I almost feel as if I should not be writing this article because I have only been out of high school for about seven months rather than ten, twenty, or thirty years like some of you. For this reason I cannot talk about my career or my children because I do not have either! I am working on a career by continuing my education at Messiah College and children are something that I am not anywhere ready to be thinking about.

      It is funny to think of my first day at Fairwinds. I remember it like yesterday. I was in 7th grade and had just moved down from Pennsylvania. I did not know anyone besides my sister and I wanted to hide somewhere and cry because I thought everyone hated me. Though not everyone hated me I did have some girls who decided not to like me for whatever reason. This did not make for a good first week or two. My parent would always try to comfort me by saying how I would “look back and laugh” at the pettiness of it all and that “time would fly by” and things would get better with the passing of time. Though I doubted them, they were right after all like parents most often are. The girl who hated me the most became one of my best friends who I still talk to and time sure did fly because before I knew it I was graduating. There may be many of you experience the same things with your kids who are in middle school. Then there may be some of you who have children around my age (wow that is weird to think about) who are starting to realize how fast time really does fly.

      Enough about our differences; Let us focus on something we have in common. Since we all have gone to Fairwinds we all have a good idea what the pros and cons are of going to a small school. We have gone through the whole everyone-knows-everyone’s business and the whole not wanting to be involved in the trivial squabbling but somehow finding yourself in the middle of it anyways. But there are good things about being so close knit. My class in particular because a little family in its own. Since you were pretty much forced to see and deal with the same people every day, there were times where we fought like brothers and sisters, but we always made up and came to terms just like a normal family would.  Also, just like a family we had our differences, but by the end of the year we came to appreciate those differences. This “family” outlook is something I think most of us can agree we have felt while here at Fairwinds partly because all 30 graduating classes have been under 20 students. There is one other thing that I feel we all have seen at Fairwinds which is their genuine concern about the spirituality for their students. At every chapel there was an invitation to be saved and if it were not for this I would not know Christ as my Savior today. There have been many saved during these chapels while I was there and I am sure you all have seen the work of God through these chapels as well.

      Though I do not know many of you, we have shared some things in common thanks to Fairwinds. There will come a day when I will not recognize the names on the new banners won by our teams because all the people I knew will have graduated. There will also come a day when I will come to an alumni event and the current students will wonder who I am just as I did at Alumni events. But this is all a part of growing up or at least so I am told.

      Fairwinds has impacted my relationship with God in huge ways. They planted the seed, nourished it and watched it grow, and it has continued to grow outside of high school. It is definitely a school worth looking into. I hope you all had a wonderful time during the holidays and I hope you all have a blessed New Year!