WORSHIP SERVICE OPENS SAXONY SCHOOL

Jolene Braeuner has all the first-day-of-school jitters new students experience, which is to be expected because she's a little unsure about what classes will be like at her new high school.

Unlike many students in the region who return to classes today in familiar settings, Braeuner, a sophomore, will be among the first students at Saxony Lutheran High School.

Saxony Lutheran High School is the first Lutheran high school in Southeast Missouri, a region that founded the Lutheran Church-Missouri Synod.

Several hundred people attended a worship festival and open house Sunday afternoon to celebrate the school's opening. The worship service was held at St. Andrew Lutheran Church where the school will operate on a temporary basis.

Construction of a permanent building should begin within three to five years. The school association already purchased a 40-acre site in Fruitland, Mo., near U.S. 61 and Cape Girardeau County Road 601.

Seeing classrooms and computer work stations, cabinets full of supplies and bookshelves lined with textbooks makes the school even more a reality. Two years ago, a group interested in forming a high school began meeting. Now that school "is real, it's here," said the Rev. David Dissen, who serves as a pastoral adviser for the school.

While only seven students have enrolled for the first school year, Dissen doesn't see that number as a discouragement. He said that after talking to other new Lutheran high schools in the country, having seven students seems about average for an opening year.

"We're right where we should be," he said.

Originally, school organizers had hoped to have 50 students enrolled for the freshman and sophomore classes.

Dissen said, "The students will be the best PR that we could find."

Jerry Deardorff, administrator, said more students will come eventually, and if there are any first-day jitters among the students and staff, "I'll probably have all of them."

Classes begin at 9:15 a.m. with a chapel service. School will dismiss at 4 p.m.

More than 20 Missouri Synod churches have offered to support the school, which is open to both Lutheran and non-Lutheran students. Many of those people attended the worship festival Sunday.

Braeuner's mother, Joy, said the decision to attend Saxony was left up to her daughter.

"We told her it was available and I think she wanted the positive education that is Christ-centered," Joy Braeuner said.

The Braeuner family attends Trinity Lutheran Church in Friedheim, Mo.

Other students enrolled attend churches in Cape Girardeau, Jackson, Friedheim and Frohna.

Dissen said in his sermon that Lutheran schools must emphasize Christian values, show the works of God and share that message with future generations.

Parents must not be "so concerned with the world that we forget the values of Christian education," he said. "We can't go looking for the light and be stumbling in the darkness."

The uniqueness of Saxony Lutheran High School is that it contrasts with public schools in that its foundation is "centered on Jesus Christ," Dissen said.