Dear CEM Supporters,

    May is a month of completion. For many, like our CEM students, it is the end of the academic calendar. Five of our students will receive their high school diplomas on May 29. For them, the task of finishing well has huge implications. To finish high school at all might have been out of reach for some; to finish with honor, unlikely for others; and to finish with joy and celebration was not ever anticipated. Yet God has brought them to the point of completion of this significant goal—an achievement they will recall frequently. Forever, they will identify themselves as graduates of the Class of 1999. Many dozens of times throughout their lives their children, friends, employers and colleges will ask, "When did you graduate?" A time and date will be etched into their memory of this time of completion. On these pages we are honoring those who are finishing their high school requirements at CEM this May.

Being finished, however, isn't what life is about. Paul referred to life as a race. (I Corinthians 9:24-27). Life is about running—not about resting before the race is over. Receiving a diploma is a great event, yet it's just one little stop along the way of the marathon. The real goal of the Christian life is to be pressing on steadily, not to have arrived. "Tetelestai!" "It is finished!" Jesus cried. Jesus uttered this groan of completion upon the cross, signaling the finished work of atonement for all of mankind. And only Jesus really has the right to use such a phrase. His accomplishment was so awesome, so far-reaching, so loving, that we strain to comprehend it. For us, the finishing of a noble task represents our dream and hope for a meaningful existence. Without some goal and purpose, our daily activities become a dirge of emptiness. Nevertheless, the race is still on, the prize still uncaptured, the goal not yet in sight—to be like Christ and to be united with him in eternal life. So rejoice with these students named here. They are running well. The milestone they have just passed is tall and marked with honor. It is perhaps farther down the road then they expected to get, but their diploma is no longer an obstacle. It is a reminder of their potential. Pray for their endurance, for their success in reaching the next marker, and for that ultimate recognition, "Well done, good and faithful servant...enter into the joy of your master." (Matt. 25:21)

Run well, my friends!

In Him,
Mike Petrillo
Executive Director, CEM