MOUNT VERNON — Family and friends gathered at Lakeholm Church of the Nazarene on Friday evening to honor, congratulate and celebrate the students representing the Knox County Christian Home School Association high school Class of 2008. Eleven graduates crossed the threshold from childhood to adulthood.
Guests and family members were treated to a picture presentation of each student, tracing his or her path from infancy to a senior in high school. Then Devin McBride of the U.S. Marine Corps escorted members of Boy Scout Troop and Cub Scout Pack 377, carrying the American flag into the sanctuary and leading the processional of graduates.
Greg Woods, graduation coordinator along with Tanya Woods, gave the formal welcome and invocation. Paul McElhaney introduced the commencement speaker, Dr. John M. Nielson, associate professor of religion at Mount Vernon Nazarene University.
Nielson first applauded the parents for teaching their children, for placing their highest priority on nurturing the children they love so much.
To the students he said, “Your parents have not made this choice because they are unwilling to let you go, but because they do not want to let you down. They have been unwilling to ignore their personal responsibility for your education, your development. They have sacrificed time and money for you, and they have invested time and money in you. ... They have provided you with an education grounded in Christian values, home and family.
“You are also fortunate to live in a county, a community, where your parents can partner with public schools in ways that are not always possible. For all of this, you owe your parents grateful appreciation. Please don’t ever take that for granted.”
Nielson then honored and congratulated the students themselves, and told them that as they graduate, they inherit a world that is hurting. One that is filled with people who are confused, stumbling in darkness, unsure of how to find the way into tomorrow.
“It is a world,” he said, “that is increasingly hostile to the values of God’s kingdom and to the Christ you serve and love. ... You must be the light in the darkness.
“You have been given a foundation,” Nielson continued. “Now you must choose how you will build on it.”
Using Moses as an example, Nielson told the students that God will be to them what he was for their forebears, and will be their guide.
“You don’t see the future,” he said, “and that’s all right. You don’t need to. As Christians, we have an advantage. We put our hands into the hand of the one for whom the future is as clear as the past. Trust him.”
Nielson and his wife, Janice, presented each graduate with a compass to remind each of them to keep oriented and to remind them that God has promised to guide them and to be with them.
Following the students’ presentation of roses to their mothers, McElhaney issued the following challenge to the graduating class: “Go and make a difference in the world in which you live. ... As you conduct your personal life, and business affairs, be honest, trustworthy and remember that your actions will affect others around you.”
McElhaney and his wife, Crystal, then presented diplomas to the following: Julia Anne Bennis, Tyanna Nicole Eash, Ashley Christine Etherton, Breanna René Harding, Leah Marie Johnson, Jack Brendan McBride, Beth Arden McKinley, Jake Alexander Montgomery, Taylor Scott Myatt, Way Josiah Perry Ward and Madison Nicole Zimmer.
