Adventist Education and Friends (Grades 4-12)
I was eight years old when my family moved from England to Canada. One primary reason to cross the ocean was so that my sister and I could attend an Adventist school.
In the last eight years I’ve been able to reconnect with some of these childhood friends and reflect on the shared journey we had and how Adventist education shaped us. There’s something about growing older that causes us to want to reconnect with those who’ve known us during the formative times in our life. I think that’s why the attendance at class reunions grows the further away the date of our graduation.
I don’t know if I’ll come back to write more in this section but some of the friends (in alphabetical order) who shaped me spiritually are: Darlene, Donna, Faith, Janice, Jayne, Leli, Preeti, Rosie, and Vicki. Together we planned worships and parties, hiked, painted and cleaned the school, shared photos, listened to records, dreamed, sang all the way through the hymnal on a road trip, studied, learned about love and forgiveness, believed we could change the world.
Early Adventist Education included the influence of teachers like Garth and Jackie Juriansz, Ralph and Connie Janes, Tom Chittick, and Brian Townsend. Ingrid Johnson, Dan Kline, and Bob Baker.