Deputy Head of Campus - Burnie

As some of you know, from July to October, I spent 15 weeks completing a half lap of Australia. 

During my time away I was incredibly blessed by the rest and the awesome examples of God’s creation that I was able to take in.

I would like share with you a particular thing that not only really blessed me, but also reminded me anew of the wonderful opportunity we have to serve each other in the Christian Education setting.

I have never had 15 weeks off work before and it really is a long time, especially when you love your job. By the time we got to Alice Springs, I had been on the road for ten weeks. That is ten weeks without sitting in front of a group of children with my guitar!

Whilst in Alice Springs, I went on a tour of the local CEN school, Araluen Christian College. I know a few of the staff there, including their current Principal, Mr Rob Pople, who used to work at Leighland.

The Head of Learning took me on a tour of the school and when we got to the end, I noted that I had not been shown their Music room. ‘We don’t have one’, was the reply, ‘we have not been able to secure a Music teacher for a long time, so our students do not have Music classes’. 

Well, of course I ended up returning to Araluen the following day and taking Music lessons with their students. It was an amazing time. The students were very excited and eager to take part.

I led them in songs that I knew would be successful with their age groups and then at the end of each class, I asked if they had any songs that they would like to sing.

The 3/4 class asked if I knew the song ‘Goodness of God’. I explained that I did, but also that it was a song that we often sung at Leighland during our ‘Worship Wednesday’ sessions. We sung this song together and hearing the children sing the same words that we regularly sing here at Leighland was wonderful:

                        All my life You have been faithful,

                        All my life You have been so so good

                        With every breath that I am able,

                        I will sing of the goodness of God.

I think all too often, we can get caught up with what we do in our own little ‘silos’ that it is easy to forget that we are a part of a much larger organisation of Christian Schools across our amazing country.

As I was leaving that day, the children and teachers kept saying what a blessing it was to have music in the school, but I had to tell them, as I tell you now, those children in Alice Springs blessed me incredibly that day. I am so grateful to be a part of the bigger picture of schools all around Australia who have the privilege of teaching our students about the goodness of our amazing God.

Delwyn Polden

Deputy Head of Campus - Burnie