A letter from Jay and Nancy Adams in Germany
June 2014 - A month of transitions
A month of transition for students and staff at Black Forest Academy
Betsy is saying good-bye to her two best friends this week, good-bye for good. She cleans their houses, helps them pack their belongings, babysits their little ones, and makes meals to help their transition back to the United States, their journey “home” after serving as staff members of Black Forest Academy (BFA), a school for the children of missionaries. The tears flow when she is alone as she realizes they won’t be back in August. Betsy is a staff member at Black Forest Academy.
BFA is home to more than 300 students whose families work or serve in over 50 countries worldwide. This diversity in ethnic, cultural and educational exposure creates a uniquely advanced learning environment. Founded in 1956, Black Forest Academy serves the children of international Christian workers and international business families who want a North American curriculum that incorporates a Christian worldview. Fifty percent of the 9th-12th grade students are in the residential boarding program.
Betsy is not alone in saying hard good-byes to close friends made at Black Forest Academy. The graduating seniors say tearful good-byes to best friends, dorm staff, and mentor teachers and coaches as they begin their college years in their passport countries. These are teenagers who have grown up in countries like Moldova, Uzbekistan, Chad, or the Balkans, a few examples, and now face the daunting task of transition into adulthood. Many of these students have blue passports demonstrating their status as American citizens, but they have not spent much of their lives actually living in the U.S. As the children of missionaries doing medical work in Africa or relief work in sensitive countries or evangelism in the Third World, they have had a rich array of language learning and cultural diversity as their landscape of life thus far, but little experience with American idioms and popular culture. Choosing between the dizzying options at a burger place can at times bring them to tears. These are teens who look like Americans, talk like Americans, know the basic geography of the United States, but don’t always feel like Americans. They may know more about international politics than the current state of affairs in their passport country and are often much more interested in the World Cup than in talk about American football, basketball or baseball. June graduates face a complicated and difficult transition to American life and a freshman year, all the while missing their closest friends made in their host countries and high school years at Black Forest Academy, not to mention their families who are most likely remaining in mission service and are thousands of miles away.
While BFA provides good academic preparation and training in life skills, the goodbyes are difficult as students and staff come to BFA from the corners of the earth and are dispersed to the “four winds”—as they return home to diverse places and destinations, or start their university years in a place their parents call home but in which they have never lived. The graduating seniors leave with a good education—the curriculum at Black Forest Academy is challenging and rigorous, in accordance with a standard of excellence built over its nearly 60 years in operation. In addition to the core academic subjects such as Bible, math, English, history, science and foreign languages, students are offered elective courses including geography, art and music, personal fitness, graphic design, computer programming, industrial arts, creative writing, journalism, and much more. BFA offers a comprehensive range of athletic pursuits that push our student athletes beyond the classroom. We compete in varsity-level sports against Department of Defense Dependents Schools (DoDDS).
BFA gives student artists the tools, the teaching, and the space to express themselves in a variety of media. Black Forest Academy encourages students in their faith in Jesus Christ, and those who desire to grow in their faith have numerous opportunities. So while the years at BFA are most often rich and full of growth, the “going on” to the next place can be daunting and lonely. Please pray for our graduating seniors and new staff members as they encounter good-byes this June.
Last, by not least, June is a month of transition for the incoming staff members for the fall of the 2014-15 school year. A record number of staff and faculty left Black Forest Academy this June: 63 in number. The new staff for 2014-15 are in the thick of saying good-byes to their friends and families, selling houses, attending orientation conferences, filling out paperwork, meeting with mission committees—planning to be in Kandern in August in order to begin serving as faculty for the middle school and high school for missionary children and as dorm staff, counselors, administrators, administrative assistants, maintenance staff, chaplains or librarians.
We appreciate your prayers for each student, staff member, and missionary family of Black Forest Academy as June’s transitions hit home. We ask for your continued prayers and financial gifts for this ministry. Thank you for your partnership with us as we minister to the students and staff of Black Forest Academy.
In His hand,
Jay and Nancy Adams
Joshua 1:9 : “ . . . Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid; do not be discouraged, for the Lord your God will be with you wherever you go.”
The 2014 Presbyterian Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p. 312
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