Giving the Greatest Gift at Our Christian School

A favourite Christmas stories to read to my children is The Crippled Lamb by Max Lucado. Joshua, a lamb who didn’t fit in and was broken, believed he had nothing of value to offer the newly arrived King. I won’t share his gift so you can enjoy the story for yourself if you haven’t already, but the gift was one that the lamb hadn’t even considered to be valuable.  

Perhaps the truest delight of Christmas gift-giving (not gift-getting) is recognizing the ability to give something that matches who you are and what you believe is important, and then giving that gift to someone else in way that is a rich blessing to them in ways they didn’t expect.

Prayer It is with great joy that I hear of people who tell me they include the staff and students of LCES in their regular prayer time. We thank you for remembering us in this way.

Money We’ve been blessed with financial means to take care of some pressing needs in our school that our operating budget wasn’t expecting. Thanks for choosing to bless us and our mission.

Time It is one of the greatest gifts we are given by volunteers who offer the work of their helping hands in support of who we are and we what we stand for.

Let’s rejoice together!  We’re also thankful for students sharing their gifts and talents. This Wednesday our students will share the story in word and song of the very best gift ever given.

May God bless our students, families, and staff with a joyous and safe Christmas break after this exciting week. God has great things in store for LCES in 2020!

SJ

Waiting at Advent at Our Christian School

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.

We make a quick transition to Christmas in modern culture. Once Remembrance Day is through, we hastily take out the special food, music, and Christmas finery. By January the 1^st, most of it is gone and boxes are brought back down to the store room and the Christmas tunes are packed away for another year.

Our family has been reading about the end of the nations of Israel and Judah just before the 400 years that are called the dark or silent years. It’s an intensely sad read as generations of unfaithfulness of God’s people led to being conquered, and nearly snuffed out by neighbouring nations. By the rivers of Babylon a tiny remnant wept over the demise of the temple and the waywardness of God’s people. And they waited. And God was silent.

This is the leadup to John the Baptist, Mary’s angel visit, and then the shepherd’s nighttime angel chorus visit. God with us! What a joy that we can point our students at LCES to the wider, amazing story of God loving us so much that he came to Bethlehem, and has promised that he will came come again. 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

Deliveries and Imagination at Our Christian School

Deliveries come to the school nearly every day. Today I had the joy of bringing a special delivery of a large envelope addressed to the SK class. Spot the dog had “written” to the class and he had sent an enthusiastic letter encouraging students to write back. He promised to write the students back if they wrote to him. Some students happily and willingly went along with the teacher’s imaginative ploy to get them to practice writing even though they seemed to understand it wasn’t real, while others seemed to be quite convinced this was all very true.

Upon returning to my desk, I thought this through. Loads of fun to be sure. Was it deception, or fun with imagination?  I’m pretty sure it is the second option, but it made me wonder where the line is between imaginative play and leading students away from the truth. I remember reading a short story with a grade eight class years ago about an imaginary trip to the moon. Poverty gave no space for a family holiday, so the father gave the gift of a what the very young children believed to be an actual real trip complete with home made shuttle, space suits, moon rocks, and a rolling screen outside the “window.” A wise student summarized the story with a question: “What is better, the truth which brings a tear, or a lie that brings a smile?”

As a parent, I know it isn’t that simple. We want our children to know and love God’s truth. Does that crowd out imagination and willing suspension of disbelief? Matthew 18 warns about causing children to go astray by willful choice, however imagination is clearly a gift that God gives us all – especially in the precious years of childhood.

I'm thankful for wise LCES teachers who embrace truth and imagination at once. 

SJ

Walking Straight at Our Christian School

Last weekend I listened to a humorous podcast about a series of experiments conducted in 1920’s and 1930’s on the ability of humans to walk straight without the benefit of sight. While blindfolded, and in several different locations, repeated attempts were made to have someone move straight from fixed point to fixed point without curving off to the side. Most test subjects were able to start off very accurately but, without a visual reference point, would veer off and eventually find themselves close to where they started. Results were much better when there was someone else speaking to them to give them an auditory reference point to gauge their progress. 

What a great illustration for living together and having a place to belong as a part of learning. We need each other! Without the gift of others, we can easily veer off and find ourselves off track, or even worse, not make any progress. God’s gift of community is a blessing to us when we feel the nudge of the Holy Spirit though the words of others and feel comforted or inspired by their actions. We come to realize that we need one another more than we might have known, and are surprised by joy and the coming kingdom when we feel God working in us through others.   

May our children learn to walk well as they listen to voices around them at LCES. 

SJ

Speaking Up at Our Christian School

Twenty-three times per year our student body gathers together in the gym for chapel. Today, the students were the leaders up front.

The unique chapel was led by our LIT (Leaders in Training) team and marked the start of Bullying Awareness Week. Our fourteen member team prepared for chapel by creating a video with scenarios to illustrate what bullying looks like, how not to deal with it, and how one should deal with it. We were directed to the instruction in Proverbs 31 to “speak up for those who cannot speak for themselves” and to “speak up for justice”.

Our school theme (Psalm 24:1) also declares that all people belong to God. Wanting our school playground to also be a place where all students feel like they belong, our LIT team have organized a buddy bench outside on the playground for the week. The LIT team will ensure that if any student needs help or wants a friend, they can have a seat and one of the LIT team members will support them. Later this week, they will be working on an all -school art project that will be placed in the front garden next spring. It will visually point out that each and every student belongs at our school.

It is very exciting to see our students taking charge of important matters here at our school! I’m thankful for the space for our students to practice leadership here, to equip them to be leaders everywhere.

 SJ

The Pain in Remembering and Hope of Advent

It was wet and cold this morning as grade seven and eight stood outside for an hour. Grade seven marked Remembrance Day at the downtown cenotaph, while grade eight stood outside at the Royal Canadian Regiment Museum. The wintry mix of sleet was a fitting backdrop for the Remembrance Day proceedings. Gratitude for service and the high cost of freedom were certainly foremost in our minds as wore our poppies and bowed our heads. The tears, barren tree branches, and a brisk wind remind us of the raw reality of what we are also recalling; wars and fighting remain, guns have not been silenced, hatred still motivates harm, and people. We lament that conflict abounds nearby and far away from our home and native land.

The grade two/three class led the service in in our school gym. Spoken words, songs, and visuals during the student-led chapel affirmed that we need to “let the peace of Christ rule in [our] hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace.” Colossians 3:15

That peace seems very elusive. Human suffering continues in the hands of tyrants, and so many wait for the kind of justice and peace that Christ commanded. Is there hope?

 Yes! That peace of Christ comes to us as we pattern our lives after his gospel. I’m so thankful that the “message of Christ” is part of life here at LCES in the devotional and learning parts of every day. The coming kingdom of God with justice and peace for all is what we work for every day in each lesson and conversation, each challenge and success. May our students grow in wisdom that propagates peace and returns our world back to way God originally created it – beautiful, perfect, and filled with peace.

The hope of advent is just around the corner.

SJ

Beehives and Happiness at Our Christian School

“Happiness is not found within us, but rather between us. “

It was a thrill last week Thursday to join 1000 Christian Educators in Ancaster. LCES staff were inspired as we sang, prayed, and connected with provincial colleagues. We were challenged by some research underway about relationships by Dr Robert Loe.

The quote above is his. Depending on self-help books, mindfulness to find your inner “you”, and other such activities is not the route to happiness he proposed. His interesting research of measuring relationships in organizations indicate that people flourish when strong connecting relationships exist. The most vulnerable are taken care of best in communities were connecting relationships are strongest. He presented some “threats” to relationship health in our culture and context. Bees in a bee hive with unique but connected roles was offered as a visual to ponder. The hive thrives when relationships between the bees is healthy.

Relationship is the foundation of learning. Jesus showed us this in the way in which he announced a new covenant and the coming kingdom. He lived and taught in an intensely relational setting with his disciples. Can you imagine the talking on long walks, meal time conversations,  and lingering campfire debates?

LCES staff are grateful for the chance to have been able to step away to contemplate what learning looks like in 2019. It’s great to be back in the hive at LCES today.

SJ