Christmas Greetings from Notre Dame Secondary; Kumdi, Mount Hagen, WHP, PNG
Dear Friends Far and Near,
Can you believe that Christmas is only five days away? How time escapes us when we are preparing for a celebration! May your Christmas Season celebrations be filled with joy and peace as we experience Christ anew in our broken and needy world! Only He can give us the priceless gift of His peace-filled presence in the midst of all that is less than peaceful!
Life has been more than busy since I last sent you my Thanksgiving greetings! Thanksgiving was spent in Port Moresby doing the grade 11 selections for the 2009 school year. Even with another secondary school in the Province taking two additional classes, we were not able to place all the eligible students in our province in Secondary Schools. Over 3000 sat for the grade 10 exams and 1200 qualified in the upper 50% of the country and we were able to provide just over 1000 spaces in the 6 secondary schools. I will have a record number of about 205 young women if they all come! Our own grade 10’s surprised me with 85 qualifying to return out of 191 students! A very good percentage!
When I returned home we did celebrate Thanksgiving on Sunday in high style!!! This is one of the first years that turkey was on sale and even cranberry sauce! Our garden provided all the rest – kaukau (sweet potato), pumpkin and other vegetables for the banquet!
The following week was the last week of this school year! It surely passed so fast! Since all the clean up was completed when I was away, we could just celebrate. On Monday the students prepared plays, poems, songs, dances etc. to celebrate World Aids Day. They did a great job and even had some in tears as they presented their numbers. We are presently getting students who have lost both parents because of HIV/Aids. It is of epidemic proportions here! Some is due to culturally accepted practices and husbands with multiple wives.
Tuesday each class enjoyed a class picnic during the day and then we had our Christmas Assembly in the evening. Since real babies are played with rather than dolls here, Jesus was a huge stuffed rabbit this year! It wasn’t too noticeable until a group got up to sing a lullaby to Jesus and took the rabbit in their arms to sing to!!! After the planned part of the assembly, volunteers were asked to come and sing Christmas songs. Surprisingly there was no end to the volunteers, so after more than an hour, we had to conclude.
The next morning the students were up before five getting ready to leave! After all was in “perfect shape” we proceeded with our Honours Assembly so they could quickly get on their way. It was a wonderful year with much student and teacher cooperation!
Our grade 12 students did fantastically well on the final exams too! It looks like they may have topped the country in economics! We’ll see! There is great competition between schools and teachers when we get to the National Exams! Now we are awaiting word from all the tertiary institutions about their acceptance. More on that next time!
On the home front, the following week was the first retreat which I was happy to participate in and relax in the Lord! The same SVD priest in now almost at the end of the second retreat! The last retreat will be in mid-January. Sister Mary Susan returned home after completing her first year in nurses’ training! She is enthused about it and it seems to be a good program. On January 3rd we will celebrate when our two postulants become novices. Then there is our assembly. We will welcome Sister Anne Mary for a few weeks at the end of January when the new school year starts. And so time keeps moving us forward!
A special Christmas gift for Maria Kwin Women’s Resource Center and our School is a new dormitory funded by the PNG Sustainable Development Fund. This fund was set up by the OK Tedi (Gold) Mining Corporation in the Western Province which funds development projects throughout PNG. So we are back to building and expanding again! This dorm will give us 52 more beds making our boarding capacity 607 students!
Another new endeavor at this time is the NDSS Fund Raising Calendar for 2009! One of the teachers designed it! I wish I could give each of you one – they’re great with all our beautiful young women pictured in various school activities.
This will soon be a book if I don’t stop here to wish you ~~~
All the gifts of Jesus
Especially his loving presence
In your lives!
Can you believe that Christmas is only five days away? How time escapes us when we are preparing for a celebration! May your Christmas Season celebrations be filled with joy and peace as we experience Christ anew in our broken and needy world! Only He can give us the priceless gift of His peace-filled presence in the midst of all that is less than peaceful!
Life has been more than busy since I last sent you my Thanksgiving greetings! Thanksgiving was spent in Port Moresby doing the grade 11 selections for the 2009 school year. Even with another secondary school in the Province taking two additional classes, we were not able to place all the eligible students in our province in Secondary Schools. Over 3000 sat for the grade 10 exams and 1200 qualified in the upper 50% of the country and we were able to provide just over 1000 spaces in the 6 secondary schools. I will have a record number of about 205 young women if they all come! Our own grade 10’s surprised me with 85 qualifying to return out of 191 students! A very good percentage!
When I returned home we did celebrate Thanksgiving on Sunday in high style!!! This is one of the first years that turkey was on sale and even cranberry sauce! Our garden provided all the rest – kaukau (sweet potato), pumpkin and other vegetables for the banquet!
The following week was the last week of this school year! It surely passed so fast! Since all the clean up was completed when I was away, we could just celebrate. On Monday the students prepared plays, poems, songs, dances etc. to celebrate World Aids Day. They did a great job and even had some in tears as they presented their numbers. We are presently getting students who have lost both parents because of HIV/Aids. It is of epidemic proportions here! Some is due to culturally accepted practices and husbands with multiple wives.
Tuesday each class enjoyed a class picnic during the day and then we had our Christmas Assembly in the evening. Since real babies are played with rather than dolls here, Jesus was a huge stuffed rabbit this year! It wasn’t too noticeable until a group got up to sing a lullaby to Jesus and took the rabbit in their arms to sing to!!! After the planned part of the assembly, volunteers were asked to come and sing Christmas songs. Surprisingly there was no end to the volunteers, so after more than an hour, we had to conclude.
The next morning the students were up before five getting ready to leave! After all was in “perfect shape” we proceeded with our Honours Assembly so they could quickly get on their way. It was a wonderful year with much student and teacher cooperation!
Our grade 12 students did fantastically well on the final exams too! It looks like they may have topped the country in economics! We’ll see! There is great competition between schools and teachers when we get to the National Exams! Now we are awaiting word from all the tertiary institutions about their acceptance. More on that next time!
On the home front, the following week was the first retreat which I was happy to participate in and relax in the Lord! The same SVD priest in now almost at the end of the second retreat! The last retreat will be in mid-January. Sister Mary Susan returned home after completing her first year in nurses’ training! She is enthused about it and it seems to be a good program. On January 3rd we will celebrate when our two postulants become novices. Then there is our assembly. We will welcome Sister Anne Mary for a few weeks at the end of January when the new school year starts. And so time keeps moving us forward!
A special Christmas gift for Maria Kwin Women’s Resource Center and our School is a new dormitory funded by the PNG Sustainable Development Fund. This fund was set up by the OK Tedi (Gold) Mining Corporation in the Western Province which funds development projects throughout PNG. So we are back to building and expanding again! This dorm will give us 52 more beds making our boarding capacity 607 students!
Another new endeavor at this time is the NDSS Fund Raising Calendar for 2009! One of the teachers designed it! I wish I could give each of you one – they’re great with all our beautiful young women pictured in various school activities.
This will soon be a book if I don’t stop here to wish you ~~~
All the gifts of Jesus
Especially his loving presence
In your lives!
May 2009 be filled with Jesus,
His PEACE and JOY!
With a promise of prayerful remembrance during this Christmas Season,
Sister Mary Vivette, SND
Sister Mary Vivette Baker, S.N.D.
Notre Dame Secondary School
P.O. Box 164
Mt. Hagen, W.H.P.
PAPUA NEW GUINEA
Phone: 675-542-2150
Fax: 675-542-2175
Labels: Notre Dame Secondary School
posted by whponline @ 5:58 PM
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