WOH Tuesday, April 22, 2025

A Transition to Hope
By Kristen Warfield 

Early childhood education has always been in my heart. As my family has become more integrated into the Hope community, I was moved to make a career change that I had been considering for a long time — moving from corporate marketing to teaching. This year I have realized that dream by teaching one of the three preschool classes in Hope’s early childhood education program: the Sea Turtles preschool class. My new role fills my heart with joy daily!

Galatians 5: 22-23: “The fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control. Against such things there is no law.”

As a first-year preschool teacher at Hope, I have had the opportunity to not only help nearly a dozen 3 and 4 year olds navigate their days, but to give them the tools to learn how. From the first few days of preschool, we talk about the fruits of the Spirit as written in the book of Galatians, and use them as our guide as they learn through play. While the preschool children spend the majority of their time playing artist and scientist, engineer and entrepreneur, dancer and singer, dinosaur and princess – their most important lessons focus on how to be good friends to one another. 

This is the grounding you can find at Hope, starting in preschool and extending through elementary and middle school – a foundation of Faith by showing the fruits of the Spirit. I have seen how this benefits the classroom AND the community as I now have the unique perspective of not only being a preschool teacher, but a parent of a second and seventh grader. I have seen these values extend into the older grades as well, and this is why I initially chose and continue to choose Hope for our family. 

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