Principal's Message
October 2011
Every Place Exists for a Reason
Sometimes people come into your life and you know right away that they
were meant to be there: they serve some sort of purpose; teach you a lesson
or help figure out who you are or who you want to become. You never know
who these people may be; your roommate, your neighbor, professor, long lost
friend, lover or even a complete stranger who, when you lock eyes, you know
that very moment that they will affect your life in some profound way. And
sometimes things happen to you and at the time they seem horrible, painful and
unfair, yet in reflection you realize that without overcoming those obstacles you
would never have realized your potential, strength or will power. Everything
happens for a reason. Nothing happens by chance or by means of good or bad
luck. Illness, injury, love, lost moments or true greatness and sheer stupidity all
occur to test the limits of the soul. Without these small tests—whether events,
illnesses or relationships—life would be like a smoothly paved, straight, flat road
to nowhere: safe and comfortable, but dull and utterly pointless. The people you
meet who affect your life and successes and downfalls are the ones who create
who you are. Even the bad experience can be learned from, especially since
those lessons are the hardest and probably the most important ones.
Let me inform you about a part of education that most of you are not aware.
I will not attach names to these individuals because these are true stories.
Education at Ozark Adventist Academy is so much more than a report card grade,
an SAT score, or ACT score. It is also a home for many children who do not even
have a safe place to call home.
Let’s look even deeper into our educational system. We educate children who
have come from Hurricane Katrina. Parents put them on a bus and sent them
to Ozark Academy never to claim them again. We educate children who come
from homes where their dad beats the mother so badly that he has been sent to
jail and not allowed to visit the children. They stay in a cheap motel during the
summer and find a job far from home so they can make enough money to pay for
their entrance money to continue attending OAA. We educate young students
who will not go home because they are abused and beat when they go home
and stay on the streets so they feel safer. We educate students who have been
raped on more than one occasion and love to be at Ozark Academy. We educatestudents who no longer have their parents around because they are in jail due to
drug abuse or other criminal behavior. We educate students whose parents have
died in drug related accidents. We educate students whose parents have lost
their jobs. We even educate students who have no home to go to because it was
lost in a fire.
Also, we take them to our homes and teach them values, expectations, morals, responsibilities, and family lifestyles. We take them home and provide extra jobs for them so they can make money for cloths and other necessities that they need, as well as helping them raise money to go on mission trips, music tours, and athletic tours. We have them sit with our families at church and teach them the values of respect for the sanctuary and how to pray. We take them home during our free time and teach them how to cook a meal in the kitchen or on a grill in the back yard. We show them how to work on a car or to ride a horse for the first time in their life. We take them out for a Pizza or take an Asian student to a oriental restaurant for a treat. Teachers at Ozark are missionaries and what they teach is priceless.
Life is about who you love and who you hurt; it's about who you make happy or unhappy, purposely; it's about keeping or betraying trust. It's about friendship, used as a sanctity or as a weapon. It's about what you say and mean. It's about choosing to start rumors and contributing to petty gossip. It's about what judgments you pass and why, who your judgments are spread to. It's about who you've ignored with full control and intention. It's about jealousy, fear, ignorance, and revenge. It's about carrying inner hate and love, letting it grow and spreading it. But most of all, it's about using your life to touch or poison other people's hearts in such a way that could have never occurred alone.
Only you choose the way those hearts are affected, and those choices are what life's all about. We need your help to educate our children. Please be a part of our mission by sending a donation in the enclosed envelope.
Sincerely,
Mike Dale
For further information, contact:
Mike Dale, Principal
Ozark Adventist Academy
20997 Dawn Hill East Road
Gentry, AR 72734
(479) 736-2221
mdale@ozarkacademy.org