VBS!  The Sky's the limit!  Mark your calendars for VBS at Blacktop!  Monday June 25th through Thursday June 28th ( M, T, W 12:30-3pm and Th 11am-noon) we are going to discover how everything is possible with God!  


We will be needing some extra helpers during VBS!  Group leaders will simply take a bunch of students around to the various fully staffed stations!  No prep involved!  This is a great chance to build relationships with a few kids and help make VBS a wonderful time for everyone!  Please e-mail me if you would be willing to help!

Yaaaay!  I just want to say a quick thank you to EVERYONE that helped out on Sunday.  Whether you help with the set, spoke on the Shepherds panel, or simply brought your kids to all the practices.... THANK YOU! It was wonderful and your support as parents is sooooo essential to everything we do.  You are such a blessing!

Hello everyone!  

I can NOT believe it but the musical is THIS SUNDAY!  Things are coming along VERY nicely and we still have ONE practice left.  I just wanted to remind everyone that we have our last practice and dress rehearsal coming up this Saturday morning (the 19th) from 9am-noon.  I know you and your kids have very busy schedules but PLEASE do your best to be there!  It is much easier to accomplish everything with all the kids there at the same time.  We want them to SHINE and for that to happen we really need one more great practice with everyone present!

One more thing.  With the musical wrapping up and all the sports teams in full swing I would LOVE to come to some of their games!  If you could send me a couple days/times/locations for your kids games I will come and cheer them on!  

Thank you all for being such wonderful parents!

Have a great and blessed week!

REMINDER!

No more Wednesday night musical practice!  BUT we DO have practice from 9am-noon THIS Saturday the 12th AND next Saturday the 19th!

Musical Practice again tonight!  We will be in B20 again!

Also, VERY IMPORTANT!  Sunday school lessons are done but we will be having Musical Practice during the Sunday School hour.  It is VERY important that everyone that can possibly be there is available for practice these next two Sundays.  The musical is quickly approaching!

Don't forget, this SUNDAY, April 29th, at 5:30 pm our next cross-inter-all generational event!  It's gonna be a church potluck!  Which we all know means AMAZING food!  You're not gonna want to miss it!  We are asking each family to bring TWO dishes.  First dish is an item of your choice.  Second dish: if your last name begins with A-E please bring a salad (fruit or veggie), a side dish for F-L, main dish for M-S, and a dessert for T-Z. It will be a great time to mix it up and build new relationships as we learn some interesting facts about the staff and play some fun table games!  And I can promise you won't want to miss our MC Rusty!

Musical practice tonight!  We will begin at 5:30pm but please bring kids whenever you can!

Happy Monday to you all!  I am writing today with one VERY important things to talk about!  The kid's musical!  It is quickly approaching and we need YOUR help getting the kids ready!  I sent a note home yesterday (Sunday) but encase you did't get it here is the gist.

For those of you that have not heard this year, for the Celebration of Learning we will be putting on a musical called God of the City!  It will be during the service on Sunday May 20^th.  Miss Earlene has been working hard with the kids every Sunday to help them learn the songs but we need a few things from you to make this a success! 

1)    PLEASE encourage your kids to listen to the CD Miss Earlene gave them a few weeks ago.  

2)   Speaking parts have been assigned so if your student came home with lines please encourage them to work on memorizing them!  Solos will be assigned soon. 

3)   We will need a few extra practices outside of the Sunday School hour to be prepared.  We understand life is very busy so we appreciate you doing your best to have the kids there when you are able!  We would love to have them there whenever they are available, even if it is only for part of a practice!  Please mark your calendar for the following days and times:

Wednesday April 25^th from 5:30-7 pm (Miss Earlene is providing pizza J)

Wednesday May 2^nd from 5:30-7 pm (again pizza will be provided)

Saturday May 12^th from 9-noon (1^st dress rehearsal, snacks provided)

Saturday May 19^th from 9-noon (FINAL DRESS REHEARSAL!) It is VERY important that your child attends this practice! 

For this musical the kids are simply hanging out in the park so costumes will be everyday clothes!  However, Miss Earlene would like them to avoid wearing flip flops or loose sandals as they will be moving around a lot. 

That's the slightly abbreviated version!  I gave the kids one other challenge yesterday.  They should have brought home an individual record sheet.  I would like them to listen ALL FIVE SONGS each day this week.  Every day that they do this they should ask a parent to sign their sheet.  If they bring it back next week with 5 of the 7 days signed they will get a treat.  By listening to the songs at home we will be able to avoid adding more practice times so please help encourage them!

Let me know if you have any questions!

Hello everyone!  I am going to start out by being honest... for some reason it has been very tricky to remember to keep up this blog!  Not sure why...  Soooo since it's hard to keep it up I imagine it is hard to keep up with it as well... I apologize! I am going to consider putting it on hiatus for the summer but part of me is hesitant to do that because... let's face it... Blacktop usually comes with lots of great stories!   I really do love using it as a way to contact you all, tell stories, and give reminders so we will see...

For now there are 3 quick things I wanted to post while I was thinking about them...

1) HUUUUUGE thank you to everyone that helped with the AWANA Carnival last night!  I think it was a huge success!  Definitely think we should make that a regular thing.  It was great!

2) Reminder! There is another cross-all-whatever generational event coming up TWO weeks from this Sunday!  It's gonna be GREAT so don't miss it!  Here is the announcement as seen in the bulletin: "Sunday April 29th at 5:30pm!  Mark your calendars for our next cross-inter-all generational event! Come hungry because we are having a potluck!  We are asking each family to bring TWO dishes.  First dish is an item of your choice.  Second dish: if you last name begins with A-E please bring a salad (fruit or veggie), a side dish for F-L, main dish for M-S, and adessert for T-Z. It is going to be a fun night with our MC Rusty Sietsema!  There will be table activities, great food, and you won't want to miss the staff trivia!  We will also give these awesome events a name!  (Please submit any suggestions to Allison Nees.)"  


 3) Sunday May 20th is going to be the Celebration of Learning!  Mark your calendars and stay tuned for more information to come about the awesome musical the kids will be putting on!

THANK YOU!

Spring? Summer?

The kids have been thoroughly confused as to what season it actually is!  One of the students at AWANA last night insisted that it was summer already!  And they all think Blacktop should be starting soon because it is just so nice out!

We had an AMAZING night at AWANA last night!  Started off the night a little rough!  There was so much energy in the house that I was sure we were in for it.  With 17 kids in the 2nd grade class (shout out to ALL the wonderful helpers in there last night!) we had nearly record numbers of kids!  YAY!  And then to get to listen to them work so hard to memorize God's word.... WOW!  I was just so blessed last night.  I would really love to thank each and every one of my leaders (because you are ALL truly amazing) but we would be here a very long time because Wednesday nights have truly been blessed with the best of the best!  So as we finish up the year I just want to give another blanket THANK YOU!!  I can't even put into words how much you all have meant to me and these kids.

As a reminder to everyone we have ONE more week of normal AWANA.  Then we will be taking a week off for Spring Break.  And the final night is the AWANA CARNIVAL which will take place Wednesday April 11th.  The schedule will start off like normal with dinner (pizza!) at 5:30pm.  We will then go to the sanctuary to sing.  The carnival will begin at 6:30pm with everyone in the Ministry Center!  We will wrap up at the normal time, 7:45.

Another big thing coming up... EASTER!  Reminder: Breakfast is at 8:30 am! With the service at 10!
The AWANA kids have also been invited to sing their version of "Great is the Lord" during the service!  Every AWANA student that comes and sings will receive 500 points!  

One final AWANA related announcement.  I am going to be collecting their books next week to hold on to them for next year.  So PLEASE help you students make sure they have their books with them!  They will get 200 points for turning them in.

I can't believe it but we are also planning things for the end of the year Celebration of Learning for Sunday School which will be held on Sunday, May 20th.  We are going to be doing the musical called "God of the City" for the celebration.  So please encourage your kids to listen the the CD of songs provided by Miss Earlene and to be there for children's singing time right at the beginning of Sunday School!

Yay!  Lots going on!  I hope everyone is enjoying the sunshine!
Thanks for reading!