A local Christian school celebrated the upcoming Thanksgiving holiday on Friday afternoon with a school-wide feast and celebration with parents, students, and faculty.
The celebration at New Covenant Academy -- a WASC-accredited school located in Koreatown, Los Angeles -- included the key parts of a Thanksgiving feast with turkey, ham, and stuffing, but the main highlights were the performances of students, the majority of whom are Korean American. The eighth grade class performed a choir number singing, "Give Thanks" in Korean for parents. The school's handbell team also performed "Give Thanks," and the elementary school students from kindergarten to third grade performed a body worship dance performance to two songs.
"Thanksgiving is not just a calendar marker," said Jason Song, the principal and founder of NCA. "It's about looking back, remembering the good and the bad, and praising and thanking God for all of it."
Song described the events the Pilgrims had to go through before having that first Thanksgiving -- the tumultuous and difficult journey that they had to endure.
"It's only when we realize it's God who brought us through the pain that we can give him true thanks," he told the audience of some 200 students and parents, and encouraged them to give thanks in all circumstances.
Meanwhile, the NCA student body also put together 166 boxes of gifts to give to children in "war-ravaged, poverty-stricken" communities overseas through Operation Christmas Child.
NCA was founded in 1999 and is a WASC accredited K-12 school with some 175 students and 16 full time teachers.
