I hope all of you had a wonderful experience this past Sunday with all of our changes!  In case you weren’t there, our preschool and children’s class moved to the “purple hall” which is the first hall you see when you walk in the doors of the school.  After a lot of hard work from a lot of volunteers, we were able to create some awesome new environments for our kids! 

Although the rooms look a little different, both in location and theme, what we do has remained the same!  Our 75 minutes or so each week, for our preschoolers all the way down to babies, gives us an amazing opportunity to teach your children so they can take their first steps in their knowledge of God and later take next steps in becoming more like Christ!  That is such a huge privilege and responsibility!!! 

Even though we LOVE teaching your kids each week, the teaching doesn’t stop with us!  In fact, we have only a small part in this!  Just think, there are 60 minutes in an hour, 24 hours in a day, and 7 days in a week.  That means there are 10,080 minutes a week.  We get to be with your kids about 75 minutes, which is less than 1% of your kid’s total week!  My prayer is that you take time on a daily basis to teach our kids about God!  To help you with this and to reinforce what we are teaching on Sundays, we have two different resources for you.  The first is Parent Talk.  This is a resource for the parents of kids under the age of 2 that talks a little about what our babies are learning and how we can help lead them.  The second resource is Small Talk and it is designed for parents of preschoolers who are 2-5 years old.  Small Talk tells you what we are learning each week and it gives some practical ways of how you can reinforce the lessons at home throughout the month.  If you have any questions on how to use these, feel free to email me or call me at the church office.  I would be more than willing to walk you through them!

I look forward to seeing you and your preschoolers this Sunday!

Nicole Huff

Hi Family Ministry Volunteers & Greeters!

Happy New Year Students and Families!

Wanna start the new year off with a bang? Bring back some memories? Make some memories? For you parents, feel like a teenager again?  Well here is your chance!

This Wednesday night at Sparkles in Lawrenceville we will be having ”Family Skate Night”! This will be a great time for all of our families to get together and just hang out, skate and definitely laugh!

Wednesday, January 5th // 6:00- 9:00 pm

Sparkles Roller Rinks / 1104 Grayson Highway, Lawrenceville, GA 30046
(770) 963-0922 (770) 963-0922     ‎ sparklesrollerrinks.com

Admission $5.00 – per person *
Skate Rental $3.00
50+ people and skate rental is free!
*(ages 10 and under can play on the “indoor playground” with paid admission)

Pizza $2.50 / $15.00 for large  10 slice pizza/ Drinks $2.00
Bring a friend! Bring the family!

See ya Wednesday!!

We collected 98 coats to give out to kids living in the Refuge Apartments. We’re meeting at the WH at 10:30am on Saturday to go deliver them. Your kids will benefit so much more if they actually get to meet and play with the kids who they collected coats for! I’m just saying, if you want your kids to be generous givers then you MUST provide them with opportunities to give, not just their coats or school supplies or Christmas presents, but their time!!!

What better way is there to kick off the holiday spirit than to give to people who have less, and some close to nothing. Leave a comment, email Nicole , send us a smoke signal. Just let us know that there are people willing to give up their Saturday afternoon and come with us! We’ll stop for lunch on the way home

I hope you are having a wonderful week so far!  We’re in a new month, so it is time for new Parent Talk and Small Talk pages as well as a new memory verse!  Just a reminder, Parent Talk is for parents of kids in our baby room, Little Lambs.  Small Talk is a resource to get your little ones talking about what we are learning and is designed for 2 to 5 year olds.  I would love to hear how you are using these and what you like best about them!

Also, I wanted to give you an update about Coats for Kids, our Family Ministry service project that we are currently working on.  Sunday was great!  Did you notice the ENORMOUS boxes at the school on Sunday!?!  If not, how did you miss them!?!    We would love to fill these completely up, but we need your help!!!  This Sunday will be the last day to bring your coats!  Don’t forget to clean out your closets and bring any gently used coats with you on Sunday!  Another great place to find coats is at thrift stores and consignment stores if you have a few bucks to spend on them, or you can ask your friends and family to donate coats from their closets.

After this Sunday, the next step is delivery!  We would love to have our families go to be a part of this as well!  We’ll head out to the refugee apartments on November 20th.  The plan is to meet here at 10:30 AM so that we can be to the apartments around 11.  We’ll probably be there for about an hour and a half or two and then can all stop for lunch on the way home for those who want to hang out together for a little longer.   If you are interested in helping with handing out the coats, post a comment on here, email me, Facebook me, or sign up on the sheet on the sign in table on Sunday. 

On a personal note, Hannah and I went out to the Refugee apartments a few weeks ago and she has not stopped talking about it.  On almost a daily basis, she is talking about ways we can help the kids we met, whether it is coats, toys, or food.  I love the idea of instilling generosity in her at this young age!  If you have any questions about the what the Refugee apartments are like, let me know and I’m more than willing to answer them or find the answers if I don’t know!

~Nicole Huff

You will only have two Sundays to bring in your coats, so PLEASE don’t forget!!

We’re also planning to go deliver the coats November 20th together. This will be such a great opportunity for your family to serve another family!! Consider coming with us and showing your children what it looks like to serve those who have less!! There will be a sign up sheet at the check-in table on Sunday AM, but if you think you might forget, just drop us a comment here or send the office an email to let us know that you and your family plan to come with us.

I don’t think we know exactly what time we’ll be meeting yet, but it will probably be around 11am and I will definitely let you know beforehand We typically stop to grab lunch on the way.

Here are the coats I bought for a grand low (when you consider how many coats I bought) total of $38!!

That’s six coats for $38, meaning that I paid roughly $6.30/coat. I know a lot of you have children and coats they’ve grown out of to donate, but at these kinds of steals you could possibly afford to donate your children’s gently used coats AND buy a couple more! I found two of these at the Fish Thrift Store in Loganville and I kind of felt like I probably bought all the decent looking and warm kids’ coats that they had. But then I noticed a kids consignment shop just right across the street and dropped in there. I bought the other four coats there and there were several others I could have bought! As I was ringing up, the lady at the register actually told me that they would possibly be able to donate coats to our collection, so if you stop in there mention it to them! I will definitely be hitting them up for anything they’re willing to share because there are A LOT of kids living in these refuge apartment complexes who are in need of warm coats this Winter!! Don’t forget about them!!

Hey Families,

Here is another opportunity to help get coats for the Refugee Camp.  Hannah and I have entered Dave Ramsey’s Great Giving Challenge for an opportunity to get $5000 to give away.  You can view the video by clicking on the link above and you can vote once a day.  Please help us change the lives of the kids at the Refugee Camp!

~Nicole Huff

If you give a preschooler an opportunity to serve…

If you give a preschooler an opportunity to serve, they may ask you for a little money to buy a coat for a refugee child.

If you give them the money to buy a coat, then they will ask you to drive them to the store.

If you drive them to the store, they will ask you to take them to five stores before they find the perfect coat.

When they find the perfect coat, they will ask you to take them to the refugee camp to give the coat away.

If you take them to the refugee camp, they will connect with another child.

When they connect with another child, they will ask you to take them back again.

As you continue to take them back, they will develop a relationship with that child.

Once they develop a relationship, they will ask you to …

Give them an opportunity to serve together!

And along with that, you are changing your child’s heart!  They will see the poor as opportunities to share the love of God with rather than “those people” that they try to stay away from.  I wish I had learned this when I was a preschooler!

This is a picture of the coats that Hannah and I got using the money in the preschool offering jar from BLAST.  Thank you to everyone who gives offering each week!  We bought 15 coats for $55!  You can get creative when looking for coats.  We found these at the American Thrift Store in Athens.  15 kids will be warm this winter because of our preschoolers!  Don’t forget, we will be collecting all the coats on November 7th and 14th at the school.