 as we continue to feature independence over the years. Today we focus on a special schools concert. The young children celebrated their freedom and independence in song and drama. Ntien now invites you to sit back and enjoy as we take you back to the ninth anniversary of St. Lucia's independence. We are going to close our hands and say thanks to God while our three managers pray with us. Almighty God, we praise and we thank you as we gather here this morning. We praise and we thank you for the beautiful sunshine. We praise and we thank you for the sea. We praise and we thank you for each other. And more than ever, Father, we praise and we thank you for St. Lucia. We praise and we thank you for this land that you have made our own. We praise and we thank you as this nation, our nation, our country, our island, celebrates its ninth anniversary of independence. We praise and we thank you that you have made us, us St. Lucia people, a people who can praise and worship you as ourselves, a people who are not ashamed of who we are, of what we have done, and of where we are going. We ask you, Father, as we celebrate nine years of independence, to continue guiding us as you've guided us these past years, to continue supporting us as you've supported us these past years, to continue letting these children, the future of this nation grow, to be the kind of citizens that you, Father, would be proud of. And we offer all these prayers, Father, and all these thanksgiving in the name of your Son Jesus, our Saviour, who is Lord forever and ever. Amen. Lord Jesus, friend of little children, we thank you for our island home. We thank you for all those schools gathered together here this morning. We thank you for all the true and wonderful things we are learning, for all our parents and teachers, and for all true men and women in all land and in other lands whose example we can follow. You are the truth. Come to live in our homes and in our hearts, and make us ashamed to say an untrue word or to do a dishonest act. Forgive us that we have not always been honest over our work or in our games. Make us now and always true and loyal citizens and servants of our God and country. We offer this prayer in your name, Jesus Christ, our Lord and Master, our Saviour, and our Guide. Amen. Father in Heaven, we thank you for this privilege of coming to you, and we thank you that we can come to you whenever we want to, wherever we want to, and however we want to. We thank you for all your wonderful blessings to us, for the beauty of our land, and in particular for the beauty expressed in your people, and in more and more particularly expressed in the beauty of these little ones here gathered. We ask you Lord to bless them, protect and safeguard their lives from all that would hurt and destroy the joy and the beauty you have made them with. We ask you Lord to encourage them to obey your will. Help them to come to realize Lord that it is in serving you and obeying you that the prosperity of their country and the happiness of every individual lies. Lord, today as they are gathered here, look on them with mercy and love. Keep them ever in your protective arms, bless them, and provide for their every need, and this we ask in Jesus' name. Let's say the Lord's prayer together. Our Father, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven. Give us this day our daily bread and forgive us our trespasses as we forgive those that trespass against us and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil. For Thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory forever and ever. Amen. Thank you. Now we're going to move straight into our program, presentations by the school but the choir please come across here. This morning we have decided to try and bring a bit of unity into the program. We have the schools joining together in various activities for presentation. The theme is unity, one with another and the children are going to sing for you sometime. This says sometime you don't know when, someone you don't know whom, somewhere you don't know where, but sometime we hope unity will take place. In between the Avamaria and the Methodists, unity, officers, reverend managers, children. As we have gathered here we have come the ninth independence day of our island to celebrate a few words from poems when I have and then I'm going to ask you some questions. So you've got to listen carefully in order to answer the questions I ask you. The first poem I'm going to read is called The Rainbow. It was written by William Wordsworth. You have seen a rainbow before. I hope everybody has seen one. So you know what it is all about. My heart leaps up when I be whole in the sky. So was it when my life began? Is it now when I shall grow or let me die? The child is father of the man and I could wish my days to be bound each to each by natural. What this is saying is that the rainbow is so beautiful who is bored finds the rainbow already there and that the person grows up. The poet is saying that when I would have died the rainbow will still be there because it is such a beautiful thing. I hope it will be there for everybody to see it and to celebrate it because the word natural piety means of giving thanks and celebrating. William said something else. It said the child is father of the man. I don't know if you will remember this but let's say it together. The child is father of the man. Let me hear you say it. Now some people didn't quite hear so they're not speaking up but I want you to speak up. You talk up loud and say it. The child is father of the married good. Now give yourself a clap because you're so good. What that means is saying that before becomes a grown-up you don't know and you don't know why your mummy what you have done and why you have done it. It is because your mummy was a child before and your daddy was a child and your teacher was a child. Even I too was a child so the child is there before the person becomes a man or a woman. It says something else too. It is while you are young as you are today that you learn all of the things you need to know so that you can do the best that you possibly can when you become a man or a woman else too. That we the grown-ups must teach the children everything that is possible for us to teach them because when we the old people die the children will be the men and women of this nation. Now called John Keats put it in another way. He wrote a poem of celebration to a Grecian urn and in writing that poem and celebrating it instead of saying the child is father of the man he said beauty is truth truth is beauty that is all you know on earth and that is all you need to know. I'm going to go over the little part that you need to know. It says beauty is truth and truth is beauty. You get that? So let's say together if you have it beauty is truth and truth is beauty. Let's say that again. Beauty is truth and truth is beauty and some people are not talking up yet because they have not heard. We are learning that truth and truth is beauty. Let's say you loudly it's like a large jar that has a bottom something that is a bit tall like a stem for you to put on the table and it is round and it has a cover. Now an oddie who died and was cremated. Now the word cremated is a big word but if you listen nowadays to the death announcements on the radio I want you to listen and you will hear some of the undertakers saying that the body can be cremated that means instead of burying the person in a coffin they put the person through an oven and burn up the person's body. When an urn is made to keep tea or coffee hot or some people just have them nowadays for decoration they put the urn in a corner in the drying room or the sitting room or the living room whichever your mother chooses to call it. But an urn is beautiful and it is beautiful because when it is made it is highly polished and then they put a painting on the urn. They put a beautiful painting as though the person wanted to say everything that was beautiful in the life of the person who made it or who is buying it or who had died. Now the poem is about the urn and Keith says beauty is truth and truth is beauty that is all you know on earth and that is all you need to know that you are an urn. You can think that has a stem beautifully decorated and with a little cover and you on a nice table in the of the living room or the sitting room or the drying room remember that although you are there you are good for something you are good for something because you are good because you are useful and because you are beautiful now i'm going to ask you a question if you look at yourself as we looked at the rainbow as we looked at the urn are you very beautiful are you beautiful i cannot hear you you're beautiful very good for you now suppose we say that our island is an about the island are we saying something good about it or something bad i didn't hear you yes now what is the name of your island writing about your island today okay what does you can celebrate the island is very beautiful and it has beautiful people that's what we are celebrating our island is beautiful and it has beautiful people now we know the island is beautiful and we know that the people make the island beautiful but what i want you to think about today is whether our island has a good name as being very beautiful we know that we call the island st lusia do you know of other names that the island had want to know whether the island has a good name it's beautiful the people are beautiful but some people don't really like st lusia some of them will think that we are bad you know sometimes we think so ourselves because we do wrong things but when we say that beauty is truth and truth is beauty we want to be able to say that what we say about our island is the truth and that the island is beautiful now how will we manage to say that everything we say about our island is the truth for us to have the truth everybody in the island must be honest the people must be truthful they must be hard you know we like fat but fat is not enough we have to be very hard i cannot hear you not listening because they're not saying yes all you have to say is yes if you are hard working i'm going to ask the question again hard working and we must be have to be strong we have to water thing in it and the people must be pleasant they must be nice and they must be kind loving and forgiving now that's it asking a lot of the people to do that if we unite you know our theme is unity work together with one another then we can learn all of these good things about our island and then we can be good men and women and then we can say that we live in a beautiful island and we can celebrate this island like the mountains like the rainbow the mountains the valleys and like the urn that we spoke about with all the paintings of everything beautiful now you know when you have this morning i talk to you a lot we tend to forget it is just like when jesus talked a lot to people they were going to forget what he said to them because there were so many things that he tried to tell them and he said look i don't want you to forget i don't want you to forget now if for you not to forget you say what i tell you in two sentences it says all i'm telling you people the lord thy god with your whole heart with all thy mind with all thy soul and with all thy strength and the second thing is love your neighbor as yourself do you know these two commandments just say yes or no do you know these two commandments don't know your teacher will teach you these two because jesus said if you remember these two you will remember everything that i have told you in the same way i am going to sum up everything that i have told you this morning and we are going to sum it up in two sentences just two two phrases we are using to say what we have said there this morning the first one is the child is father of the man let's say that i didn't hear the children behind me so i want to hear them say it again the child how many want this one say the first one is beauty let's say that one of them we're going to try to see if we know both of them let's say the first one independence day listening students of the abbey maria anglican methodists and rc boys primary schools celebrating saint lucia's ninth anniversary of independence i do hope you enjoy that segment of independence over the years be sure to join us for another program