. At a recent curriculum and development meeting our teachers spent time learning about questions. Harnessing the power of student inquiry as way to shape learning is receiving a lot of attention in education circles today, for good reason. How you ever watched a child who won’t give up on something that has sparked their curiosity?

Reading the New Testament stories of Jesus interacting both with his disciples and those who challenged his authority, it is striking how many times Jesus asked questions in response to a question he was asked. Those questions led to learning. They were ways of teaching that communicated purpose, direction, truth, and understanding. They often cut through human limitations of understanding, or “traps” that were being set. Christ’s questions brought those around him deeper and further into God’s truth and invited a clearer understanding of faithful obedience.

May our students experience the same as they grow in faith, wisdom, and love.

SJ

The "Why" of School Choice

Giving school tours to interested families is often a highlight for me. I appreciate that it helps me to see our school in a new way through their eyes. Talking with them makes me think about why we have a Christian School in East London.

It’s not because our academic program is superior to all others. We work hard to ensure we provide students with a diverse and robust student program at LCES delivered by qualified staff who use the best wisdom of our age, but we are aware that other schools also are capable of this.

It’s not because class sizes are smaller. We do enjoy small classes which produce excellent opportunities for learning with 20 students on average per room, however, numbers alone do not accurately forecast the success of a child in school.

It’s not because sin has parked itself on the street. Although we do enjoy an above average degree of harmony and unanimity here at LCES, we do face problems, conflict, and the results of poor choices.  We frame our response to them around the idea of forgiveness, restoration, and growth.

It’s not because it is easy. The long road of the oldest child starting JK or SK through to the youngest completing grade eight or beyond is full of challenges of all sorts– financial, social, and faith and more. For both students and parents, its a journey. And yet, in the words of a grandparent who shared their take with me, “there is no money I have spent in my lifetime with greater joy and satisfaction – both then as we participated and now as it bears fruit”

It’s because it is a package deal. Life at LCES is flurry of living and learning in grace. Having students at LCES makes them aware of the reality of a world affected by sin, but redeemed by the incredible love of God. It is the intertwining of faith and fact, wisdom and learning, knowing and doing. It is the daily presence of a teaching staff entirely committed and vocationally called to the craft of Christian teaching. They love each child and see them as God created them – talents, weaknesses, abilities, and passions included. It’s the preparation for our students to be salt and light – in their circles today, but also in their wider communities of tomorrow. It’s a vibrant community of believers, committed to a common goal and to each other. It’s a daily pattern of faithfulness that has implications into eternity. 

SJ

An Unusual Thanksgiving: Trials and Faithfulness

If you do social media, and if your feed was anything like mine, the last week has been a steady stream of warm fuzzy Thanksgiving type posts. Family gatherings, food, pumpkin spice lattees, happy people smiling, and fall colours. A few even went so far as to name lists of what they were thankful for – all positive blessings like safety, food, health, relationships, and employment. These are all good things indeed worth praising and thanking our gracious Lord for.

One post stood out in particular because it was such a contrast from the others. A friend expressed his thanks for trials. I know this friend’s life story enough to fill in the blanks of what trials are being spoken of.  They are big picture trials of the vocation, health, and relationship kind.

Taking a lead from the story of Job in the Old Testament, this friend explained that true, deep, and abiding faith holds by the Lord’s faithfulness not only when the barns are full, friends are a plenty, and prime health is enjoyed. This deep, life sustaining faith holds fast even the lowest depths through which life can present. Job cried out “Though he slay me, yet I will hope in him.” (Job 13:15) This is the faith that is mostly highly valued since it keeps us in step with our Saviour and the hope of heaven.

Whether life is thick with prosperity or thin with adversity, we want our students (and our school!) to grow in faithfulness. I appreciated the reminder that both are formative and have the ability to draw us toward Christ in all we do and say. What a delight that we can frame our student’s learning with this truth in our Christian school.

SJ

Cultivating A Faithful Presence At Our Christian School

This phrase was a part of my life for three days of listening and reflection last week. Two hundred leaders from across Canada and twenty guests from Australia, Africa, and Central America gathered together for a biennial conference hosted by Christian Schools Canada in Ottawa.

The “how to” of being a faithful presence as a Christian School community, both for those within it and those relative strangers to it, is worth considering.  It starts with recognizing who we serve and the context they are in.We are living in what many authors are starting to call a Post-Christian era – an age of disillusionment, fear, and relativism.  Canadians seem to bounce between apathy and indifference all the way to other extremes of hatred and hostility toward ideas different than their own.  The middle ground seems to be fast disappearing.

Here are three statements that I captured that gave me pause to think about our school’s context and role:

We can engage the world with hope, or amplify disillusionment and despair already present.

God works through and on behalf of the most vulnerable.

Grief is the place for newness to be born. Hope has its first beginning in grief.

It has been a joy this morning to return to London Christian Elementary after being away. I appreciate the warmth I heard in teachers showing appreciation for their student’s good choices, the student pride shown in new understanding and beautiful work shared with me, patient service to others in need, a moment of vulnerability handled well by an older student, and an act of selfless giving that will benefit our students this year.

May our school continue be a place that cultivates hope, conquers fear, and treasures respect and love for neighbour.

SJ

Humbleness Training At Our Christian School

Our school theme this year is challenging us to walk humbly (Micah 6:8). How do you enable a young child to understand what this could possibly mean?

A story comes to mind. My nephew, then less than two years old and youngest of three, was keen to follow the pattern of his older siblings in reciting a prayer spoken before a family meal. The prayer is:

“God is good, God is great

 Let us thank Him for our food.

By his hands, we are fed,

Thank-you Lord, for daily bread. Amen”

Unable to say or understand the words spoken by his siblings, his exuberant version went as follows:

God is great, God is great!

God is great, God is great!

God is great, God is great!

God is great, God is great! Amen!

That two year old is going to get married soon and has big dreams of working for God’s kingdom. It is obvious the seeds of faith have taken hold. Praise God for this!

So, how do you instruct children to walk humbly, seek justice, and show mercy? It starts with recognizing just how much we need the Lord, for daily bread and for salvation, and how enormous God’s blessings are – even in the small things. It strikes me that cultivating faithfulness begins with young children connecting with structures that gently, but deliberately, guide them to recognize that God made them, God loves them, and God knows them “by name.” (Isa. 43:1) What a rich blessing that those patterns of faithfulness in even the smallest of things can start at home and continue here at LCES. Praise God for Christian education; may it bear fruit in the lives of our children!

SJ

Rainforest Vines and Our Connected Christian School

While teaching grade seven geography on God’s gifts of the rainforest, I recall learning with my students about a liana vines. They grow quickly and connect from tree to tree throughout the various canopy layers. When wind, rain, or storms come along they actually provide stability by becoming elastic like connections from one tree to the next. Animals and insects use them as highways to travel on, moving from tree to tree with ease. Life flourishes, in part, as result of the way these vines connect all things together.

Our Christian school is blessed to have many “liana vines” that keep us from being a tree on its own. While LCES is an independent school and operates as it owns independent organization, here are a few of the biggest “vines” that support us.

Edvance: Brand new this school year and formerly known as three different organizations (Ontario Alliance of Christian Schools, Christian School Principals Association, and Christian Teachers Association), this newly minted organization represents a strong desire to see Christian Education continue to mature and flourish in Ontario. They help us with tracking student growth, organizing teacher professional development, and financial management. They also assist us with policy creation, being aware of provincial requirements for us, and will be advocating on our behalf at the provincial level with various government officials. (www.edvance.ca)

Edifide: This organization now has a more trimmed mandate of offering HR services to educators in terms of contract and salary details. (www.edifide.info)

Christian School Foundation: This organization is a more recent one in Ontario and was formed out of a desire to better manage small foundations that many Christian Schools had. Today more than 50 schools are connected to them as they help with organizing estate giving, structure bursaries, offering scholarships that promotes new enrollment, sponsoring professional development, and giving in ways that are more efficient to the donor and significant for the school. (www.christianschoolfoundation.ca)

Christian Schools International – Supports us with employee pension and benefits.

Christian Schools Canada – Connects all three regions of Canada together for mutual betterment around ideas like curriculum development, leadership, public advocacy, and more.  (www.christianschoolscanada.com)

Why Christian Schools? A great resource to have a conversation with someone brand new to idea of Christian Education. (www.whychristianschools.ca)

We’re thankful for these strong vines!

SJ

Parenting and Responsibility In Our Christian School

I took a picture of this sign on a family camping trip this past summer. There is a touch of humour in the large ominous font, since it would seem that the message is implied and shouldn’t need to be stated. Of course they are our responsibility! We meet the weight of that responsibility every day. Their appetite causes them to eat us out of house and home, they go through clothing faster than we can find the next size, their choices bring us joy and frustration – sometimes immediately following each other. We have hundreds of pictures of moments when smiles of contentment make it seem all is well, but we also know clouds of deep worry, doubt, or even fear are part of being a parent. Parenting is anything but simple, easy, and guaranteed.

As a father, four times I have had the immense joy of receiving in my arms God’s gift of a fresh newborn wrapped up in a hospital blanket staring out at a wide new world. What precious moments those were! Deep longing had met deep love at the sight of a person so new and so beautiful. With toes and fingers all counted, life seemed wonderfully simple and absolute clarity was felt about what really mattered, and where to invest in their future. Lofty goals and dreams were easy to make, genuine as they were wrapped up in the moment. I always felt “…and God wants me to be in charge of all of this?”

Fast forward to the complexities of a school-aged child and what it takes to nurture, guide, inspire, admonish, instruct, and discipline. No preset path or child-specific owner’s manual was provided! The immensity of the task of parenting is daunting when we meet the unique nature of each individual child and the ever changing world they live in, even more so when we consider their future in it.

Parenting is no easy street, holy work that it is as we watch newborns becomes adults in twenty years. I’m grateful for Christian Education as one of the voices in our children’s lives, rounding out the efforts of a Christian home and Christian church. I continue to be delighted at seeing the impact that three can make together. May the Lord guide our efforts and lead our children through us, and sometimes in spite of us. 

SJ

The House That God Built

Welcome to our “house”! At the front doors of our school in black granite you’ll find the words “God is the builder of everything” (Hebrews 3:4) What a joy to have that as our sure foundation for each school year! We hope you will find our house a place of growth, joy, discovery, and warmth this year.  

Our “house” has been a flurry of activity this summer. Painting, playground updates, HVAC repairs, and the delivery of new school furniture took place. Truckloads of gravel, mulch, and topsoil have added function to our yard. Teachers have created inviting places of learning and community. It was a joy to watch today as many of the classrooms continued that process of making a house a home as students were staking their claim with visual displays and classroom covenants.

A spirit of thanksgiving and praise has certainly been felt through the community with the launch of a new year and the return of familiar faces, as well as the abundance of new people to meet. 17 new local and international families will join us this year, with more still possible. Five new staff members are joining us this year, Ms. Bethel in the front office, Ms. Funes in JK, Ms. Versteeg in grade five, Mr. Kraal in grade seven, and Ms. Stalhbaum in French. Our welcome mat is going to get a workout!

New things bring change. While change can bring uncertainty, we certainly know we can count on God’s provision for all we need in our house.  We aim to be found faithful with how our household functions, even as we adapt and renew it yearly. May all who dwell here be richly blessed.

If you are one of the many new parents reading this Weekly News, welcome!  This weekly publication goes out electronically and is a great spot to read up on the happenings of our school. I encourage you to read and pray your way through it each week. Feel free to contact me at the school if you are in need of answers or details that you have not been able to find elsewhere. It’s going to be a fantastic year of “Seeking Justice, Loving Mercy, and Walking Humbly” Micah 6:8.  

SJ

Living And Learning in the Last Week of School at Our Christian School

Here are some scenes from the last week of school. God blessed us richly with a wonderful year and we are so grateful for demonstrations of his care that we experienced ever day. 

Grade seven decorated another ceiling tile in the classroom, recording this year's school theme and adding it to a growing visual history of our years of learning on the ceiling. We are thankful for God's care yesterday, today, and tomorrow.












The students' collective JK-8 efforts for our student service project resulted in a gift of $2310.81 to LaGosette Christian School in Haiti. We pray these funds will be a blessing to that community and their future. God's blessings are meant to be shared.








A new bus arrived just in time for the last week of school! We are grateful for our bus driver team and all they do each day to get so many students to school.










Because we just had to pack in a little more fun before the year was done, a mini slip n' slide was a great way to spend a warm afternoon for JK & SK. The joy shows in the laughter and smiles.










Graduation was a highlight of the week, including unique cupcakes. It was a fantastic opportunity to celebrate with our graduates and their families. May God bless them where he takes them.

Our staff have completed the wrap up activities after students left. They are headed to a time of rest & renewal, learning, and eventually getting ready for a new year in late summer. We are so thankful for their love, commitment, and care for our students. 

We planted a tree! The wall in The Hub was decorated last week with a tree, the leaves of which were all of the hand prints of the staff and students. We are thankful for a community to connect with during our learning, serving, and growth.

A S'more is nutritious isn't it?

Coloured tongues are evidence of year-end celebrations. It's good to stop, take stock, and recognize we have much to be grateful for. God's mercies are new every morning. 


















JK and grade seven had a special relationship all year in many learning tasks. The last one was to trace their outline and see just how much they had grown. We are thankful for meaningful ways to link old and young students together.

On the last day of school grade 2/3 revisited an ongoing experiment in the front garden. They studied soil composition this year and decided to try out a challenge they found of burying an item of clothing to see what happened to it after two months. We are thankful for the curiosity of our students and where it takes them. 



The joy of fellowship is a blessing everyday. 



















That's a wrap! The classrooms are empty and the hallways are filled. Our custodian will go to work later this month to give the whole place a new glow and get it ready for the fall. They give us a fresh new school every summer and we are thankful for their efforts. 

Praise God from whom all blessings flow. 


SJ

Grace Filled Growth: The Finish Line!

My friends may you grow in grace, and in the knowledge of our Lord and Saviour

Our staff, parents, and student body said farewell to our grade eight class in a special chapel this morning. Original poems crafted by the grade seven class about our graduates were read. They were playful and fun, but nonetheless showed that our oldest learners were well known by their peers and the LCES staff. It’s a fun LCES tradition that brings smiles and laughter from the audience.  We closed with another tradition, singing the above song while they left their last chapel.

So begins a week of celebration and endings, including recognizing where this year has taken us. If I had to summarize some of the things I will remember about 2017-18, here is my top five:

1.  God’s favour – So many times this year we have been challenged and faced unknowns, but have been reminded that God’s love and provision never cease. We are reminded of a wider group of non-parent supporters who pray, give of time and money, and tangibly support what we do.

2. Growth – We are excited to see a strong show of parental interest in our school, in several cases from families whose children are not yet school aged.  We had a record number of families join us within this school year. There will be at least ten new families, likely more, starting this fall. It’s also exciting to see grades four through six return to single grades this fall.

3. Changing spaces– The Hub was a hit this year for our students. With the portables gone, and the area cleaned up, we are excited about doing something new in that area. Dreams and first steps exist for other changes in and out of the building to make us efficient, innovative, and effective.

4. People – There will be a significant change in the mix of people leading at LCES. A new board chair, and three new board members take over. Five new people will be part of our LCES staff this fall. It’s been an exciting journey, but there too we meet God’s wisdom and provision “for such a time as this.”

6. Student Growth – Between report cards and graduation, it is my delight to read many things this week that point to the fact our students have grown physical, mentally, socially, academically, and spiritually. Praise God for a new generation growing in wisdom each year!

The LCES Board and staff wish all of our families a pleasant summer of work, rest, and play. May the Lord be faithful to you and yours until we meet again in September.

SJ