The Sahelian

Dan Field, on behalf of Sahel Academy Staff, shared the following commendation to the 2007 Senior class:

“I was particularly honoured and pleased when the senior class asked me to give the staff commendation as this class holds a special place in my heart since they were one the first classes I ever taught. I arrived at Sahel in October 2004 and after 2 weeks I began teaching math to the Grade 8 class who have now just finished 10th grade and the Grade 10 class who are the graduates we are honouring today. Both classes were challenging in opposite ways – the grade 8s refused to be quiet and the grade 10s refused to speak. Some things don’t change much.

"Daniel, you’re the first alphabetically and you were the first to arrive at Sahel. You are quiet and unassuming and don’t like to be in the public eye, but even so your honesty and integrity shine through. Academically you have worked hard and have been successful. You have served your fellows students well as part of a great Student Council. You have grown in your faith and your walk with the Lord. Today is a big day for you but I would say May 1st was a bigger day when you were able to make a public confession of your faith through baptism. Your love for your family is obvious to everyone, as is your love for your home in Tera. You now have to leave your home and your family as you go to college, but God will go with you. Trust Him and don’t be afraid to speak up for what you know to be right.

"DK, as you shared in your testimony a few weeks ago, you have fought some major personal battles during the last few years, but you have also experienced some victories with God’s help. You give yourself wholeheartedly to whatever you are involved in, and this year it seems you’ve been involved in almost everything. You have studied extremely hard (sometimes maybe even too hard!) and achieved academic excellence. As student council president you have grown in your abilities as a leader and the success of student council events does you credit. You have also served Sahel and the wider community as a member of the outreach committee. You plan to head to the US to study architecture, and if you continue to work hard as I’m sure you will, you will have success. Keep striving for perfection, but don’t get frustrated with yourself if you sometimes fall short. Remember the lesson God has been teaching you, that true fulfilment doesn’t come through good grades but through seeking first His kingdom.

"David, you may have been the last to arrive at Sahel but you have made a big impact in your two years here. You had a difficult and disrupted education and faced many challenges before you came to Sahel and it can’t have been easy for you to have to come here and find your feet in yet another new school. You deserve credit for the way you so quickly integrated into Sahel life. Despite the challenge of learning and using English, your third language, you have done well in your studies. You have a heart to serve. Your total of 140 hours of community service this year we believe is a Sahel record. You have a great love for children and the elementary students will miss you greatly. You have made a great contribution too with your work on the school website and as audio-visual technician for both school events and the Sunday Evening Service. Why is it you can solve technical problems but hate problem solving in math so much? You face another difficult transition to Korea, a country which is technically your home country but where you have never spent much time. Keep your eyes fixed on the God who has brought you through all the transitions you have made up until now.

"Emmanuel, sports is your area of excellence and I for one will never forget that hat-trick you scored in the last 10 minutes of the soccer game against La Fontaine, not least because that gave us the only proper win we have had in the 2 years we’ve had a team. You have served the school and the community this year as you worked on the outreach committee. As you shared with the secondary students last week, you have had many struggles in your time here at Sahel, but you have grown through those struggles, particularly in your walk with the Lord. You have had to say goodbye to some friends who were very important to you, but in doing so God has shown you more of the importance of relying on him. You are now at an important new beginning. It is great that you want to serve God in a special way with your life. God has blessed you with many abilities - work hard to exercise them for His glory. We will miss your big grin and the jokes about goats.

"Hadiza, you are another one who does not like attention and you’d probably rather just slip quietly away from Sahel without all this fuss, but we can’t let you get away without letting you know how much you have been appreciated during your time here. As teachers, we have been enormously impressed with your hard work, conscientiousness and attention to detail. These qualities combined with great ability have led to your excellent academic results.You have been a friend and willing help for your classmates. You would like to go into business and diplomacy. Your work ethic and focus will I’m sure drive you to business success. To be a diplomat, I’m afraid you may have to learn to talk a bit, but your integrity will make you an excellent ambassador not just for your country but also for your God.

"Ijeoma, you too have been extremely diligent and focused on your studies and you have gained great academic success. The way you worked to catch up on the assignments you missed during the weeks while away in Nigeria early in the year was really impressive. You also worked hard in fundraising for the senior trip this year which made it a particular shame you were unable to go. One thing I have noticed particularly more recently is your determination to make something happen when you are convinced it is necessary, whether that be persuading your math teacher to give you a retest because the first one wasn’t up to your usual standards (though that didn’t work out!) or finding a way to graduate from Sahel even though you had to leave at Easter (more successful). This hasn’t been an easy year for you, but we are delighted that you are here today to receive a well-earned diploma from Sahel. I understand chemistry isn’t really your favourite thing, so the doctor idea has been replaced by a future career in finance. It will be a good day for Nigeria when Obinna O. is President and Ijeoma O. is Chief Finance Minister.

"There are four traits which I think serve as a good overall summary of the character of this class – excellence, hard work, service and integrity. The world, which you are about to enter, is in desperate need of people with these qualities. You have done well so far, but this is only the beginning. You will find yourself in many situations in life where you will be tempted to compromise and take the easy option. I want to challenge you to keep going, to keep developing these qualities, looking to God to give you the strength to do so. If you do, then you will be successful, useful members of society in whatever the situation you find yourself.

"Seniors, it has been my privilege, our privilege as a staff, to be your teachers over the last few years. Thank you for your work, thank you for the great memories you have left us with. Our prayer for you is that you might know God’s richest blessing as you walk with him into the future he has prepared for you.”

This entry was posted on Thursday, June 7th, 2007 at 11:00 am and is filed under Sahel Students. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.