Hurray for Joe!!

Joe is my son. Yesterday, the 29^th, we celebrated his 18^th birthday. Everyone was so happy for Joe to be finally initiated into adulthood.

But we celebrated something else also, which was of far greater value and significance to us as a family. Joe had just brought in a trophy! Joe had just finished his secondary education and, during the graduation ceremony at the school where he had been studying, he was presented with an award for the best-disciplined student for the year 2016.

I was not even aware that such an award existed. In the days when we went to school, such awards were unnecessary simply because indiscipline was the exception rather than the rule. But today, it is all a different story. This is a fact which everyone is aware of today – which made the award all the more remarkable.

In his closing remarks, the school headmaster nailed the proverbial final nail in the coffin by stating, “In this school, we do not regard academic performance over discipline.” By inference, this meant that Joe was the top performer in the class of 2016!

(The presentation)

I am so proud of Joe! And I thought… since I have so many friends in the blogging world, I might as well share my joy with them!

(Joe with a friend…)

(… and with a very proud dad)

By the way, we wanted Joe to select a song among the many that we listen to, to celebrate his accomplishment. Joe is a deeply God-fearing young man and we all thought he would choose a gospel song. Instead, he chose this song. We asked him the reason for choosing this song. He told us, “You will find it in the song.”