This past week has been the beginning of the goodbye process for many students and families at IA. This Wednesday is graduation and the formal end of the school year, but there have been a number of events this past week that are building up to that final stopping point. As we've mentioned before, IA is having an unusually high number of people leaving at the end of this year. In addition to our five seniors (7 if you count two students from that class who left earlier in the year), we have a large number of students returning to Korea and a significant number of our core missionary families who will be going on year-long furloughs starting this summer. While most of those missionary families should be returning for the following year, next year will certainly be different and there are no guarantees that someone who leaves will be able to return.
Because of this, our school puts a lot of emphasis on saying goodbye well. We talk about it, provide workshops for students to help transition, and do things like have special time set aside in chapel to publicly celebrate and say goodbye to students who will be leaving. This past Wednesday was the final chapel of our school year and in it each of our five remaining seniors had the chance to speak and afterwards was a time for classmates and teachers to speak as well. It was a very emotional time with many tears shed and marked the beginning of the end of a chapter in the life of many of our students.
Friday at school was the awards ceremony. Students from grades K-12 received awards for their academic work, character, and participation in activities like drama. The kindergartners had their graduation ceremony and a good time was had by all! The ceremony helped bring the last full week of school to an end and was another chance to bring parents, teachers, and students together.
Friday night we had our final youth group meeting of the year and continued the goodbye process. The seniors asked for a time to answer some questions and to pray with the group. We all wrote questions, some funny, some serious, for the graduating class and spent some time asking them their thoughts about graduation, going to college, moving to America (all five of this year's graduating class will be going to college in the U.S.), and their thoughts about leaving Russia. Then we took time to pray for everyone in the senior class before letting other students who will not be returning share their future plans and praying for them. Once again it was a very emotional experience. I'm so glad that we can help give our students a place to cry and share their emotions. One of the reasons Amanda and I wanted to stay was so that we could better take part in the lives of our students which often means having to deal with the emotional strains of getting to know wonderful students only to have them leave, often unexpectedly. The longer we are here the more we feel those same emotions, and hopefully as a result, the better we will be able to care for our students. The night ended on a high notes, though and we ended with food and a slideshow of pictures from over the years which brought back many fond memories:-)
Because our day had not been long enough, Amanda and I left from youth group around 10 at night and immediately headed back to the school where most of the students were returning for the final lock in of the year. We had agreed to chaperone it, which made for a monstrously long day with school, a Russian lesson for me, youth group, and then a lock in. The lock in was a lot of fun and while I only managed an hour and a half of sleep (Amanda got a couple more than me), it was another great time to let the students have fun and to spend time talking to them. Sitting around on couches at 4:30 in the morning (and looking outside and seeing that it is completely light out) provides a great opportunity for bonding and conversation and sharing funny stories that you don't get in the classroom. I know that moments like these are some of the ones that our students will remember most clearly, and that we also will look back on.
Final chapel, final youth group, final lock in. All of this leads to the final three days of school week: prom, field day, and graduation. It has been a good year and the past few days have been a good reminder of what life is like for our students and why we love being able to do what we do at IA. Our students are some of the most talented and wonderful people we have ever had the chance to meet and we are so blessed with the chance to invest in their lives in ways that are not possible in many other schools or countries. Life in international schools is always in a state of flux and semi-chaos and this past year has been no different and the coming year promises more of the same, but the opportunities that we have make it all worthwhile and something we would never trade.
Here are a few photos from some of these recent events:
Kindergarten graduation. Armed with a year's worth of education, we send them off into the wide world of elementary school.
A handful of the younger elementary students provided a musical interlude to the award's program by performing a worship dance.
Amanda gives out middle school English awards.
Game time at youth group.
This particular game involved trying to secretly pass a cucumber. Much hilarity ensued.
I gaze contemplatively across the room.
This game required people to move chairs depending on how they answered certain questions. The point of the game is that eventually most people will end up sitting on someone else's lap and large piles of people will form:-)
Finally it was time for the lock in. Amanda and I weren't the only ones tired after such a long day. Most of the students ended up falling asleep before too long, although the 9th grade class bravely stayed up for the entire night.
A game of late night Mafia was part of the festivities.
And finally a little video from the lock in. The students starting dancing everywhere, but sadly by the time I got the camera out it had mostly settled down. Still, this is a tamer taste of what was going on:-)
That's all for now!
-Matt
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