Saving South – A Second Testimony

Yesterday, I posted the letter I sent to the Lutheran High School Association. This blog post is the letter my sister, Kayla, sent. I loved what she said and am sharing it here with her permission.

The double-wide trailer and the brand new gym in May 2007

To the Board of Directors,

I am an alumna of Lutheran High South of Newport Michigan, and I believe that every effort should go into saving this high school. I attended from 2004-2008. It was still a small school, but we were growing and making a difference. I can honestly say if I didn’t attend LHS I wouldn’t be who I am today.

Not only did LHS give me a good education, it formed my personality into someone who can make it in this world as a Christian woman. Why are we okay with sending our children to public high schools that aren’t teaching them the basics of Christian faith? Parents argue that this will teach them how it is in the real world. Is that to let your friends and the modern world win in its ways because it’s more popular than Christianity? Our faith as a whole is falling apart. The USA needs equality between race, sex and religions… but for some reason, Christianity is the one that the world really isn’t ok with. When you are between the ages of 13-18, those ages are the most moldable. They need strong Christian leaders to look up to. They are spending much more time at school and with their friends than at home with their Christian parents. Some, not many, grow from the challenge. Out of 15 kids in my Christian grade school graduating class, I am the only one that attends church on a regular basis and the only one that went to a Lutheran high school. I believe my continually growing faith was able to bloom in High School while still being able to be a “teenager”.

Mr. Garrabrant was the principle while I attended. He was someone whom I felt I would love being like! He was balanced between work, family, faith, and all of his school “children”. Even if he thought he wasn’t balancing it well, it didn’t show to me. He was a huge impact on my life.

Personally, I was not into going to school, but friends and sports kept my attention enough to want to go to school and want to get good grades to stay eligible for sports. After my freshman year, I truly WANTED to be at LHS. It wasn’t because my parents made me go; I wanted to help grow the school. By my junior year we had our very own gym to play our sports in. It was AMAZING having helped break ground and build and clean that gym. Then we hosted our very own home games. And we grew! Sports are a big deal for high school students, and as we grew so did our sports. The year after I graduated we were volleyball champions and soccer champions!

Not only did I receive a good education, learned beneficial work and social habits, and grew my faith, I also met my husband there. Joe and I started dating in high school and were married in 2011. This school has built amazing marriages! Two more sets of couples met at LHS.  My sister, Shelby, and Frank graduated in 2006. Hannah and Tony graduated in 2010. Both couples just had their first daughters! This school brought these people together, and they have formed a life together. Not just a high school friend you see once every 10 year reunion – true, loving relationships!

I was able to stay involved with South a little after I graduated. I helped coach volleyball, helped my father-in-law with score board and went to the auctions and even got to sing the national anthem for some home games. As time went on and life got busier with weddings and houses, jobs and school, family and babies, we haven’t been able to give attention to the high school. But I never want to see it shut down. I was with my parents at the last graduation of Lutheran High East. My cousin was in that last graduating class. To see their memories literally demolished was heart breaking, and another Lutheran high school gone.

Please consider every possibility into keeping this high school running. It’s important for the alumni. It’s important for the high school students. It’s important for the grade school children who need a Lutheran high school to attend, which in turn makes it important for the community. It’s also giving teachers jobs and keeping the church Christ Our Shepherd open.

I did a little bit of research on school closings and why Christian schools are closing. There was some good information. Some of the points I found to be important: While discussing the pros and cons to closing, the school and its board need to keep everyone involved, especially the current students and staff. It needs to explain how the enrollment study proves that closing the school makes sense. It needs to stay ahead of messaging the public and control rumors. Remember that every decision will affect the kids. Don’t ignore what the people are saying even if you don’t agree – really listen. Don’t make promises that can’t be kept. Remember that there is a cost to closing just as much as there is to keep it open. I found all of these to be good points and agreeable.

Now I don’t claim to know how to run a school. I don’t know the ins and outs of LHS at this time. But I do know that a lot of people would hate to see the school shut down for all the reasons I’ve listed. I’m sure we are all willing to do our part in helping to keep it running and to give a future to the next generation.

Thank you for taking the time to read my concerns and hopes. We will be praying hard! As Pastor Terry Cashmer says before our prayers, “It’s time to go to work.”

Sincerely,
Kayla

Saving South

My high school experience was vastly different from the average American’s high school experience. I had a Christian education. I had only a handful of teachers. My school building was a double wide trailer. My graduating class had five people – four boys and me. My teenage years were extremely difficult, but my high school experience was one of the best experiences of my life. Hearing that Lutheran High South – Newport, Michigan may close is heart-wrenching news.

I could write a 500 page book on all the ways LHS benefited me. I’ll try to keep this simple and get to the main point, which is this: LHS has something to offer that no other high school in its location can offer, and that is a Christian education.

This world bombards Christians with temptations. Drugs, alcohol, premarital sex, to name a few. This world slanders Christians, often making us feel like we need to hide our faith. As teenagers grow in their independence and identity, the most important thing for teenagers is to be surrounded by people who will nurture their faith.

Allow me to share my story. I struggled with clinical depression as far back as I can remember, which is about four years of age. My first thoughts of suicide occurred in fifth grade. My family and I survived a home explosion just after I finished my seventh grade year. By the time I entered high school, I was drowning in depression and anxiety and questioning my faith in God. I was blessed with Christian parents, but they needed a support system. They needed to know their daughter’s faith and emotional well-being were being noticed and cared for at school.

My teachers at LHS never gave up on me. They never stopped teaching me that I mattered. Integrated into every school subject was the lesson that God created me and loved me and had a plan for me. My teachers prayed for me and with me. There were many times depression almost won. There were times I could no longer fight it, but my teachers and my principal never stopped fighting.

My LHS teachers and classmates were my family. By the time I graduated high school, my faith was stronger than it had ever been. I was on my way to becoming stable. The relationships I made at LHS have lasted me throughout the years since. In fact, my classmates and teachers literally became my family; My sister met her husband at LHS. I met my husband at LHS. His parents, our teachers, are now my mother-in-law and father-in-law. His brothers are now my brothers-in-law. I cannot imagine my life without them. And the best thing yet, we now have a daughter together. I am so grateful our baby, Esther, will grow up in a loving Christian family – a family she would not have had LHS not been there.

The ways God blessed me at South became even more obvious to me while I was in college. I was studying to be a teacher, and I was doing my field work in the Ann Arbor public schools. One of the high schools I worked in is said to be one of the best high schools in the state. In fact, students are not assigned to that school according to where they live; they attend that school by winning a lottery. I was excited to work there. One day, euthanasia was the topic in the debate class. The discussion began with students debating whether or not the elderly and terminally ill should have the right to assisted suicide. To my horror, the question eventually became “Should those suffering from clinical depression have the right to commit suicide?”  All the students – over 50 of them – came to the agreement that if someone has been diagnosed with clinical depression, assisted suicide should be an option for them. Had this discussion happened among my classmates at LHS, I know any one of my teachers would have stepped in and reminded us that even if we are broken and suffering, God has a plan for us. We still have value. We still can be used by Him to do amazing things in this hurting world. The teacher in this classroom did not say a single word. Those students went home that day believing suicide was an answer to clinical depression. I guarantee that with how common clinical depression is, at least one of those students was struggling with it. I can also guarantee that had I experienced that debate and the silence from my teacher while I was a teenager dealing with clinical depression and suicidal thoughts, I might not have come to school the next day because I might not have been alive the next day.

I close with this thought: One of my college professors recently wrote an article on his blog, Day1Of1 – A Mile in My Schu’s titled “Kathleen Elizabeth” about the death of one of his students. He struggled with the feeling that teaching did not matter, because life ends in death. No math, science, or literature class prevents death. But he finally realized that teaching his students about God and His love and the hope we have of heaven is what makes any teaching job worthwhile. I know we have recently lost an LHS graduate to cancer. How beautiful that he was able to receive a Christian education during the last few years of his life. How miraculous that he could have assurance of Salvation through Jesus, and that Lutheran South could play a small part in that.

I beg you, the Lutheran High School Association, to give Lutheran High South more time to recruit students. I understand money and low enrollment is the problem. I understand parents hesitate to send their teens to a small school that doesn’t have all the extracurricular activities and sports other schools have. But I ask that the LHSA will give South another chance, because the Monroe area needs a school like South. Teenagers need a safe place to learn. Give the alumni, the teachers, and the current students more time to get the word out that South offers something more important than secular class ever could. It is a school that offers the Word of God, in religion classes, chapel services, and any extracurricular activity. Give us time to share our testimonies with the community. I guarantee that once people hear our stories, they will want their children to have a Christian high school experience, too.

For all the saints. To God be the glory. Amen.

Sincerely,
Shelby Lucas (nee Zink)
Class of 2006
Third graduating class