Thank you all for the many kind words of encouragement I have received this week. I am both humbled and excited at being invited to lead this wonderful school through the coming years.
Shire Christian School started as a crazy idea – could a bunch of largely working class, Christian immigrants from the Netherlands plan and establish an educational institution in a new land and a new language, with little expertise and very little money?! Leadership author Jim Collins would call this a BHAG – Big Hairy Audacious Goal – and it was. But they faithfully trusted God, put their shoulder to the wheel, and invited the wider Christian community in the Shire to join them. This wild conception, this noble experiment, not only survived but prospered – glory be to God!
I joined Shire Christian 15 years later (1992) as the school’s first full-time Music teacher. The early years were spent establishing a young department, starting choirs and concert bands, and guiding the first senior music class through to their HSC in 1995 (hello to Elisa, Guy, Pam, Sasha, Belinda, Ben, Catherine, Mime, and David). I loved working and teaching down in music and thought I would be quite happy to do that for the next 40-odd years. God had other plans, however.
Mr Stonestreet with Shire Christian School’s first HSC Music Class in 1995
Last Friday, my first official day as Principal, I came in early and watched the sunrise over the school from the front oval. As the first rays broke across the site, I heard both the echoes of past lives nurtured and discipled at Shire over 45 years; and the dreams and tantalising possibilities of what God still has in store for this strong and faithful institution – a gospel light in the darkness.
In him was life, and that life was the light of all mankind. The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness has not overcome it. [John 1:4-5]
Mr David Stonestreet
Principal
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