On Thursday, April 25, 2013 the TCIS Chun-Jae Chapter of the National Junior Honor Society (NJHS) received 12 new inductees into its ranks. Dr. Roberts opened the evening with welcoming comments to the many students, staff and parents in attendance at the ceremony.
The NJHS Executive Officers: Kallee Miller, Tatiana Gobius, Sophia Kim, Rakia Segev, Jonathan Hyun and Leslie Cho presented the "Characteristics of the National Junior Honor Society" with comments on, "Scholarship," "Service," "Leadership," "Character" and “Citizenship.” Each new inductee signed the roster, received their NJHS key/pin and then the group recited the NJHS pledge in unison before the entire gathering. It was a grand evening.
We are proud of our TCIS students!
NJHS Pledge
I pledge myself to uphold to The high purpose of the National Junior Honor Society To which I have been selected. To engage in worthy service, Striving in every way By word and deed To make its ideals The ideals of my school And of my life.
The new 2013 NJHS Inductees: Hyun Ah Lyndsey Baik Elizabeth Chun Grace Hong Hoyoon Jeong Elin Kang John Kim Kari Kim Scott Kim Mackenzie Smith Caroline Son Natalie Suh Michelle Yoon Advisors: Mrs. Hannah Rader & Mrs. Jong Rang Bang
A very important part of Taejon Christian International School are the men and women that make up the Classified Staff members on the TCIS Campus. This group of approximately sixty people are all native Koreans and they are (oftentimes) the unseen element on the campus that make the organization run efficiently and effectively in its important work of educating students.
Some of the roles of the Classified Staff are: maintenance, general affairs, custodial, transportation, food service, security, secretarial, grounds, translation and business, to name a few. The expertise and care with which the Classified Staff do their jobs make a significant contribution to the work, mission and ministry of the school. During the second week of April, 2013 a reception was held in honor and appreciation of our Classified Staff at TCIS. Students from the Elementary School shared words of thanks and honor with our Classified Staff and the students gave them handmade cards of gratitude for their service at the school. The secondary school students shared words of thanks and honor with our Classified Staff and the Secondary School Student Council provided a gift bag to each of the staff members. Dr. Penland and Mr. Chun shared a welcome and opening comments with the staff and then everyone enjoyed a time of fellowship and refreshments. We are thankful for and greatly appreciate our Classified Staff!
On Monday, April 15, 2013, under the direction of Mr. David Miller and the Fine Arts Department, Taejon Christian International School (TCIS) hosted a KAIAC Music Event on the TCIS campus. The event was a LARGE ENSEMBLE MUSIC FESTIVAL with an ORCHESTRA FOCUS. The event activities were held in the Performing Arts Center (PAC) of the school in Techno Valley, Daejeon.
The participating schools were: Gyeonggi Suwon International School (GSIS), Seoul International School (SIS), Korea International School (KIS) and TCIS. Each of these schools brought their high school and middle school orchestras to TCIS to play for three guest adjudicators (judges). These judges listened to each performance and then provided feedback to the groups and assigned each group a level of recognition (score) for the groups' performance. Certificates or plaques were provided to each group for their performance.
On Tuesday, April 2, 2013 the TCIS Kulsai Chapter of the National Honor Society received 16 new inductees into its ranks. Dr. Penland opened the evening with welcoming comments to the many students, staff and parents in attendance at the ceremony. The NHS Executive Officers: Alexandra Zickefoose, Joyce Kim, Joseph Park, Won-Ju Chung, Jason Sho and Sarah Kim presented the "Pillars of the National Honor Society" with comments on, "Scholarship," "Service," "Leadership," and "Character." Each new inductee signed the roster, received their NHS key/pin and then the group recited the NHS pledge in unison before the entire gathering. It was a grand evening. We are proud of our TCIS students!
I pledge myself to uphold to The high purposes of the National Honor Society To which I have been selected. I will be true to the principles for which it stands I will be loyal to my school And will maintain and encourage high standards Of Scholarship, Service, Leadership, and Character. The new 2013 NHS Inductees: Chae, Daniel Jiwoong Jo, Da Kyung Kim, Jee Hyun Esther Kim, Joan Yeju Kim, Julie Ji-hyun Kim, Petra Song, Sung-Hyun Joshua Yim, Minjie Kim, Annie Jung-Ah Lee, Jeesoo Lee, Seung Hyon Ro, Ryu-jin Irene Synn, Yedam Ryan Yang, Stephanie Hee-eun Cho, Jae Won Choi, Chantelle
Congratulations to Dr. Penland Elected to the New ACSI Executive Board
The Association of Christian Schools International (ACSI) held their bi-annual ACSI Executive Board meeting on February 17th and 18th in Orlando, Florida, USA. Dr. Penland, Head of School at TCIS, and founder of GSIS, has served on the Executive Board as the International School representative for the past four years.
Over the past 18 months the ACSI Board has been going through a restructuring process—reducing the Board from 34 members down to 13 members. The final Board elections were held at the February meeting. Dr. Penland was elected by his fellow board members to serve ACSI going forward into the future as one of the 13 founding members of the new ACIS Executive Board.
ACSI is the world’s largest Protestant Christian school organization. It serves over 24,000 Christian schools in more than 100 countries. ACSI serves more than 40,000 students in more than 200 international schools in more than 70 countries. The ACSI Board is commissioned to provide leadership, vision, and accountability to the organization worldwide.
Sadness at Christmas 2012
Christmas should be for many people in the world one of the happiest times of the year. However, the events this past week at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT, USA, certainly saddened Christmas for most Americans. I know all of the TCIS community has joined in prayer for the families of those who lost family members there this past Friday.
Such events cannot help but shock us and cause us to reflect and take stock of where we are as a culture and world. Certainly as a Head of School, former principal, teacher, father, and grandfather it impacted me powerfully. Furthermore, I also dealt with a campus shooting on the high school where I was principal in North Carolina, USA, in October 1994.
Of course, first, it immediately prompted me to think about our own school security and emergency plans. We will be reviewing those in the coming days and make sure that our school continues to be safe for all our students and community members. It is our duty.
In reflecting on all of this I read the following blog entry from a friend of my father, our family, and myself. His name is Ravi Zacharias. He is a Christian apologist and writer. Here is his reflection that mirrored many of my thoughts over the past few days.
I wish all of you a wonderful Christmas holiday and winter break. For our Jewish friends and families, Happy Hanukkah. May God grant all our families a great closing to this year and beginning to the New Year.
Sincerely,
Thomas J. Penland, Ed.D.
Head of School
TRAGEDY AT NEWTOWN
Posted on December 20, 2012 by Ravi Zacharias
The tragedy that shook Newtown, Connecticut, and indeed the entire nation, defies analysis. What must have gone on in the mind of this young man for him to walk into a school of little children and wreak such devastating carnage numbs the soul. At the same time this was happening, I was under the surgeon’s blade for minor surgery. When I left the recovery room and returned home, among the first pieces of news on my phone was the news of this mass killing. Something within me hoped that I was still not clear-headed, but I knew deep inside that I was reading an unfolding story of horror and tragedy. What does one say? What is even appropriate without violating somebody’s sacred space and their right to scream?
I am a father and a grandfather. I simply cannot fathom the unbearable weight within a parent’s or grandparent’s heart at such a personal loss. It has often been said that the loss of a child is the heaviest loss to bear. I have no doubt that those parents and grandparents must wonder if this is real or simply a terrifying nightmare. My heart and my prayers are for them and, indeed, for the family of the assassin. How his father will navigate through this will be a lifelong journey.
When a mass-killer like this ends by taking his own life, there is an even deeper sense of loss. Everyone wants to know, “Why?” Not that the answer would soften the blow but it would at least give some clue, some release to speak, to hear, to try to work through. But all we are left with is twenty-eight funerals and lifelong grief. To all of those who have suffered such loss, may the Lord carry you in His strength and bear you in your grief. You will be in our thoughts and prayers.
My own attempt at saying something here is feeble but carries a hope that somebody listening will make this world a better place. My heart goes back to Angola Prison in Baton Rouge where I met such people whose savagery took them to that destination. It was interesting to see a Bible in every cell and to hear many talk of how it had become their only means of life and hope. Someone with me said, “If we had more Bibles in our schools maybe we would need less of them here.” To the skeptic and the despiser of belief in God, I know what they will respond. I am quite convinced that the one who argues against this ends up playing God and is ultimately unable to defend any absolutes. Hate is the opposite of love and while one breathes death, the other breathes life. That is what we need to be addressing here. The seeds of hate sooner or later bear fruit in murder and destruction. Killers are not born in a moment. Deep beneath brews thinking and the animus that in a moment is uncorked. We are living in a society that nurtures hate on many sides with the result that lawlessness triumphs.
Even in ideal settings, killing can take place. Murder began in the first family when a brother could not stand the success of his sibling. The entire history of the Middle East–five millennia–is a tale of two brothers. Centuries of killing has not settled the score. Maybe in Adam Lanza’s case we will find a deep psychological reason behind what he did. But that does not diminish the reality that there lurks many a killer whose moment will come and the nation will be brought to tears again. We can almost be certain of that. Yes, we can discuss all the symptomatic issues—security, gun control, early detection signs, and so on. These are all worthy of discussion. But it’s always easier to deal with the symptoms rather than with the cause.
I wish to share what I think we must address or we head down the slope to a precipitous edge of brutality. The fiscal cliff is tame by comparison to the moral devastation ahead if we do not recognize the malady for what it is. Hate is the precursor to murder. Jesus made that very clear. Playing God is the dangerous second step where we feel we are the ultimate judge of all things and that we have the right to level the score.
Here, I would like to address our political leaders and media elite: You may personally have the moral strength to restrict your ideas to mere words but many who listen to you do not. To take the most sacred privilege of democracy and transform it into the language of aggression plays right into the hands of hate-mongers. This is not the language of a civil society or of wise leadership. It is not the ethos of a culture of co-existence. It is not the verbal coinage with which we can spend our way into the future. Our political rhetoric is fraught with division, hate, blame, and verbal murder. Our young are listening. Remember that what you win them with is what you win them to.
As for the entertainment world, what does one even say at a time like this? Calling for gun control and then entertaining the masses with bloodshed is only shifting the locus from law to entertainment. Do our entertainers ever pause to ask what debased values emerge from their stories? The death of decency is audible and visible in what passes as movie entertainment and political speech. This is the same culture that wishes to take away Nativity scenes and Christmas carols from our children. God is evicted from our culture and then He is blamed for our carnages. America is lost on the high seas of time, without chart or compass. The storms that await us will sink this nation beyond recognition if we do not awaken to the rapid repudiation of the values that shaped this nation. The handwriting is on the wall. Freedom is not just destroyed by its retraction. It is destroyed even more painfully by its abuse.
There is one more thing. It is so obvious but is seldom ever addressed. All these recent mass murders have been done by men. Many of them young men, yes, even mere boys. Jonesboro, Columbine, Virginia Tech, now Newtown. Is there something within our culture that doesn’t know how to raise strength with dignity and respect? Is this how boys are meant to be? From bloodletting in hockey games while thousands cheer to savagery in school shootings while thousands weep, we must ask ourselves what has gone wrong with us men? Where are the role models in the home? Is knocking somebody down the only test left for strength? Is there no demonstration now of kindness, gentleness, courtesy, and respect for our fellow human beings? One young man on death row in Angola Prison told me that he started his carnage as a teenager. Now in his thirties with the end of the road in sight, he reached his hand out to me and asked me to pray with him. Life was lost at the altar of power and strength.
The Bible only speaks of one remedy for this: the transformation of the heart by making Christ the center. Those who mock the simplicity of the remedy have made evil more complex and unexplainable. Every heart has the potential for murder. Every heart needs a redeemer. That is the message of Christmas. The world took that child and crucified Him. But by his triumph over death He brings life to our dead souls and begins the transformation within. Unto us a child is born and He shall save us from our sins.
Before the first murder was committed, the Lord said to Cain, “If you do what is right, will you not be accepted? But if you do not do what is right, sin is crouching at the door; it desires to have you, but you must master it.” To gain mastery over sin there is only one way. Just as Victoria Soto put herself in the way so that the children in her class might live, Jesus Christ put himself in the way that we all might live. That is the beginning of the cure for us as individuals and as a nation. All the laws in the world will never change the heart. Only God is big enough for that.
www.rzim.org
A Globe on the Floor by Ryan M. Roberts
“The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). Matthew 1:23 (NIV)
My wife is a Kindergarten teacher and the other day when I was visiting her classroom I found it interesting that I had to step around a globe (a model of the Earth) that was sitting on the floor in the middle of her classroom.
A globe on the floor? It seemed out of place. Shouldn’t it be on a desk, or on a shelf, or even atop a bookcase? My inclination was to pick up the globe and put it in a more orderly, safe and “appropriate” location.
But I am not a Kindergarten teacher.
A Kindergarten classroom is all about its inhabitants. If the globe is placed beyond the students’ reach, they can’t access it. They can’t understand it. They can’t experience it together.
A globe on the floor is the sure sign of a Kindergarten teacher who understands and cares for her students. Where a neat freak might be inclined to put the globe in a safe and “appropriate” place, a good Kindergarten teacher knows what her students need. Regardless of any personal preference or compulsion for order, a good teacher serves the objects of her concern, affection and purpose—her students.
That globe on the floor reminded me of a manger and another good teacher.
God is “the” good teacher.[1] More than that, God is the creator of the universe. Even the finest, most ornate globe ever made by human hands is but a rudimentary model of the amazing handiwork of God. God is holy and awesome and transcends human knowledge and understanding. The rightful place of the Lord of all creation is in the highest, most majestic realm of heaven.
However, being a good teacher, God knew what his children needed. We needed God at our level—flesh and blood living among us.[2] God knew that we needed to know, access and experience him together.
In the midst of our need the angel proclaimed, “Do not be afraid. I bring you good news that will cause great joy for all the people. Today in the town of David a Savior has been born to you; he is the Messiah, the Lord. This will be a sign to you: You will find a baby wrapped in cloths and lying in a manger.”[3]
God’s son, born in a barn? It seems out of place. But that baby in a manger is the sure sign of a God who understands and cares for his children. God sent his son, Jesus, from the highest place in heaven down to the dirt floor of a stable on earth. Born to a peasant girl, in a filthy barn, the Holy one of heaven got messy and engaged in a world of disorder so that he could connect with the objects of his love, affection and purpose—his children.
A globe on the floor of a Kindergarten classroom reminds me of the Son of God in a manger who lowered himself, even to the level of a servant, [4] so He could be known and loved by his children.
“For God so loved the world that He sent His only son, that whosoever believes in Him shall be saved.”[5]
Merry Christmas
[1] Mark 10:18 (NIV) [2] John 1:14 (NIV) [3] Luke 2:10-12 (NIV) [4] Philippians 2:7 (NIV) [5] John 3:16 (NIV)
This past month in the United States, Americans celebrated the annual Thanksgiving Holiday. It is a time for family and friends to give thanks for their blessings and to share a traditional meal together. For many, it is also a time to begin the preparations for the Christmas holidays. Being an American, it has become a habit in my life to use the month of November, and particularly the week of Thanksgiving, to intentionally pause and reflect on specific blessings for which I am thankful at this time in my life.
I believe the act of giving thanks is not driven by what we possess or by a certain condition or position in life; rather, it is an attitude that we develop in our lives. We can have everything we could possibly want and be in the best possible position and condition and still not be thankful. In fact, we could actually still want more. True satisfaction comes only when we become genuinely thankful.
This past year the TCIS community has had much to be thankful for as we are blessed with a new campus and a new learning environment. We have been blessed with financial support, new friendships, and expanding opportunities. We have been blessed with new students and families as well as new faculty and staff members. We have enjoyed a year of safety, good health, and educational progress with our students. We have enjoyed a year of peace here in Korea. Most of us have not been severely impacted by negative world economic factors.
However, I am sure many of you like me sometimes catch ourselves thinking more about what we don’t have than what we have. We still wish for more even though we live in abundance. I have considered this November how I can live more graciously with less and not more. I have considered changes that will allow me to share more with others and consume less myself. I want to think more about and act on behalf of those who suffer and are disadvantaged and less about how I can become more advantaged and comfortable. I want to become less of a person of acquisition and more of a person of contribution with my life and resources.
November 2012 has been a month of soul-searching and reflecting that has made me more thankful than ever and more determined to live my life in a more gracious and thankful manner. I wish each of you God’s peace and grace this month as we celebrate Christmas, the season of giving thanks for God’s greatest gift. --Dr. Penland
One of the many great courses offered at TCIS is IB Music. The Diploma Programme music course is a place where students can build on their prior experience in music, gain new insights and understandings about the subject and work toward the development of new skills and techniques in their area of emphasis.
The course provides a foundation of learning that readily transfers into the further study of music at the university level and most importantly, fosters in students a deepened interest in music and gives them an opportunity to engage in the world of music as lifelong learners and participants.
Last Tuesday night our IB Year 2 Music students performed in an IB Music Recital. It was an evening filled with a variety of beautiful and engaging music. The musical talent of our TCIS students was nothing less than amazing. The students performed superbly under the instruction and guidance of Mr. Miller, the IB Music Teacher.
The Recital participants included: Raymond Lee—Vocal Mayumi Maeda—Saxophone Raymond Kim—Guitar Jiho Lee—Piano Ji In Kim—Vocal Sarah Kim—Violin Phillip Yun—Trumpet Jane Kim—Clarinet
The IB Recital was held in the new TCIS Performing Arts Center and it was the perfect venue for the outstanding display of musicianship by the TCIS Year 2 IB Music students. The next IB Recital is scheduled for February 2013. Don’t miss it!
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