8th grade graduation speech

The Few and the Proud.

Anya and Emmanuel, I am so proud of you. While you are a class of fewer numbers than the rest of our grade levels, you exemplify the old Marine corps slogan. “The Few and the Proud.”

Congratulations on this tremendous accomplishment in your lives! I would also add to your parents who are here, Mary and Vinnie, Henriette and Reuben....as my wife and I were just promoted to Mommy and Daddy in our home, you guys have been promoted parent of a high school student! Vinnie & Mary are just graduating their oldest from Academy only to be replaced by Emmanuel. As I nervous as ever for the day when my little girl begins crawling…I can only imagine the feelings you guys are having as your once little babies are now taking steps and leaps into larger decision making without as much hand holding.

I want you parents to know both of you to know, I have witnessed them in school during worship, lunch, and PE, in Sabbath school, in Pathfinders, Serendipity and I got to study for baptism with both of them. These graduates have all the potential in the world to go and do and accomplish whatever they put their minds to.

Anya when I first met you 3 1/2 years ago, I must say, I misjudged you with my first impression. My first thought was. Okay Anya is a little quieter. This is someone who I doubt gets into much mischief. She’s probably not very competitive. Then I started running games with the kids for PE. We were playing Capture the flag out on the field and I discovered how sneaky competitive Anya is. She used slipped her small self over to the far side of the field unnoticed. I saw her and thought she was attempting to stop playing the game. (I was wrong) I said Anya, “what are you doing over there?”....Oh man, if eyes could injure me, she gave me a silent stare down, with the shush symbol because she was just about to make her move to the flag undetected. We would play floor hockey over the years to and I was always particularly impressed at Anya and Jenna Hopkins never backing down on defense against larger guys such as Micah Burgin and also Emmanuel. Anya is a competitor. I would also say, although shes got some definite spunk to her. She has a kind Christlike spirit.

During the height of the pandemic, Anya and Jillian Black would come for Bible studies. I watched she and JIllian help each other memorize verses discuss the different days passages. It was apparent to me, it was her desire to keep Jesus with her in the days ahead. Anya, you keep on being you and keep on being brave and bold. Keep surprising people with your spunk, but never lose your kind spirit. You have all the tools for the Lord to take you places.

Emmanuel. One of my first big memories of Emmanuel was visiting him at the hospital. He had had an allergic reaction and his parents had watched his face puff up like a balloon. I was able to bond with him over the fact that only a few month prior I had had to go the hospital because of being stung by yellow jackets. Emmanuel was the first person I was able to baptize here at Spartanburg. I don’t think any teachers, youth or pathfinder leaders would argue with me when I say, Emmanuel is a born leader. He is also fiercely loyal to his friends and his younger sisters. Emmanuel has a good heart. Earlier this year, he was waiting outside of Petsmart where his mother was grabbing some items, a homeless man asked him for money. Emmanuel didn’t give him money but walked with him in the next door Aldi’s and bought him some food. I’m am pretty sure his mother would have preferred him not to walk off with the stranger especially without her knowing. But ultimately she was proud of him for having a giving spirit and helping someone less fortunate. I imagine there was likely a “Don’t ever do that again without me or your dad present!”

Emmanuel as long as I have known you, you have been bigger and stronger than your peers. I feel like giving you the Spiderman advice from Uncle Ben. “With great power comes great responsibility.” God has gifted you with great power, influence, and also a good heart. Use the talents God has given you for good and I know you will go far. In fact, and Anya as well, your potential has no cieling. You could be a lawyer, you could be a doctor, you could be a pastor, and I truly believe you could be president of the United States one day if you put your mind to it!

Anya and Emmanuel, I was a child of the 1990’s. There was a popular phrase that Christians would keep with them. WWJD. What would Jesus do? As you begin your high school years, when you are making decisions and navigating temptation. Remember WWJD.

Guys there is no shame in a small class. When I was student at Mount Pisgah Academy, class of 2008, probably the year you 2 were born or close to it. We were the class marked by losing. We lost students to being expelled or not coming back, so our class was very small comparatively to the class in front of us and behind us. Our class would also lose at just about every class on class event. By the time we were seniors, we knew we couldn’t even beat the junior class because they had superior athletes and while we had 26 in our class, the juniors had 52.

I still remember before Spring picnic where we would be having class verse class track and field games all day, our class had a meeting. And I don’t mean to throw our class president under the bus here as he is still a friend of mine to this day. He was a 4 year senior who had known only losing the entire time he’d been a student there. He encouraged our class to not show up for the picnic and just bring lawn chairs and watch and get a tan. Luckily a few of us challenged him on this and most of our class did show up. There were a few who brought lawn chairs. But guess what. The first event, “the long jump” was won by one of our quietest senior girls. This girl Latavia came out of no where and beat the most athletic kid in the whole school outjumping up by over a foot. Amazingly members of our class, myself included, kept placing 1st or 2nd place in the sprinting and long distance running events. We had a guys in our class who was missing a leg, well that didn’t stop him from winning the bench press competition. Our class was feeling inspired.

Suddenly our class president started feeling inspired as well and got some of the other guys off their lawn chairs and got them engaged. We did start to lose a few events to the juniors but we were leading all the way through. We were nervous, though, because the next event was the high jump, and we didn’t stand a chance of winning that event. Fortune was on our side though as one of the freshman made his first leap and came down on the pole he was trying to jump and it broke. I was pretty excited because they replaced the event with disc throwing! Literally my specialty. Only Spartanburg church’s own Bruce Foster threw his disc anywhere as close to as far as I had. I know its silly thing to brag about, but it was one of my proudest moments I had ever had. We ended up winning the next 2 events and our little class marked by losing and finally become champions. We were the few and we were now proud.

I say all this to say, I believe you 2 should be remembered as few but ones we are all proud of. You have a fought a good fight and you have shown yourselves victorious over your greatest obstacles.

As we live in the internet influencer age. If someone ever tempts you into having lower expectations for yourselves, I want you to know that person is not someone I would recommend to serve as an influencer in your life.

Going forward your decisions will have more lasting consequences both for positive and negative as well. When it comes to selecting friends, surround yourself with peers who are making good choices. I know both of you know what that looks like. What I am saying is don’t lose yourself who youve become in these years at Eddlemon and in pathfinders and in our church, to the more popular ways of this world.

Romans 12:2 ESV

Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect.

The last thing I want to share with you are to not neglect personal time spent with Jesus. When you aren’t spending time with Jesus, its difficult to distinguish his voice speaking into our lives with our own voice and will.

Proverbs 16:9 ESV

The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps.

So although you are few, we are all PROUD. Because we know you are both capable of greatness! I challenge next year’s 8th graders to learn from the lessons, the achievements, and even failures of this class and come in and be great as well.

Thankyou for allowing me to speak to you again! I love you guys! Remember although your heading off for academy, this is your home church and I am hear for you anytime you need me!

Let’s pray.