An Open Letter to My Students

February 21, 2011

An open letter to my students:

Skyler, Noah, Kelsey, Jeffrey, Eric, Jacob, Brandon, Ana, Stephen, Ally, Kara, & Eliza,

There is a restlessness in my soul tonight, a need to express to the twelve precious individuals who entrust their education to The Trinity School and its teachers. I pray that through this “open letter” only serves to help you understand how deeply I care and love each of you. There are some who I have known for years are more, some, only months, but each of you have such a place-hold in my heart that cannot ever be replaced.

You twelve are the very first students of The Trinity School. You are setting the standard for what and who is to come - from your enthusiasm for music, to the beautiful pieces of writing you turn in to me, to the laugher, and the joy and the family-ness that I see in each of you, whether you see it or not.

You each are precious children of God, placed here, in this time and school for a specific purpose. Your names will go down in history as being the very first classes at Trinity... the very first students in our maiden year. What an exceptional honor you have given me, to make the choice to come to school here, for whatever reason.

We talk a lot about sacrifice, about service, about leaving what is comfortable for something that takes us out of our comfort zone. I want each of you to know that I choose to be here, every day, because I love you dearly. I chose this life, because I wanted better for you. There isn’t enough money in the world that can equate to seeing and being a part of a teenager come to know Christ as their savior. No sacrifice is too great to be a part of that.

I hope that you know how much I pray for you, for your salvation, for the worries and struggles that you have in your life, for peace to be with each of you that surpasses all understanding. I cannot stress that enough, how much each of you has touched my life in such a way that I am incredibly honored and humbled by each of you.

It is my greatest desire as your teacher is to love each of you - through the weirdness, the teenage squabbles, the interruptions, the laughter, joy, tears, fun, all of it. I want you to look back on your high school years and realize, yes, we had a lot of fun, but also, that you were challenged, that you knew you were loved, that you realize how special this place truly is. I want you to be challenged, to be uncomfortable. When we look within ourselves with honest and open eyes, we discover the truth about what is there. This makes us uncomfortable sometimes, and I pray that you are constantly made to feel that way in your discovery of yourselves. I want to teach you about life, I want you to learn from my mistakes, I want you to reach for greatness. God did not put us on this Earth to be ordinary. He made us to be spectacular human beings, with a great objective and goal to live for Him.

I’ll take the spiritual warfare, the teenage drama, the financial instability because it means that we -Trinity, and her students, are following the right path. Our journey has already been set, and our battle has already been won by the sacrifice of the blood of the Lamb, but know that each of you are here for a specific purpose. It is the teacher who was the hardest that you will remember the most, because you learned… not because you had a good time and goofed off, but because you came away with more knowledge about life than before. That is what my goal is: to be a living depiction of Christ’s love for each of you – enough to die a brutal and terrible death – so that we could have eternal life in Heaven. I don’t know where you are in your salvation… maybe you walked the church aisle a long time ago. Maybe you have always thought “God doesn’t me – I’m too messed up, too screwed up, made too many mistakes” and if that’s where you are, let me introduce you to some people I know who messed up, screwed up and made mistakes. Can I tell you that God cares about the one unsaved person in the middle of the millions of people? He made us to be strong, to have an incredible ability to be brave in the face of struggles and trials, and a resiliency that surpasses understanding.

You twelve are an amazing group of kids. I count my blessings twice, three times when I see each of you in the morning. I stand in awe at what you conquer in your own lives - drugs, divorce, death, depression, difficulties with parents, sexual immorality and impurities, language, distractions, trouble with friends, relationships with boyfriends, girlfriends, best friends, parents, grandparents, siblings etc. etc. I’m blown away by each of you and your ability to keep putting one foot in front of the other, every day, to get done what is needed to get done. That is a tremendous blessing to everyone you are around, including me. I pray that you know that I respect each of you immensely.

I have vastly high expectations for each of you - and you have met and conquered every one. I believe in you. I have faith in each of you. And I know that you will continue to excel, because that’s what you’ve come to expect from yourselves (whether you realize and admit it or not!). You have risen to the occasion of being “Trinity Students” and continue to meet us, step for step, matching excellence for excellence. It is a tremendous accomplishment, a step out in faith. Who knows what kind of influence you will have on the world - a pebble dropped into a lake causes thousands of ripples, affecting and changing the world. Each of you are a pebble, dropped into a lake.

Trinity is a special place, a unique place. I believe in what we stand for. I believe in our students, in our faculty. I believe in our foundations. But most importantly, Trinity is its students – and they are who I believe in the most. Because, without them Trinity would not be here. And for that, I thank you. You have changed my life, and given me more than I can possibly explain or even try to categorize. I know that I don’t have to be there at the end of your life, to see where you have come or gone. I do recognize that I am there at the beginning of your Christian walk, and it is an inexpressible honor to see the joy in your faces when you share your testimony for the first time, to hear your voices raised in song, praising our Lord, to hear the laugher from the next room, to listen to the questions being asked, the thoughtfulness of responses, and the responsibilities that you have shown to me.

In some ways, I wish that you could have a mirror that looked into the past, so you could see what I see in each of you - how far you have come, even in the months spent together, the strength of your spirit.

I pray that all of you know how much I love each and every one of you. Regardless of everything, you all are a truly, incredible group of young men and women and I am proud of who you are becoming.

It isn’t often that a teacher gets to spend 3 or more years getting to know her students on a level that goes beyond teacher & student. I know that I don’t tell you often enough, but I consider you family, and I pray that you have learned half as much from me as I have from you.

Always in Christ,

Brooke

Calling Prayer Warriors

Prayer Warriors:

Please be in prayer for The Trinity School. We are in our first year and have a current enrollment of 12 (wonderful, fantastic and amazing students). If you don't know, Trinity is a non-traditional, co-educational, private Christian school. We strive to strengthen Christian leaders through education. It is my goal and mission to be a vessel for Christ, to proclaim and spread His love through my students and for those students to spread the gospel to all that they reach. In order to continue to do this, our enrollment numbers need to increase... specifically, we are praying for 25 to 40 students. As the administrator, I would love to have more, but would probably pull my hair out - but I know if its God's will to send us more, He will give me the ability to handle it.

Please add us to your prayer lists - at church, at home, etc. We desperately need to increase our enrollment numbers and remember, we are praying SPECIFICALLY for 25 to 40 students (both returning students & new students).

I pray that you will recommend our school to those who you may know who are interested in a different kind of education for their children; we teach life, not just academics, and we're a family.

Trinity is a special place, with some truly special kids. Please join us in praying for the next school year, and the future of our school, and our students.

For information, you can contact me, go to our website at http://thetrinityschool.net/, or give me a call at 334-468-8756. I thank you in advance for your support and prayers.

~Brooke

Dual-Enrollment

Trinity is partnering with Faulkner University to offer a Dual-Enrollment class or classes through our school. There are a few ways that this will take place: (1) Students will enroll in on-campus classes at Faulkner to be taken on Fridays; (2) Students will take an online class through Blackboard; (3) Faulkner will send an instructor to our campus for instruction. We will be opening this up to sophomores through seniors from any home school group, as well as any Trinity student who wishes to participate.

This is such an exciting opportunity for our kids. Shanna Fields, the Dual-Enrollment director at Faulkner has been wonderful in working with us to make sure that our every need is met.

There will be more to come on this exciting venture!

Sanctity Walk for Right to Life

Yesterday we went to the Sanctity of Human Life Walk for Right to Life. All of the girls participated. Here are some pictures...

Ally, Kara, Eliza, Kelsey & Ana

On the walk...

Ally, Kara, Eliza, Kelsey, Ana

The girls

The baby booties represent every baby who was aborted in Columbus (over 1,000) in 2008 (the last numbers available)

We're in our first year of existence. The school was founded this year with the vision to educate and strengthen young men and women to be strong warriors for Jesus Christ through education. We believe in preparing them for life, in all areas of education and spirituality. Its really important to me that when the students leave Trinity, they leave with more knowledge than they came in with, but more that they felt prepared to go out into the world around them and stand strong for their personal belief system.

We are a non-traditional, non-denominational school, teach from a Christian worldview, and have chapel services once a week, usually on Fridays. We usually have an ordained minister (pastor of First Christian Church in Phenix City, Aubrey Cochran, who is also one of our teachers) give chapel service, or guest speakers (typically youth pastors from the area) who come and speak to the students. Right now we have 11 students in grades 9-11, and we will add 12th grade next year. We have a varied curriculum, drawing from Abeka, Alpha & Omega, and Apologia to the same math texts that students at Columbus High School use (I'm not the math teacher, so I don't remember the publisher!). Our health program comes from Purposeful Design Publications. Although we don't offer art or music currently, we plan (and hope) to add those things to our curriculum in the coming years. The students will have completed 28 credits upon graduation from Trinity; 4 years of English, History, Math, Science and Bible, 2 Foreign Language credits, 1.5 Health & Physical Education, we also have a Computer Technology tract for students who are interested.

Seniors at Trinity will complete a Senior Symposium, while Juniors take on a Junior Class Project. Our Bible classes for next year are offered on a semester basis - the first will be Apologetics and the second will be World Religions. These are subject to change providing interest & a qualified faculty member. The calendar for next year is extended to 175 days (see attached), and we also have a dress code that is going into effect for next school year. We currently do have a dress code in place, but we are revising the policy for next school year. The students are held to an honor code which governs them both on campus and outside of campus, including the social networking world.

The reason why I call us "non-traditional" is because we're a very laid back faculty, in a working environment. Our school is held in an office building in Phenix City. We primarily have class in individual offices and the conference room. We could be moving to a different facility for next school year depending on the number of students who we have enrolled. Our goal is to ultimately build a campus in the north Phenix City/Smiths Station/Salem area, but of course thats years away.

Tuition for next school year is $3,875, with registration fees ($50.00), book rental fees & lab fees. Those are projected to be $225, but this number is subject to change based on the required texts for next school year. We will be accepting payments through Paypal for next school year as well, or through personal checks. We have two payment options; 10 months or 12 months. Of course you may also pay in full.

Incoming students will take a placement exam to determine where they should be in certain areas (Math in particular), and will also go through an interview process (very simple, really just a "get to know you" deal with myself, Mr. Cochran and a member of our board). Most students who apply are accepted.

We operate similar to a college schedule - classes are set up on a two-day time frame for an hour and a half each. Monday/Wednesday is Math, Bible & Health.

We begin the day at 9am and end Monday-Thursday at 2:30 pm with an hour for lunch. We do not have a full kitchen/cafeteria, but we do have a microwave & refrigerator so most of the students bring their lunch or have off campus lunch priveledges.

About Trinity...

I've been thinking a lot lately about what the purpose of The Trinity School is... why God brought these 11 students together, the five teachers and mostly, why God called me to lead them. I'm a simple girl; younger than 30 years old, with no more than five years experience teaching and He brought me to this place, to carry the message of Christianity through these students, through this school. I believe in that more than anything. What I also believe is that our students are being prepared for greatness. They are being strengthened, daily. I've seen young men and women who have grown to lean and depend on God to get them through their troubles, instead of listening to the ways of the world. I've seen young men and women lay their hearts, their wants, their desires at the foot of the Cross, humbling themselves before God and each other. They have tremendous goals for each other, for themselves, and they have a desire to leaders. That's the objective of Trinity - to strengthen, sharpen, embolden strong warriors of God to go out into the world and spread the Gospel.

I cannot begin to tell you where or what these children will do with their gifts; all I know is that they will do it in the name of Christ and furthering His kingdom.

I am immensely honored and proud of each of them, proud of the school itself, proud that I am a part of something so very special, something lasting.

It is my prayer that God will continue to bless Trinity and its students for long after I am gone.

Registration is coming up for next school year and Trinity is no exception to this. Some days, I am lost at how to promote my tiny school when there are more advantages to other schools in our area. Trinity is special, and being a part of it will change your life.

I am prayerfully asking anyone reading to add Trinity to your prayer lists. We are praying specifically for 25-40 students for next school year, so that Trinity may continue to grow and advance the kingdom of God.

We pray that you are blessed as well.

I'm a worry-wart. I worry about everything, all the time. Usually, it keeps me up at night because I can't shut off my brain because I'm worrying about everything - from how to keep Trinity running, to getting more students, to if I'm being the best teacher I can be, to individual worries about each of my students... I'm so guilty of worrying that I've really tried NOT to be that way.

This is what I've learned so far about *not* worrying...
1) You can't worry about things beyond your control. As long as you are doing what God wants you to do, and continuing to follow His plan for your life, He will take care of you. He always fulfils his promises.
2) As long as I am being the best possible Christian I can, to lead by example, God rains down his blessings upon me, and the things I am involved with.

Case in point: we have to pay these things called quarterly taxes to the federal government... something I did not realize when I sat down to look at my budget and what all I could afford to pay these wonderful teachers I have. So we had this amazing night of Gospel music, and the love offering that was taken was EXACTLY THE AMOUNT we needed to pay our quarterly taxes. Tell me God doesn't have His hand on Trinity...

Another case in point: We desperately need more students. My goal for 2011-2012 is to have at least 18... 25 would be amazing... I've been praying for God to bring us students. He knows that we need that extra tuition money every month, even this year. So what does He do? He brings me a phone call this morning from a potential parent-student transfer.

Why do I worry about silly things when I KNOW that God will take care of me & the ministry of Trinity School?