Mrs Melsadis Fleming (3rd from left)
As the students at Campus B of the Albena Lake-Hodge Comprehensive School began their second term on Monday this week, they were given some very useful religious counselling by a three-member missionary team from England, Germany and Spain.
A special assembly session, for students at Campus B of the Albena Lake Hodge Comprehensive School, was arranged by the Deputy Principal, Mrs Melsadis Fleming, and members of her staff. The main spokesman at the session, on Monday 6th January, was Jonathan Page who hails from Cornwall, South England. He told The Anguillian before addressing the students: “My main job is to be able to encourage people especially if they are going through difficult times – whether they are young people with various social problems. It is in fact living a life of service.”
Asked what he would tell the students, he replied: “It is just to encourage them because they are at such a young age – and it is so easy to make choices or to get into a trend that isn’t so healthy. But if they are able to make the right choices, it can affect their whole life positively.”
The missionary told the students in part: “I want to share something with you all. It is about a special friendship that I started quite a few years ago and I believe it can last a lifetime. When I was little my father used to tell me about Jesus, but it wasn’t until I began reading the Bible and I said to Jesus: ‘If you are real, I would like to know.’ That day something really special happened because in my heart I started to feel a lot of love that motivated me to help others.
“I also started to know what was right and wrong when I listened to that little voice in my heart. It would always tell me the right thing to do, and over the years I learned to trust it and how to listen more – and I recognised it was God’s voice. It is going to be an amazing year because so many new things are going to happen, and it is something very special that you can start the year with and that is: a special friendship with Jesus.”
Mr Page has been working as a missionary in Africa for the past ten years and later in Japan, following the tsunamis, as well as throughout the Caribbean including Haiti after the earthquake there. He and the rest of the team – comprising Jasmin Kulbataki of Germany and Mariangela of Spain – are currently working in St Martin/St Maarten.
Meanwhile, Mrs Fleming, who heads Campus B, also led the students in prayer and religious instruction. She took the opportunity to implore them to take the quality of their lives and learning seriously. “You have a responsibility, first of all, to take care of yourself and to have pride and esteem,” she advised them. “Do not allow others to dictate what happens to you in life especially if it is negative and the path to wrong.
“In a matter of two years, or a year plus, you will be moving on to Campus A – a higher level of studies. What you do here is the foundation for what you will do at Campus A. Remember, your years in school will determine, to a large extent, the outcome of your adult life in many respects – for example in job opportunities. If you waste your time here or at Campus A, and you leave school with nothing, it will be a real struggle in this world. Your name must be on a piece of paper, so please have that responsibility to yourself to ensure that you take your education seriously.”
