Imagine being a kid getting off the bus and walking through the entrance of your school. You are greeted by a smiling teacher holding the door open for you. Imagine, after putting your books in your desk, lining up for the morning’s Matins chapel service followed by your favorite class. Now imagine, you are the parent walking through the halls, and you look into classrooms filled with joyful children, learning from their benevolent teachers. You hear Grammar jingles being sung in one room, the sounds of Latin paradigms recited in another, and down the hall you hear the serenade of the orchestra or choir coming from the music room which is right next to the library where a kid just excitedly left, smiling with their favorite book clutched in their hands. Now imagine, you peek into the classrooms again and see not your children—but your grandchildren, the next generation. You think to yourself: “This is St. Paul Lutheran School.”
What happens in the halls and classrooms of our school is more than just a teaching of math, science, history, reading, and writing. I want you to know that the goals of St. Paul Lutheran School are threefold, that the children: learn to love God and neighbor through Holy Scripture and other learning; they realize their life in view of their salvation; and that they are equipped with knowledge and truth to confess Christ and know him better. The idea of “education” is not just an idea of a school building, per se, but a forming of minds, bodies, and souls. It involves prayer, study, and exercising the faith. These are the foundations of our Lutheran school. These are what make our school distinctive and unique. They are invaluable truths for the Church’s use to raise a Christian child in a Christian culture to be active in the life of the world. Kids are instructed and the faithful teachers have its basis in the Christian Truth within these walls. In our school God’s Word rules.
St. Paul Lutheran School is here, and it is here to stay. Imagine participating in the work of building up our Lutheran classical school, by helping create the space necessary to fill these rooms with wonderful students—each one blessed with intellects, brains, and skilled hands. Just think about how much more we could do to help our current body grow or even consider how many more wonderful children will go through our school and grow up and become Lutheran doctors, Lutheran businessmen, Lutheran professors, Lutheran tradesmen, or even Lutherans in politics. With a school like ours, imagine what blessings God will give us! We will have homes with singing, reading, and writing. Christians with Lutheran homes, having children, and sending them off to a good school like ours is the font of all things.
To be a teacher, principal, a pastor, or parent is a gift. It’s a joy. It’s a vocation. We look out and see these wonderful little children and we think of them and pray for them. We want to give them the best education possible. This capital campaign is also a gift to us. It’s a gift that we can use the same resources that God has given to us, a portion of that daily bread, and invest it into the children for the next generation to come. This project is more than just about a building but establishing St. Paul Lutheran School as an educational light in a dark world, illuminated by God’s Word and the teaching of His truth. Our work is plenteous.
Imagine, if but for a moment, entering this beautiful school building, meeting your children, grandchildren, or great grandchildren, and seeing them study, pray, and be faithful to God. Now just think: “This is St. Paul Lutheran School.”
May God be praised.
Rev. René G. Castillero