Easter Greetings from our Sister School
ANZAC Day is a tradition here in Australia and also in New Zealand. It also has great meaning across the waves in places where the ANZACs fought to liberate the people of the time; places like Belgium and France who still remember the bravery of the ANZACs to this day. (More on this next week).
For Christians, Easter is close to ANZAC Day every year. It is also a story of selfless sacrifice. On this occasion the death of one man. Jesus died friendless. Jesus died for all – for eternity. It is a gift that awaits anyone who is willing to simply reach out and accept it. Easter is remembered in many countries, also including France and Belgium, but it is also remembered in Germany. This Easter, our sister school in Germany sent us a message to lift our spirits during the Coronavirus isolation.
Press on this link, just in case you don’t have time to read the rest.
God is sovereign. He knows our paths and he has a purpose for all of us – even though we mostly don’t see it at the time.
Years ago, a Christian man from Germany, Friedemann, visited his sister here in Australia. He was a teacher and so he asked if he could visit a Christian School and she recommended Broughton Anglican College. The Director of Pastoral Care, at the time was asked to host the visitor. The only memory of the event was an email that he left and an invitation to reconnect in the future sometime.
Eight years later, that Director of Pastoral Care was the Foundation Headmaster of a College looking for a link school for a fledgling German program. And reconnect we did, through Frau Carolyn Clark, who wrote a letter to that email address. We forged a Sister relationship between Firstwald and Wollondilly that has seen many students travel back and forth. Our link in
that school was the English teacher and Deputy Head, Frau Wahr. Frau Wahr moved to the new sister campus, called Kusterdingen, as its Foundation Headmistress, and so now we have a sister school relationship with “twins” – Firstwald Mossingen and Firstwald Kusterdingen.
Covid-19 has spread all over the world and our sister school staff at Kusterdingen were shut inside with their families at Easter. They wanted to share an Easter message across the oceans to us.
Says Frau Birgit Wahr: It’s our tradition at the Firstwald-Gymnasium to give all students and teachers a blessing before a school break, and we finish the blessing always with the song “Möge die Straße..”, which is a translation of the well-known Irish blessing “May the road rise up to meet you”. We didn’t want to skip it, especially not these days, so we made a digital version and sent it to all our students, and I’d like to share it with you too.
You’ll find it on our Instagram account:
Best wishes, Birgit.
Please take the time to view the message. The sentiment speaks all languages.
Christ is risen indeed
