Missions Emphasis Week

 By Esmarie de Jager

At Dalat, there has always been a focus on the spiritual development of students and teachers. We do that through Spiritual Emphasis Week (SEW) and Missions Emphasis Week (MEW). Last week was MEW, where the whole school had chapel time on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday. Although MEW was considerably affected by the current covid situation, a lot of good experiences came from it.

MEW has always been an exciting week for me since I joined Dalat in Middle School. Not only are teachers not allowed to give us homework, but we get to go hang out with our friends till “late” at night: worshiping, praying, and listening to sermons. Some of my best MEW memories were in the vintage chapel before the Harbor Hall was even built. Listening to the teacher tell their stories about mission trips and how they live out their love for God struck an interest in me to want to pursue God that way. Every year MEW has a special significance in someone’s life.

Covid has obviously made a lot of this very challenging; a lot of close contacts could not come to school, and several grades were out of school because of a few cases in their grade. When I asked one of the 9^th grade girls about their experience at MEW, they told me that they were quarantined and only watched the zoom recording for one of the days. A 12^th grade boy said that for him, the experience of MEW was “lukewarm.” Part of this is because of all the restrictions like only having the day sermons, not being able to have worship nights, and not being able to get into groups and pray together. This reminded me again of the challenge we are facing due to the pandemic.

However, a lot of good has come from this. Josiah Andrews (10) said that he “really liked it… loved the worship and sermons.” He also noted that Ms. Munson’s sermon stood out to him significantly.

Grace Neeley (11) said that she loved the worship and added, “the worship team did an amazing job.”

Yannick Theriault (12) said that he “really liked Uncle Tony’s message… about how we are made for the specific purpose of glorifying God.”

A lot of other people also had good experiences either through worship or through the message shared by the teachers. It makes my heart happy to see how our school is so resilient despite all the obstacles put in our way, and it brings me joy to know that this amazing tradition of MEW will be continued even after we graduate. Through all the lows that covid has brought us, MEW was a spiritual high for a lot of people. So, thank you to the teachers, the worship team, Pastor Bob and Ms. Henderson, the tech team, and everyone involved in making this MEW memorable.