Farriers of Faith: Graduation Day(s)

The Guatemalan school schedule runs from January through October, which means we’ve just completed our academic year. The traditional end to a person’s studies, of course, is marked by a graduation of some sort. We just celebrated our Bible school’s graduation, and wanted to share the experience with you!

First off, it might help to understand a little more about our students. Many have never finished 12^th grade, or even 6^th grade. Some arrive functionally illiterate. For a lot of our students, Spanish is a second language that they don’t use often. (We can identify with their challenges!) A sizeable number of our students have to take buses or drive and hour or more to attend classes. Almost all of them also are working full time jobs in addition to studying with us. Though our monthly fee is low (between $5 and $15 U.S.), it is still a hardship for a lot of our students to come up with this amount.

Their challenges are real, to say the least. Then again, so is their hunger for the Lord. This year, we had 144 graduates among our three different levels of study. Let me put that into perspective:

That’s 144 people who have attended four-hour classes once (or more) a week for at LEAST the last three years, many of them for six or nine years.

That’s 144 people who’ve taken the bus, or the taxi, or their bike, or their car, or who have walked to come to classes in either our location or one of our 12 extension schools.

That’s 144 people who have decided that their desire to learn more about God and His precious Word was CONSISTENTLY more important EACH WEEK than whatever else they had to do on their class day.

That’s 144 people who completed their homework, took their tests, attended special workshops and activities, and sat under great teaching when they didn’t have to do so.

They chose Jesus. They chose the Word. They chose God.

Wow.

It humbles me still to know that people are being driven by their desire for the Almighty to take the harder but more important route in life. It humbles me even more to get the chance to be a part of a ministry that provides such solid instruction in Christian living and the Bible. I would say that I am the most blessed person on Earth, but the smiles on the faces of our graduates tell me that they feel the same way.

God is so good!

Below are lots of photos of our graduation events. My apologies for not getting more or better pictures (especially of the big graduation day). There was just so much to do that we didn't have time to snap pics! Because this was our largest graduating class ever, it was also our largest audience. The auditorium we use didn’t even have enough seats. What a wonderful problem to have – outgrowing the spaces you use to celebrate the work the Lord has given you!

Our first graduation - for licenciatura (highest level) students was at our facility. These are 3 of our teachers welcoming the audience and graduates.

Our director and one of the licenciatura graduates.

One of the traditions here is that the board helps the graduates into their robes, caps, and sashes. Here, one of our graduates is finishing the process. You can see (to the left) another graduate receiving her cap.

To be official, graduates must sign the book!

Gradates promising to uphold the highest level of integrity and service with the instruction they've received.

Worship is an important part of everything we do - including graduation!

Our speaker (a director of Bible schools in Costa Rica and Nicaragua) did a great job!

The lienciatura graduation took place on the last day of classes for the other two levels, so they still had to take tests once the festivities were over!