Welcome to Term 4!

I hope your holidays were restful – they can be such a complex time. I find them inevitably intense and am no great role model in this regard. Like many of you, much of the term is spent just trying to juggle everything - work, kids sport, teenage dramas. 

It can feel like I am metaphorically just ‘driving the car’, trying to keep things moving, and I don’t have the time to investigate those strange noises, or fix that broken visor, or sort out the balding tires. 

So, I just gaffer tape life together to make it through, hoping the holidays can provide the pause where serious maintenance can happen. Inevitably by the time they arrive I am too depleted to feel like addressing any major repairs, let alone question if I am ‘driving’ in the right direction.

My solution this time was to go interstate, a rarity for our family, in the somewhat desperate hope that enclosing the maelstrom of my family into an even smaller space, but with sun, would sort everything out.

It didn’t quite – but warmth and water and a broader horizon was incredibly rejuvenating, and whilst lots of life maintenance was ignored, I did resume my annual burst of doing push-ups, which seemed so profoundly important last February (I give myself a week). 

And in amongst my general sense that perhaps I am not doing a very good job of this life thing, I was reminded, through a retelling of the story of the Prodigal Son, of God’s extravagant grace and affection and felt so incredibly grateful. “Thanks be to Christ” if I could borrow Paul’s expression of relief after marinating in his own failings in Romans 7.

For our Senior students (and their parents), Term 4 moves fast. We had the Year 12 Breakfast on Monday (thank you parents and FOD!) with practice exams following. The VCE Art Soiree is this evening! Followed by the final week of school and the Year 12 Assembly and Carnival and, of course exams. 

It is a big term for Year 9 with City Experience and The Year 8’s have their camp at Roses Gap. We embark on our process for student leadership selection, and the 2026 Production rehearsals will gain momentum. Toward the end of term there are assessment tasks, ‘Stepping Up’, our 50th Thanksgiving Service and end of year program – all in amongst our usual timetable. 

So, strap yourselves in and I hope you and the students enjoy the term and see ‘God at work’ in all we do.