newsminer.com

Photo by Sam Harrel

A trio of well-traveled North Pole Christian School graduates paused Thursday night for graduation ceremonies before embarking on more life-changing activities ahead.

During the course of their high school education at the small, interdenominational school, all three graduates, Daniel Bourne, Jodi Irvine and Justin Renner, have journeyed far afield on school mission trips — to the hurricane-ravaged Bahama Islands and to Mexico several times.

However, the trips weren’t to balmy vacation spots, but areas where the students rolled up their shirt sleeves and worked, contributing to community service projects at schools, orphanages and in towns, while sharing their Christian spirit along the way.

Irvine and Renner have also spent their past high school summers attending leadership conferences in Europe.

According to the seniors, the curriculum and life-expanding trips were financed by school fundraisers, personal sacrifice and donations.

Family and friends gathering at Community Baptist Church on Thursday passed under an archway festooned with blue and gold balloons, to witness the trio closing one significant life chapter, before starting on the next.

This summer, Bourne heads to Austria for a six-month Youth With A Mission Discipleship Training program.

“I wanted to go on an adventure,” said the 17-year-old graduate, who plans to enter an electrician apprenticeship program when he returns.

Irvine is scheduled to depart in September for a similar YWAM program in New Zealand followed by work in the Fiji Islands.

Both Irvine and Renner completed their high school studies earlier this year by taking some university classes either online or on the University of Alaska campus.

Renner, a UAF scholar, plans to start university classes in the fall majoring in mechanical engineering.

Irvine’s eventual life goal is to become a physical therapist, but for the time being she is eagerly anticipating her missionary training.

As Irvine said in her graduation remarks based on Joshua 1:9, “We have a great God on our side that will be with us in every situation.”