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Portland Christian Schools 70th Anniversary Celebration

Added Nov 02, 2017 •

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"Are we there yet? Not by a long shot." Alumni and 2017 graduates share and reflect on their experiences at PCS as "we remain true, without compromise, to His word and the Biblical principals upon which this school was founded." Alumni Director, Jeanne Lampi also shares that "the Lord has much more for Portland Christian Schools to do AND He has much more to teach us."

Show Transcript

Hello, my name is Evelyn Corkum Boys. I graduated from Portland Christian in 1953. My life was changed when I started at Portland Christian in grade seven. I learned to make better decisions. I learned to respect the Scripture and to love God and love our Lord. Portland Christian impacted me in helping me to choose better. I was very pleased that the Scriptures verified what I was believing in faith. I have been able to clearly see members of my family grow in their faith. That is very dear to my heart. Portland Christian was designed to be respectful of the students and the students being respectful of each other. And the way that we knew what respect was or how to make the right choices was because the Scripture was central in the core curriculum.

Hi, I am Stephanie Boys DeLucia and I graduated from PC in 1985. The ones who graduated is my mom, Evie Corkum Boys, and then my aunt and uncle Dick and June Corkum, and then another aunt, Max Corkum and then my brother, Doug Boys and another brother, Brian Boys, and then, my older son, Jesse DeLucia and then my second son, Anthony DeLucia, today, and then Madeline will be graduating in 2020. And then there were four cousins that went here. Greg Corkum, Clark Corkum, Kent Corkum, and Christopher Corkum. I think that for me, and for my mom, we really believed in a Biblical worldview, and we really believed in a Christian education. And I think that term is loosely thrown about. But it really means that children are learning about the Bible every day, day in and day out. And it's, um, it's a way of coming at life and I think that public schools don't really talk about your spiritual life. And so, it's a way of thinking and a way of living and a way of being. I think that having a Christian education has really helped me, um, be developed as a person and I think it goes back to core values that I believe that God created me, and God created me to be in His image and that He loves me, and He sent His son to die for me. And it's a powerful message. And so, I can live freely if I follow His word and if I follow what He puts out there for me. And so, you see it in small ways in the classroom. I think, for me the most powerful, um, way this was developed in me was through the Scripture memory verses. And it's exciting, because I did that every single week. And I figured out if a kid goes to six or seven years of Christian school especially in the elementary level, they are memorizing one verse a week and that's about thirty weeks a year, and that's over a hundred and fifty to a hundred and seventy five verses that are engrained in our brain, and engrained in our memory. And so those verses really help us manage our life, you know. How we are supposed to deal with people. We're supposed to forgive people like Jesus forgave us. We're supposed to love one another. Love is patient, love is kind.  There are so many core values of how we're supposed to live our adult life, that start at the Christian school level. And I think you can see today in our evening news it's really evident how these core values aren't in everybody's life. And they are dealing with things and they don't know how to deal with them.They don't know how to love others. They don't know how to manage their emotions. And there's a lot of pain and suffering and a lot of us have tried to do it in our own way and through our flesh and that doesn't work and so we always come back to the word of God. God's way is always the right way.

My name is Anthony DeLucia, 2017 this year. Third through twelfth, I've been here. It's cool legacy to know that so many in my family have gone here before. And like, have gone through the same things I'm going through. I think all the different activities that I've been involved in and the Christian leadership and like me learning all my values, um, has all shaped me into a better person than I would be if I was, if I was somewhere else right now, um, I think what has helped me, like in my future, is like defending my faith, and just different things like that. Well, it has made me a rounded person, I think. And like different, I've learned how to do different things that I would never be able to do. Being in a small school, um, being, I can be involved in sports and like choir and Student Council and like, so many different things, that if I was at a public school, like a big school, I'd only be involved in maybe, one of those things. And like that has opened my eyes to different things I would never seen before that I can use in life.

My name is Tiffany Chinchilla. But when I attended PC, it was Tiffiany Prindle. And I graduated from PC in 1998. PC impacted my life in a huge way, um, especially attending throughout the elementary. The foundation that you receive in your education is, is huge. Um, you know, all the teachers that . . . like Mr. Highman, and Mrs. Duncan, um, they impacted my life a lot. PC is a huge part of my family's life. Elaina, well, Elaina graduating will be the fourth generation in our family to graduate from PC. My aunt graduated, my uncle graduated, my mom, all my cousins, my brother, have all graduated from PC. And me, myself.  My kids have gone to a lot of different schools.  Elaina has been to seven different schools. And, um, you know the public school system is just getting worse and worse. And, um, we just kind of got to a point of desperation and we always wanted my kids, I always wanted my kids to go here. And I just thought, you know, I have to send my kids here. I have to. And um, but how? It's impossible. And I remember just at night, crying out to God saying, This is impossible. How's this going to happen? It has to happen. It has to. There were two verses that ran like a record through my head, through my head.  The first one was Psalms 37:4. And that is "Delight yourself in the Lord and He will give you the desires of your heart." And God knew that a big desire of my heart was to have my kids here even though I felt it was not possible. And the other verse that just kept running through my head was Matthew 19:26. And that is that, "Jesus looked at them and said, 'With man this is impossible, but with God, all things are possible.'" I just had to try, I had to try. So, I just took that leap of faith and, um, here we are. We just know that the kids belong here. The changes that have gone through my kids, um, the achievements they have made, that people told me were not possible are possible, um, it's just been amazing the change in my kids.  They are so happy, they are so happy.  A happiness that they never had. And you know, we've tried public school, we've tried charter school, we've tried home school, we've tried home school co-ops, many different, you know, exhausted everything. And coming here, they've just thrived and they're just so happy.

Elaina Chinchilla, I have only been coming here for one year. So it's my first year as a senior. My mom went to Portland Christian and and just a lot of my family members went to Portland Christian. So my parents, especially my mom, she really wanted me to come. It's really crazy. It's a crazy feeling because there's teachers who still go here that have gone to school with my parents or have taught my parents and they don't know me but they know my family. It's kind of a weird feeling but it's a feeling that you feel known, kind of . . It was a big change that I had to go through. It's definitely not like any of the other schools that I've gone to. The people here are really nice. It's just a really different atmosphere. So, I'll definitely remember that. There was a lot more of me talking in front of people . . . presentations this year, whereas the years previously I hardly did.  I didn't have to. But here, there was a lot of talking in front of the class, in front of other people, so, it got me out of my comfort zone a lot. Which I guess is a good thing, for sure.

Michelle Lown, 1995. I went, I started in Mr. Highman's sixth grade class. And then I went all the way through to graduation. My sisters, my youngest sisters attended. I think, I think when I think back, it was a really beautiful nurturing place to grow up. It was a beautiful place to sort out my identity and develop a Christian worldview. I felt known by my teachers I felt loved by my teachers. Um, it was a great place to, where I felt like I was always learning. I felt like I learned the Bible. I feel like I learned, um, how to study subjects, um through the lens of the Bible. And that you can be, um believe the Bible to be true and be a good scientist, for example. Um, which is, you know where I went with my career. Um, so I feel like, um, that the academics were a super high level for me. Like for, like compared to other kids my age. Well, for me being a mom now, I'm getting to have my daughter here and feels like coming home um, and so this is a safe place I know. I trust the school, I trust the teachers, um, I see them knowing her, and loving her, like I was known and loved, and mentoring her, um, I, I love, how she learns. I love what she's learning. I love the level of academics which is there too. I love how she's been grown in the arts, I love how she's been grown athletically, and physically, and spiritually, and intellectually.  She's getting it all. And um, I love that she is here and that I know she's being taught, the best she can be taught in these years. And she's developing her own identity outside of mom and dad. And having these, um, really lovely people to emulate, and having them speak into her life on a regular basis. It's beautiful.

My name is Jensyn Lown I'm graduating in 2017. I came to Portland Christian in the fifth grade. My mom and my aunts attended Portland Christian, but my mom is the only one that graduated from here. I think it's really cool that we both went here. Just the other day, Mrs. Lampi read my mom's valedictorian speech that she gave at her graduation. And, my mom will come here for events that I'm doing. And these are the same hallways that she walked around when she, she went to the same exact school. And so, I think it's cool being able to walk around the school and I look up at her picture on the wall under the alums, and then, yah, it's just really cool because certain people, some of my teachers, my mom also had them as her teachers. And so it's cool to be able to talk about that and relate on that level. And everyone, it's just like a party community. I mean, Portland Christian being a smaller school you can be involved in more things and, er, I know if I went to a bigger school, first of all, I never would have tried track, and second of all I probably wouldn't have made it to State. So Portland Christian has given me those opportunities to be able to go with my teammates, and like, my best friends and be able to have fun, and, yah, it's just, they're just great times. Portland Christian, er, is definitely a place where you'll make really great friends and teachers can also become more like friends instead of just teachers. And they can really influence your life and everyone's just really open about what you believe, because we all, we can talk about God here and you just get really enriching, and sometimes fascinating discussions in classes. And not even Bible class. Like you'll be in a Math class discussing, well why did God create this equation to be this way and just in everything you do, you get to discuss how God applies to it, which is how it should be because God applies to everything. And so, I think it's fascinating because it blows my mind sometimes, like the, the the mass of God, how He is in everything. It's really cool to be able to talk about these things in every subject that we learn here.

My name is Dick Corkum, and I graduated from Portland Christian High School in 1959. I started from the first class in 1948. Um, my dad was a general contractor. He and about five other families were very interested in Christian education. The number one thing I remember is every week in grade school, we learned a new scripture verse. And er, that was, er, demanded of us and pounded in. Probably some of us weren't real happy about that. But years later, I remember many of those Scriptures. So, huge impact to get, er, the word of God cemented into my mind and heart. And I guess the other is the teachers. When I went to school, um, the teachers, um, weren't paid very well and there was a real sacrifice for them. But the teachers were very concerned about us as people, er, interested, er, in our lives. The school, it affected me from a spiritual standpoint, er, from, from a mental standpoint. We were always challenged, er, whether it be, er, with trigonometry or history.

I can't believe this is the 70th year of Portland Christian. It's just almost laughable that it has survived this long through many trials, troubles, and, that have been with us from the very first day of the school. I would want to challenge the graduates right now who are going out from our school to really cling to God, and to Jesus Christ, and to the Holy Spirit because the world is dangerous but we have always known that since the very beginning day of Portland Christian. And we want to offer support and shelter, where we can, in our families and to other families. This time of all times is the time to be praying. It's serious, but it's also very joyful thing to see what God has accomplished.

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Portland Christian Schools 70th Anniversary Celebration

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