The primary purpose of our trip was to visit Hebron International School in Ooty, the place where Sarah did her internship (1998-99) and served as a dorm parent, religious studies and ESL teacher from 2000-2004. We traveled from Farley to the school by auto(rickshaw) Wednesday afternoon, stopping at the new “Modern Foods” store to get a Coke (for me!) and say hi to Merely, the owner who remembered Sarah and was glad to see her again! Even before we entered the staff room at Hebron, the warm welcomes, greetings, and hugs began. In fact, the security gate man recognized Sarah and just waved us through without checking that we had any badges/passes! I was introduced to a number of the staff that Sarah had served with (and some new ones) and they were, of course, all glad to see her again!
A group of girls were in PhysEd class as we arrived and word “leaked” that Miss Hunt was here! However, Miss Rachel Carter would not let them come from their sweaty (field) hockey playing in the rain into the staff room to greet Miss Hunt and insisted that they stay on the bus, go back to Selborne (the girls dorm) and shower and then they would see Miss Hunt there in a while. Rachel, was/is one of Sarah’s closest friends from their time at Hebron, as they served as dorm-parents together for one group of girls during Sarah’s final two years at Hebron. We headed over to Selborne with Rachel a little while later. Even before we got to the door of Selborne, the girls starting running over, screaming “Miss Hunt, Miss Hunt, it so great to see you again” and throwing their arms around her! It was precious and beautiful to watch. (After being away two years, one could understand if these teenage girls had “moved on” and made connections to new dorm parents and new teachers… and they probably have… but Miss Hunt had made a lasting impression!)
After the emotion of seeing the various girls welcome Miss Hunt with such joy and affection, we then went to the Ds’ home for a potluck supper. During Sarah’s four years at Hebron, she was part of a care group that met each Wednesday night at the Ds and so this was another significant time to meet Sarah’s friends (even though some of the members of the group were different people from when Sarah met with the group). After a very tasty meal and good visit, it was off to Selborne for the year end all-dorm fellowship. This meant that all the young women who lived in Selborne, ranging from Std 6 to Std 13, would meet together for the last time. The sign on the door as we walked in was most “interesting” (to say the least):
TOMORROW
All-dorm Fellowship
WHEN? Wednesday at 8:15 pm
WHERE? Selborne Common Room
WHY?
*sing-a-long
*say good-bye to leavers
*welcome back Miss Hunt and
*meet her husband
So… about 80+ teenage girls from multiple countries of the southeast Asia (as well as other parts of the world) are gathered in one room and I can certainly understand another reason why Sarah loved this place – you really can impact the world for future generations in a dramatic way. In fact, as they begin to sing some choruses – “God is so Good” and “Guiding Light” – I find myself getting incredibly emotional as I consider all that God has brought Sarah from, and through, and now back to, with me. And as you probably know if you’ve read my previous postings, I’m not necessarily afraid to show emotion – tears of joy or sorrow or even anger. However, at this particular time, I feel I need to slightly composed as I am supposed to give the “testimony” or devotion to this group of teenager girls. (And they all know Miss Hunt and probably expect her husband to be an articulate, intelligent, brilliant speaker; after all he’s supposedly got a PhD! They probably don’t expect him to blubber like a baby when he gets up to speak!). Fortunately, I remember the #1 rule for speaking to youth – energy! Be energetic and enthusiastic – even if you have to fake the energy initially. So… Sarah gets me a drink of water and I get up to speak and… by God’s grace (of course) it goes incredibly well! I probably talked too long… but they didn’t seem to mind. I talked a little bit about how God brought Sarah and I together at the end of my talk and that generally goes over well with teenage gals, so that probably helped keep the interest. Afterwards, various girls kindly came up and told me that the talk was just what they needed to hear and that they really appreciated me speaking. So… praise the LORD that He used His Word to speak. We had a snack afterwards and sat and talked with various ones and then with some of the staff colleagues afterwards.
Although the rest of the trip was excellent, the first day at Hebron – Wednesday June 6 was really the highlight of the whole trip for me. We went so that I could see this part of Sarah’s life and that day encapsulated the key elements of it – the school, the staff, the students, the friendships with individuals within those groups, and the fact that Christ was at the centre of it all!
Oh yeah – one last thing: I knew it beforehand but I didn’t “click in” on it until after we got back to Farley that night. The place where the all-dorm fellowship took place is simply called the Common Room. It was in this room on May 5, 1949 that Sarah’s grandparents (Mom Hunt’s parents), Reinhard & Helen Friebel were married. Is God really that into “sentimental”?
PS Sorry it took soooo long to update this page!
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