The School Year is Coming!

I hope everyone is having a relaxing and refreshing summer. The school year is fast approaching! We have been back in the office planning and getting ready for the year ahead. If you check the school website, you can find details and the time schedule for August 23, the first day of school. Students can come in early that morning for their schedules and to find their lockers, but we will begin the day in the Lindner Theater at 8:00 am. In a blink of an eye, our building will be full of students again with the energy of a CHCA school day!

As always I have been doing a lot of traveling this summer. And as is the case most summers, I began my journey in my childhood home in Milwaukee, WI. It was great to reunite with my immediate family and relatives, showing my kids the places where I grew up and spent time. We went to a Brewers game together, ate frozen custard at Gilles where I worked in high school and college, and even walked around the playground of my grade school, recounting stories of kickball games and snowball fights. As a parent, there was something powerful about the intersection of my nostalgia and the insight of what my own children were experiencing in their own lives, including what will be just around the corner for them. The hopes and excitement that I felt for my children in those moments were powerful, because I understand many of the trajectories their lives will take as part of growing older. But at the same time, the details and the uniqueness of their journeys are a mystery to me, how God will shape them through the unique unfolding of their lives. And for that reason, I carry an excitement and anticipation for what lies ahead.

Many of the same emotions surround the start of a school year for me. Seniors are excited for the finish, freshmen for a beginning. Every student has expectations for the year and for themselves. They are all nervous, not knowing what it will really be like. As administrators and teachers in the building, we understand to a degree what each year looks like and how it unfolds—the emotions, the ups and downs, the inherent joys and difficulties—in a way the students can’t begin to grasp. But how the details will play out, the uniqueness of this journey, the things that will make this year truly unique and special are also a mystery in the hand of God. And so I am truly excited for another year with our students.

Please mark your calendar now and plan to join us as we celebrate the beginning of the school year and all that God will do among us at our Opening Convocation service at 6:00 PM on August 28, 2011 at St. Margaret of York. Our faculty and the class of 2012 will be marching in academic regalia and we will have the official installation of our Senior Class. It will be a wonderful time of celebration, music, worship, and prayer. Details and directions will be on the website. And please begin to pray for the year ahead and the work that God will do among us!