Happy Birthday HOPE school!

This week staff and students celebrated HOPE school’s 18th birthday with lots of cake. Celebrating events with good food seems to be a cross-cultural tradition. Our students may have had a few more goodies than usual this week as we have also been bringing some of our activities into the school that would normally happen at camp.

HOPE has changed a lot over 18 years. I’ve only known it since it was 12 and I don’t have a full picture of the complete journey but when I arrived I remember getting a sense of a constantly changing environment that balanced out this change with key traditions that helped preserve identify and consistency within the school. I remember likening it to an old bicycle where you had changed the wheels, got new handle bars, improved the padding on the seat, replaced the gear cables and given it a fresh coat of paint. Is it still the same bicycle? Well, unless we also change the frame, you would probably say it is.

So what are HOPE school’s parts and frame? I see the underlying, constant structure of the school to be the vision and mission which have been a constant since the early days. The vision for our students and the mission towards serving our families have remained protected by the Board and passed on to each new member of staff as the replacing and upgrading regularly takes place.

We are not created in order to remain as children but to become mature and wise. I think that principle is true for the school as a whole as well as us individually. There are some aspects of school that I hope will always be a feature; child-like faith, worshiping together, music instead of bells, whole school activities, trust, fun and the word of God like a thread weaving it all together. However, I’m also glad to see that the school has developed in areas of finance, quality of resources, increasing curriculum opportunities and no more flooded classrooms!

Over this break please remember to pray for the upcoming changes on the school’s horizon; for new staff to match our vacancies, for the new road and road drainage to be built well, for good health for all our community.

Ephesians 4:14-16 

14 Then we will no longer be infants, tossed back and forth by the waves, and blown here and there by every wind of teaching and by the cunning and craftiness of people in their deceitful scheming. 15 Instead, speaking the truth in love, we will grow to become in every respect the mature body of him who is the head, that is, Christ. 16 From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work.

Cath Kershaw