Visit to Tiarama Schools

About three months ago Georges Deligny the new principal of College Adventist Tiarama asked Owen Ellis, Director of Education for the NZPUC to define what an Adventist school is. Of course the same question also interested Camelia Flohr, principal of the Tiarama Primary School. How would you fare with this question? In response Owen and I decided that we would spend a scheduled professional development week with the teachers of both schools exploring what an Adventist school is. At the teachers’ suggestion we met after school for two afternoon sessions, a Friday night and a Sabbath morning, almost nine hours in all. The photos show two students who welcomed us the first morning, and the teacher group who participated. In the group photo Camelia is standing next to Owen and Georges is standing behind Owen and me. There are approximately 180 students in the primary school, and about 150 in the secondary.

Having first considered the purpose of an Adventist school, the teachers then spent a good while discussing how Adventist their school was and rating it on six measures. After that they took us on a tour of each school to show us how Adventist their school looked. They also discussed how the Adventist character of their school was shown in daily school life and school values. Following that we looked at the Adventist worldview and the influence of the teacher’s attitude to life and power of example.

On these visits I try to practice my French. Mavina Haumani the recently retired education director and translator for the week encouraged me by saying that I was improving noticeably, but tactfully added that there was still a long road for me to travel. As you might expect, the teachers provided beautiful food and fine Sabbath singing and special music, all wrapped in the best of Tahitian hospitality. I am sure you all feel for Owen and I toughing it out in Tahiti last week. Someone has to do it!

Barry Hill
Director of Adventist Education SPD
News about the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific.

Sermon on a Sidewalk

I am in Perth at the moment visiting a number of the schools over here and having a most enjoyable time. This morning at the school I visited I was roped into a shopping visit. Always happy to go shopping – the grocery kind not the clothing kind just in case you women should get the wrong idea!

One of the lower classes in the school had raised around $400 to spend on groceries to be made up into hampers to give to poor families in the community. The visit to the IGA store just around the corner was very well organised by the teacher. Each group had a list of what was to be purchased, the aisle number where it was to be found, the item with a coloured photo for identification and the amount for the item. A group of around 16 littlies can make a big impression in a small IGA store and this group were no exception. It didn’t take long for the groceries to be found and purchased and as we exited onto the footpath they were asked to sit along the store wall out of the road of the pedestrians while I loaded the goodies into the teacher’s car. While I was doing that the sermon began. Not about behavioural standards inside shops - these kids were angels! – But about why we do things like this. One girl had given all of her birthday money which totalled $20. I call that sacrifice, especially for a 5 year old.

The reason why we do these things “…is because Jesus lives in our hearts and when he does it makes us want to do kind things like this.” This little sermon was delivered while pedestrians were walking past. It will be more than the kids that will benefit from it.

I found the whole experience a lovely vignette of what special character is all about. Acting out, living out what Jesus would do and what he wants us to do. Now I am not sure what the plan is but I do hope that the students will have the opportunity to personally deliver the groceries to those who are finding it tough to make it through at the moment especially just before Christmas.

We were treated to a milk shake afterwards. The students had walked a long way by their standards to do the shopping and they would need the sustenance to get back as well, especially as the weather was a sunny 28o. Even the milkshake order had come out of an earlier maths lesson as the teacher tallied up the favourite milkshakes from the students. I can assure you that a cool chocolate milkshake is a nice way to spend some time with the shoppers!

So as you approach Christmas with your class I wonder if there is some way for your school to make a difference in the lives of the not so fortunate in your community. Remember what Jesus said? “Inasmuch as you have done it to the least of these my brothers . . .”

God bless you as you continue to show Jesus in practical ways to your students and to others.
News about the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific.

The Inkblot

For all of us including our students, life comes at us fired point blank. It does not come tagged “This is my Father’s world,” but looks rather like a giant messy inkblot. As our students look at the blot they are forced to grope for life’s meaning and discover it for themselves.

But deeper than their sexuality or the desire for achievement, power or possessions, students crave the knowledge of the right direction, a life orientation. This desire lies in the marrow of their bones and the deep regions of their souls. Created in the image of God, they have a God-shaped hole built into their hearts. So they search for the image of God that will fit the hole, sifting through various options like women pawing over mountains of lingerie at a sale, matching the various items successively to the gaping hole, hoping to find the right piece.

Our task is to help students to fill the hole in their heart, to orient themselves, to be aware of the real world, and to build a secure worldview. As we do this we rescue them form the world views they have unwittingly slipped into, and replace these with a more generous and accurate view of life. That view is the traditional Christian view, Adventist version. This is a great work, and is sufficient reason for Adventist schools to exist.

Discussion: Is your school presenting a clear Adventist view of the world? How do you see it? If you teach or administer, how clearly are you teaching it in your curriculum?
News about the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific.

A Scary but Exciting Future

Last week Barry and I met with the Beyond Me Foundation in the city centre of Sydney. We were there to discuss the continuing developments in the building of the Kokoda High School in PNG that they are extensively involved in. You will remember from an earlier BLOG that this is the school that the Adventists have been invited to operate once it is built.

Our discussion was frank and open and they are a delightful Christian group to work with. One of our concerns that we voiced was how we would continue to staff such a premier institution. We would be looking for quality teachers capable of operating a school continually under the scrutiny of passing trekkers – anything up to 900 a day at the height of the trekking season.

The implications are rather challenging. If we do it well then we will all benefit from the excellent PR. But if we fail, then it will impact badly on us all as well. Quite frankly it is scary. We have no doubts that we can find the teachers, but the impact on the rest of the country will be significant as well.

As a church system, we operate a resource thin culture. I suppose the gospel commission ensures this will happen. PNG isn’t the only place that operates a resource thin system. Here in Australia and New Zealand and across the Pacific we have the same problem. We face a critical shortage of Adventist teachers to staff our schools. This is brought about by a number of factors. We have a growing system, especially along the eastern states of Australia and across the Pacific. We are dealing with a different demographic of new employees. Generation Y see employment and life quite differently to the Baby Boomers and Generation X. The quality of school life isn’t like it used to be with unreasonably high levels of accountability, competitive development and delivery of curriculum and increasingly higher expectations from parents.

What is the answer? First there is no simple solution. Managing growth is one possible though slightly negative solution. I’d like us to consider looking more positively at the problem though. I wonder how many of your students will become future teachers in our system? I wonder how many more would head down a teaching career path if they were seriously encouraged to do so?

I am sure that there is so much more we could do to promote teaching as a ministry and calling from God. Our personal lives should reflect that it is a calling worthy of the time and effort. Each of our staff should be encouraging each student to seriously consider whether God is calling them to teaching ministry. And this attention should not be left until the final year of schooling. I believe that even primary teachers have a part to play in all of this as well. Dreams sown in childhood often have a time of reaping later in life.

Please encourage your staff to encourage their students to consider teaching ministry as a life calling from God. We run Adventist schools for a purpose. This purpose becomes increasingly difficult to maintain if Adventists are not present to carry this out. We need not be ashamed of our schooling system. Others along with Governments are recognising that we operate a quality system. Let’s do all we can to ensure we will be able to keep it that way, especially in the future.

News about the Seventh-day Adventist Church in the South Pacific.