FROM THE SENIOR CHAPLAIN

OPENING OUR HEARTS TO HOPE

The start of this school year was full of hope. Final year students were buoyant; they had dodged the COVID bullet, their final year of school would be a normal one. And further down the school year levels, hopes were also high. Zoom classes and learning from home were a thing of the past. Bring on the excursions, school trips and activities we missed in 2020!

It didn’t take long for those hopes to be dampened. In fact, this school year has seen more things missed and cancelled than last year. Only now, at the end of the year, are things returning to normal. Face-to-face Chapel services resumed in November after a break of almost 20 months. It has been a long wait but it has come at a good time. This is the time of year when we begin preparations for our school Christmas services, when we start to focus on the hope of new birth and new beginnings that Christmas brings. At our first live Junior School Chapel service in November, we listened to the story of Joseph, who was betrayed by his brothers, sold into slavery, and thrown into prison in Egypt. Nevertheless, through his foresight and planning, he was able to keep the people of Egypt and its neighbours alive through seven long years of famine. “Was the story of Joseph a one-off, or can God still bring good things out of bad things?”, we asked ourselves. What about COVID? A forest of hands went up.

“We got to try new things”, one student said. "We got to know our families better”. One student suggested, “We love school more because for a long time we couldn’t come”. “We have better hygiene now”, one student volunteered. “We are more resilient”, another said.

Who could fail to have hearts full of hope when our students remember how, even in these COVID times, God has brought unexpected, good things into our lives? Turning our faces towards the year to come, the students can be confident in the promise of the prophet Isaiah that “those who hope in the LORD will renew their strength. They will soar on wings like eagles; they will run and not grow weary, they will walk and not be faint.” (Isaiah 40:31)

The Revd Dr Timothy Gaden Senior Chaplain