Welcome back to Term 3 for 2019! I hope the mid-year break provided you and your families with great opportunities to create some more wonderful memories together. We have another busy term coming up with things like Choir this Saturday morning at Para Vista Seventh-day Adventist Church, Learning Expo next Tuesday evening, School Photos, Science Week, Book Week, Upper School Concert and our Year 7 Exhibition night. I hope you are able to join us for some of the events and share in the school lives of the children.

Over the break, I spent a little time reflecting on opportunities - Opportunities both taken and missed. This new term will bring lots of opportunities our way. I am often drawn to focusing on missed opportunities and wondering about the “what ifs”, but the more I experience life, the more I realise that too much time spent bemoaning the opportunities I let slip, only hinders me having the awareness to grasp the ones before me. I read this amusing, yet meaningful story that illustrates it well.

“The story is told of a young man who wished to marry the farmer's beautiful daughter. He went to the farmer to ask his permission. The farmer looked him over and responded, "Son, go stand out in that field and I'm going to release three bulls, one at a time. If you can catch the tail of any one of the three bulls, you can marry my daughter." The young man stood in the pasture awaiting the first bull. The barn door opened and out ran the biggest, meanest-looking bull he had ever seen.

He decided that one of the next bulls had to be a better choice than this one, so he ran over to the side and let the bull pass through the pasture out the back gate. The barn door opened again. Unbelievable. He had never seen anything so big and fierce in his life. It stood pawing the ground, grunting, slinging slobber as it eyed him.

Whatever the next bull was like, it had to be a better choice than this one. He ran to the fence and let the bull pass through the pasture out the back gate. The door opened a third time. A smile came across his face. This was the weakest; scrawniest little bull he had ever seen. This one was his bull. As the bull came running by, he positioned himself just right and jumped at just the exact moment. He grabbed...but the bull had no tail!”

I hope this term is one on which we grab the good opportunities that come our way and also, one in which we have the wisdom to discern the good opportunities from the not so good.

Have a great week with your kids,

Mark B