Greetings, Patriot Families,
To the surprise of pretty much nobody, I will admit that I am irrationally excited about quirky math facts. My nerdiness takes full flight when I think of things like perfect numbers, happy numbers, golden ratios, and so on. (Feel free to look those up if you like. I don’t mind waiting.) One of the simple math concepts that I enjoy (and one many of you will know) is the fact that any number whose digits add to a multiple of 3, must itself be a multiple of 3. For example, if you cannot remember if 1,059 is divisible by 3, just add 1+5+9 to make 15, which is divisible by 3, so 1,059 must be divisible by 3. Why do I torment you with these math facts? Well, because we are exactly 1/3 of the way through the school year, and I couldn’t help getting sidetracked thinking about that number 3 thing again. Thanks for bearing with me.
During this first third of the year, there has been much for which we should be thankful. From all of the success that our Habersham Patriots have had both in the classroom and outside of it, to the Braves pulling off an incredible postseason run, to your favorite college football team being 8-0 after an incredible win over their biggest rival (we are talking about the Michigan State Spartans, right?), it has been a lively couple of months in our community, the state, and in our nation. And yet, there is no escaping the fact that our country is more politically divided than it has been in several generations, and there is a boisterous attack on the most basic elements of truth in our culture. It is into this mixture of celebration and chaos that our students are called to learn and grow, and of course it is into this quagmire that our parents, faculty, and staff must work together to cultivate that growth. I am convinced that God built The Habersham School for precisely this task, at exactly this time.
It is a difficult calling, to be sure. Our young people are incessantly bombarded with images and messaging designed to persuade them that they should do what feels right rather than what is right, that sharing truth with someone means you hate them, and even that something as obvious as male and female is a debatable topic. No school can compete with the ubiquitous power of social media and the internet when it comes to influencing kids, so most schools have given up trying. Thankfully, we aren’t most schools. Our mission is to use education to help restore the image of God in our students, even as that image has been marred by sin. Our kids are learning that there is real truth, and it is first and foremost revealed by God through His word, and no amount of clever memes or Tik-Tok rants from “influencers” can change that truth. This truth speaks to every aspect of their learning. From the truth conveyed by language as children learn to read, to God’s orchestration of history to fulfill His purposes, to the beauty found in well-made music, to the very laws of nature that allow us to create new medicines and technologies, and even to the remarkable rules of mathematics that give nerds like me a perpetual sense of wonder, God’s truth speaks to all parts of our existence.
The education we provide is designed to impress upon our students the great value of pursuing what is true and good and beautiful, especially when those concepts are openly mocked in our society. It is in these moments, when the tide is against God’s truth, that being built up and rooted in that truth is more important than ever. We ask that God grows our students to be like the Psalmist’s tree that is, “planted by streams of water, which yields its fruit in season and whose leaf does not wither— whatever they do prospers.” (Ps. 1:3; there’s that number again.) This is the goal toward which our faculty and staff have labored during the first trimester, and we could not be happier to already see some of the fruit springing from that effort.
There is no question that God is doing important work through our school, and we invite you to take advantage of the privilege of investing in that work. As I have noted before, there are several ways to support what we are doing, the most important being to pray for everyone in our school community. Beyond that, we also ask that you utilize the Georgia GOAL program to redirect some of your state tax dollars to our school. This ultimately saves you money and helps fund tuition for our students. Of course, The Habersham Fund is also off and running, and this is a great opportunity for you to invest in every aspect of our school. This annual fund is critical for meeting our operational costs and allowing us to enhance our programs. Finally, we will soon start selling tickets for our illumination event to be held January 20th, 2022. Be on the lookout to purchase tickets for this wonderful event to celebrate our school.
I don’t know exactly how the Lord will use the next two-thirds of our school year, but I am excited to partner with Him, and all of you, to keep fighting the good fight. Until next time, Go Patriots!
Soli Deo Gloria,
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