Illinois—Hinsdale Adventist Academy (HAA) held their very first "Pastors' Open House" on Tuesday, Jan. 15. More than 50 pastors and officers from the Illinois Conference visited the school in conjunction with the Conference pastors' meeting held the same day at the Hinsdale Church. Upon arrival, the pastors heard a devotional in the gymnasium presented by Jim Martz, Illinois Conference superintendent of education. HAA's high school chorale provided music for the devotional time. Then the pastors were treated to a "mini concert" with performances from first-, second-, and third-grade students, the intermediate band (grades five and six), the junior high choir and the high school concert band.

After the mini concert, pastors with churches in the local area attended a presentation by Meechai Tessalee, school board vice chairman and the development committee chair. This presentation was created by HAA's marketing department to remind the pastors that they are an essential piece of Adventist education. They were presented with statistics on the HAA student body, HAA's academic program and general statistics provided by the Office of Education at the Seventh-day Adventist Church headquarters in North America. Most importantly, the pastors were reminded of Ellen G. White's counsel about Seventh-day Adventist education for our children. They also viewed a video presentation in which several HAA students were interviewed and spoke of their experiences with Seventh-day Adventist education, and particularly HAA. All pastors were given the opportunity to tour the school, guided by a team of high school students.

When I attended an Area 5 pastors meeting in October, it occurred to me that many pastors in the Chicagoland area have either never been in our school, or have not been to HAA in a very long time! How can they support us if they don't know us? Our hope is that once they get to know us, they will feel comfortable promoting Seventh-day Adventist education and HAA to the school-age children in their church. And, if they are a pastor of a church that has an elementary school, they will recommend our high school to their students. The goal of the open house was to begin building relationships with these pastors and their churches. We definitely want our local pastors to be a part of our school and come and visit often, so we felt it was our responsibility to reach out to them and let them know how very important they are to us.

All in all, it was a great day, and we hope the beginning of long-term relationships between our school and the churches in the Chicagoland area.

Rebecca Garrett, marketing director, Hinsdale Adventist Academy