As I looked around the room last weekend, enjoying a breakfast for all of the Dordt College grads, I realized I was quite obviously the most senior person graduating.<\/p>\n
\n After a few years of hard work, I was graduating with my master\u2019s degree. I had taken the opportunity to attend the ceremony in Sioux Center, Iowa, and walk across the stage to receive my hood.<\/p>\n
\n But, before the actual graduation ceremony, all the grads were treated to a breakfast with the college president, Dr. Erik Hoekstra, who spoke about the things he wished for all of us. While his talk was mainly directed to the young college grads, I was really struck by what he said.<\/p>\n
\n In fact, his thoughts are exactly how I feel towards the students who will be moving on from grade 8 in about a month from now.<\/p>\n
\n 1. \u00a0WE PRAY<\/span><\/strong> 2. \u00a0WE LOVE<\/strong> <\/span> 3. \u00a0WE EXPECT<\/span><\/strong> 4. \u00a0WE CHALLENGE<\/span><\/strong> \n And so, grade 8 grads\u2026 Will you rise to the challenge with this \u201csenior\u201d graduate to live, serve, and roar for the Lord?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" As I looked around the room last weekend, enjoying a breakfast for all of the Dordt College grads, I realized I was quite obviously the most senior person graduating. After a few years of hard work, I was graduating with my master\u2019s degree. I had taken the opportunity to attend the ceremony in Sioux Center, […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":145,"featured_media":3193,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,34],"tags":[],"post_folder":[],"class_list":["post-3192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-character","category-middle-school"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/145"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3192"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3192\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/3193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3192"},{"taxonomy":"post_folder","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abbotsfordchristian.com\/insideout\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/post_folder?post=3192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\n As teachers and administrators, we have prayed for each of our students and we will continue to pray for them, individually, as they move on from this place.<\/p>\n
\n We love our students. Honestly, this sounds trite but it is the truth. Every student in our building is loved by the staff here, and every student is prayed for. It is not always easy to like every student, but, with God\u2019s help, we love every one of them!<\/p>\n
\n As a school community, we expect that our students will move on and live a life in service to their Lord. It is our hope that each one of our students develops an \u201cattitude of gratitude\u201d that fosters a desire to care for His creation, live as His image bearers, and through all things, serve God. School is often about learning \u201cstuff\u201d but we expect our students to learn wisdom and then act wisely. High expectations for sure!<\/p>\n
\n We hope and pray that our students from Abbotsford Christian School will go out and have an impact. We hope and pray that they will be shapers of God\u2019s world. One of the speakers at the Dordt grad described it as a \u201croar that could be heard around the world.\u201d I see what our grade 8 students are doing as part of their \u201cHere I Stand\u201d projects, or what all our middle school students are doing in their service projects, and I think we are legitimately challenging them to be culture-shapers!<\/p>\n