Good evening everyone.
 
I am Theo Kho and this is my wife May. Kurt is our youngest of 4.
 
We are honoured to have been asked to speak tonight on our experience as parents of Arden.
 
We became Arden parents in the year 2000 when our eldest Sean started in Year 3 and our second child Madison started 2 day preschool.
 
This year is our 20^th year at Arden!  Which means Kurt was practically born at Arden.
 
He had been going to Arden even before he started 2 day preschool!
 
We have to say that the past twenty years have gone faster than we thought. Our children were always happy to come to school and look back at their time at Arden as happy memories.
 
We are happy to report that our eldest Sean couldn’t have enough of Arden that he came back as part of Arden IT team when he finished his tertiary education.
 
Our daughters; Madison is now doing her PhD in Organisational Psychology at Macquarie University, and Tahlia is doing her Honours year in Visual Communication at UTS.
 
May & I came from Indonesia where we grew up as minority because of our Chinese background in a predominantly Muslim country. In school, we were always made aware that we were different, because of how we were treated; even though we were born there, and do not speak any Chinese.
 
We are very thankful that our children never had to experience that here at Arden. We found it heart warmingly funny when our daughters Madison and Tahlia were very surprised to hear that we were of Asian descent - back in year 3 when the subject of racism was discussed at school.
 
The only “race” they knew up until that time was the ones held at the school athletic carnivals.
 
For this we thank the whole Arden community including all the teachers, staff and parents who have made us feel welcome, and part of the Arden community.
 
We are also thankful that Arden has helped care, nurture and develop our children not only academically but also spiritually.
 
To the Class of 2019:
We are so proud at how well you spoke at the final chapel and are so pleased to hear that the Arden motto of God first, others second and yourselves last is very much part of your day to day life.
 
We pray that you will continue to be steadfast in your faith and grow to be strong men and women of God.
 
Arden has prepared you well, and you will soon realise that the HSC is only a small part of your still long journey to your future. We pray God’s blessing and protection over the next couple of months and beyond.
 
We’d like to share with you a verse, to encourage you and to carry you as you take the final brave step towards the end of what has been a fourteen year journey, and into the beginning of what will be a new and different adventure. This is the verse that we have told each of our past three children as they graduated, and now not only to Kurt, but to you all.
 
It is found in Colossians 3:17
 Whatever you do [no matter what it is] in word or deed, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus [and in dependence on Him], giving thanks to God the Father through Him.