For New Life grads, mixture of sadness and excitement as high school ends

In a small classroom Thursday night, New Life Christian School Principal Jason Burrell gathered the members of the senior class around him one last time.

Burrell walked through some of the final details for the school’s graduation, which would start in a few minutes, and urged them to enjoy their last moments as students at the school.

As 14 of the class’s 15 seniors — one classmate was studying abroad in Sarajevo in Bosnia and Herzegovina and couldn’t attend Thursday’s ceremony — adjusted their caps and gowns, Burrell mentioned the crowd of family and friends who had gathered nearby in the school’s gymnasium.

“All the important people in your lives are here,” he told them.

Once they had all processed into the gymnasium, Jo Anne Boles, New Life’s Head of School, said she was so excited to see what God will do with each member of the senior class.

“We have enjoyed every moment with you,” she said.

Pastor Abe Pfeifer, the school’s superintendent, said that, although Thursday was an ending, it wasn’t the end.

“There is more that God has in store for you,” he said.

He warned them that, as they move out into the world, they shouldn’t get so focused on achieving their goals that they miss God’s work in their lives.

The class hadn’t always had an easy time at the school, Pfeifer said.

Just as they were figuring out how to navigate high school, they also had to navigate a global pandemic, he said.

“And yet, you did,” he said.

Adrian Amaya, one graduating senior, said before the ceremony that leaving New Life, where he’s gone since sixth grade, was both exciting and sad.

He had just moved to Frederick when he started attending the school, and he found it warm and welcoming.

Amaya plans to study business at Montgomery College in Rockville, where he’ll also play basketball.

He said moving on to college offers new and exciting opportunities, where he can make new relationships and share his faith with others.

Sabrina Liu also said the school’s faculty and students were welcoming when she arrived in 10th grade from her native China.

She decorated her mortarboard with pink, orange and yellow flowers, which drew raves from her classmates as they arrived.

Liu said she plans to go to George Mason University to study nursing.

At a table nearby, Nya Kelley was using a hot glue gun to attach a headband to her cap to help it stay on.

Leaving the school after her three years there was exciting, but sad, knowing she wouldn’t be together with all of her classmates again, she said.

Kelley said she’s known she wanted to be a teacher since she was young. She will go to Liberty University in the fall to study early childhood education.

Kira Hotovy will study elementary education at James Madison University.

She did an internship at New Life’s elementary school and enjoyed working with children, she said.

She’s attended New Life since third grade and said it was kind of sad to leave people with whom she’d gone to school almost her entire life.

Mason Wilson, the class’s valedictorian who had attended the school since fourth grade, told her classmates they had seen many changes during their time at the school, with teachers and classmates coming and going.

But even though life changes, God’s love does not, she said.

As they go their separate ways after graduation, they can trust that God is faithful, she said.

“Good luck, and farewell,” Wilson told her fellow seniors.