Spiritual Emphasis Weekends March 10-16, 2016 Newsletter #24

Some of our students participated in the country-wide Mathletics competition recently. This is an online, timed contest where students do calculations as quickly as possible. JuYoung earned 3rd place among the students in her grade that competed from schools all over the country! She won a calculator! We had another competition last Friday just among our students, sponsored by the same organization, so we will report on that when we get the results. Thanks to Miss Logan and Mr. Lehmann for setting up this fun, yet challenging activity for our students!

The last two weekends have been Spiritual Emphasis Weekends at Sandes for the high school students. Uncle Isaiah reports: Mr. Fyffe was the speaker for the Junior High. They enjoyed all of his messages based on the theme, "Guard the Gate". This is a very appropriate topic for teenagers who have to guard against the many temptations of the secular world. Mr. Fyffe shared about our senses and how we need to learn to use these to guard our lives instead of allowing Satan to use these to tempt us into sin.

We had a lunch out on Saturday at an open restaurant, which overlooked the mountains, and enjoyed soft drinks, chicken karahi, vegetables, roti and chai.

Although it was mostly foggy and raining during the 2-day retreat, it was a shower of blessings as the boys and girls learn to focus on spiritual things. They also played board games, jigsaw puzzles, watched movies and enjoyed the sauna. Some created a bonfire on Sat night and enjoyed the warmth and fun of just keeping the flame going in the damp weather!

The sun came back when we were ready to pack up and everyone was equally excited to enjoy the warmth of the sun back at MCS. Blessings of sunshine after a shower of blessings at Sandes!”

The next weekend, the Senior High had Mr. Newmarch and his daughter, Emma, as their special speakers. Even with the rain, they had a good time.

Uncle Hans organized a Sports Chapel to acknowledge the accomplishments of the Middle School basketball and volleyball teams at their tournament at ISOI recently. Our students had good attitudes and were accepting and helpful to the home school kids that joined our teams. The girls got 1st in basketball. Everyone’s sportsmanship was excellent.

In Church, we enjoyed having Dr. Scott Armistead visit and speak to us! He illustrated Luke 6 and revealed how we tend to treat some people as enemies, and how that is so different from how Jesus said we should treat them.

Because of the adjusted timetable this week, we had another Chapel on Tuesday, (which really confuses us!). Uncle Hans showed pictures from his recent trip to South Africa to visit his family on his mother’s 80th birthday!

Uncle Isaiah wrote about the weekend activity: The Junior High played “marathon games” which was a series of 3 games, table tennis, table-soccer and 'chatay', packed into 2 hours. (chatay is a feather-shuttle game played in Singapore during our growing up years). We had a prize incentive (a big packet of chips for each game winner) so that each pair would try their best to win the prize. 1 Thess 5:14 was shared with the participants so that they would apply Christian principles and attitudes to their game and work as a team.

*Alumni*

We were glad to have Dr. Scott Armistead here this weekend. He reports that his family is doing well. Jared is at university and got a report that he is clear of cancer, Noah is completing his gap year at Impact 360 and has been to Brazil, and Seth is finishing grade 11.

Zack Rivenbark (Class of 2012) will graduate from U. of N. Carolina in May with a degree in English and Professional Writing. Josh will be finishing high school in India in May too. He will start at North Greenville University in August to study nursing.

Praise and Prayer Requests:

Praise for concentrated times of spiritual formation and the volunteers who come to teach! Pray for continued growth and commitment.

Pray for students who might consider the important step of baptism this year.

Pray for Nancy Stewart as she has more chemo March 22nd.

Pray for our staff needs for next year: Pray for pending applications and new visas!

You will find an updated flyer on our website that you can post in your church or send to those interested.