Moment of Impact

Hey, look, it's my students! (More specifically, mine are blurry in the back.) Sometimes I have a hard time remembering I've only been their teacher for three weeks because I love these students so much already. I've learned all their names, and have read fascinating letters of introduction from each of them. I have students who have come from so many different backgrounds, and I get the opportunity to teach them about story mountain all in one room. For the most part, these kids are excited to learn, and I'm delighted to teach them. The highlights of my days come after the last bell rings and one of my seventh period students wants to continue our conversation about the motives of murder in a short story or the conclusions we draw based on indirect characterization in a cliffhanger.

The learning environment at BFA is incredible. The value for education is not all that impresses me about these students; they are also eager to grow in maturity and be world changers. This week was Spiritual Emphasis Week, and we took ten minutes out of every class period to start each day with chapel. A swell Irishman flew all the way from Arkansas to talk to these kids this week about how they can partner with God to write their own stories.

Anticipation ran high through the school Monday and Tuesday as the students prepared for the first ever Impact Day at Black Forest Academy. Similar to my experience as a student at Multnomah, the school took a day off of instruction to reach out to the community on Wednesday, and I had the privilege of serving alongside a group of my students as we weeded a patio at a local church and mission office.

We were back in class on Thursday a little sore from serving but filled with joy from impacting our community. Friday night, the chaplains closed out Spiritual Emphasis Week with a special worship night where students were given the opportunity to take a stake of wood to write moments of their past on as physical representations of significant markers in their lives. At the end of the service, students and staff filed up to grab one more stake of wood as a reminder that they could partner with God as authors of their own stories and write something new on it that they would work towards accomplishing in their lives.

I'm so excited about the story God and I are writing with my life.

What will your story be?