The Vietnamese teacher guests presented the school with a gift of gratitude to honour their three weeks of experience with SHCS and were bid a sad farewell.

SHCS board chair Carol Unwin prayed for the future of the school.

Each staff member and student was presented with a commemorative pin.

SHCS english teacher Steve Hilaire said he was proud to celebrate 35 years of history.

“Thirty-five years ago, a small group of people were inspired to take a risk and put their money where their mouth was,” Mr Hilaire said.

“They were members of the local community, Highlands born and bred, who believed in the fledgling christian schools movement and sought to enrich the multicultural face of Australia through the expression of their shared beliefs.”

He added, one of the defining features of the christian faith was servanthood and this value was surely in the hearts of those founders.

“Yet on that morning in 1983, when a single teacher stood in a tiny, wooden church before a grand total of seven enrollments, could anyone have imagined the blessings to come? Would they have believed that those grains of sand would become the opalescent institution of 2018?” he asked. 

Mr Hilaire said as the SHCS community gathered together to celebrate the milestone and recognise the blessing and service of generations who had gone before, they felt both humility and gratitude.

“The diversity of participants symbolised the collaborative approach to distinctive education from SHCS student Taleia Lacey, granddaughter of SHCS’s first canteen lady, to former school captain and current primary teacher, Pru Dubokovich, to SHCS founding parents Bill and Penny Galbraith,” he said.

“Each of these individuals are from all different backgrounds and eras, yet are all unified by the colourful community of the SHCS.”

Mr Hilaire said he was excited to look to the future of the school.

“Just like an opal, as we turn to face the light, we pray our unity and diversity will craft more unexpected beauty from the ordinary,” he said.