Wednesday night we had a farewell celebration at Tumaini Seminary. We received gifts, heard speeches, shared our own words of gratitude, had a fuller tour of the newly dedicated dining hall our synod helped pay for, and took lots of photos. I have feelings on top of feelings and am wondering when I’ll burst. So much emphasis has rightly been on the construction of the dining hall. Look at those beams for crying out loud! It’s not just structurally sound; it’s aesthetically pleasing.

But what I loved about the celebration was hearing from the head girl, elected by her peers and she is one of our synod’s secondary school scholarship recipients. Her speech was amazing, touching on all the issues the adults had discussed in our management meeting: scholarships, other improvements needed, the impact of the dining hall, climate change impacting the school’s crops which could impact the students’ ability to learn. I have never been so proud of our synod’s commitment to financially support girls in the UKD going to secondary school. It’s life changing. And the government schools just aren’t as good as the private schools; the statistics for going on prove it. (I worry about this same trend coming to my part of the world but that’s for another blog post).