By: Dan Bender
It is with tremendous gratitude and appreciation that I get to write a little thank you to someone who has gone so far above and beyond it cannot be put into words. As you may or may not know, Ms. Jill Scott, along with Ms. Melanie Mills, stepped up in a big way this past fall upon the retirement of Ms. Ellen Dillard. Not only did they both hold down the fort as the process was being held to find another staff person, they did so with excellence. Upon Melanie stepping back from her role as Interim Kids Ministry Director this past January, Ms. Jill continued on and was a huge part in welcoming me and helping me become acclimated in my new role and continuing to make sure things were excellent with Kids Ministry.
In all of my years working in Family Ministry, I can say without a shadow of a doubt that Ms. Jill gets the WHY of what we do better than the rest. She truly understands what it means to be ORANGE - the connection of influences of the Church and Home, and she strives to bring that to life in all of her work. She has a passion to see young people and their families live into who Jesus is making them to be and goes out of her way in every shape and form to help those relationships flourish.
Ms. Jill is going to continue in her role through the end of VBS and will then get some much deserved time poolside, as that is one of her favorite things to do. What she has done is invaluable to Hebron and the families that it serves. Make sure that you not only thank her once, but every time you see her, because her standing in the gap is what has kept things going for the last several months and has kept us in a place where growth is possible. We look forward to what the Lord will do in and through her this fall as she continues to serve the church.
Many thanks to you, Ms. Jill, from all of us in Family Life Ministry and on staff; and may you thoroughly enjoy the sunshine this summer!
It is always a beautiful site when you take in a ball game at PNC Park. This trip was put together by the Family Ministry Team and we were 72 strong in attendance on Saturday, May 6th to see the Pirates take on the Toronto Blue Jays. While the game didn't go the way we had hoped in terms of the final score, it did end with a BLAST. It was fireworks night at the ballpark and all can agree that it was a pretty fantastic show. This is just one of the many examples of things that Family Life Ministry will endeavor to do over the course of the year. A quarterly gathering of Families and Friends to fellowship and grow as a community. We look forward to our next gathering this summer so stay tuned!
A FRIENDLY VBS REMINDER! June 18-22, 2023 #readysetmove
Go online and register both participants and helpers at: https://hebrononline.org/family-life/vbs
Hey everyone! I just wanted to give a little PSA about VBS and how important it is for you to sign up and register ASAP. There is going to be a cut off for when I can guarantee that there will be T Shirts if you ordered them at registration. The longer you wait the less likely it will be that we will have one available for you during camp.
So, it is my hope that the majority (90%) of you would be registered by June 7th. It is actually my hope that we get there a lot sooner. We will have some scannable signs at the check in booth for kids for the next couple of weeks during Sunday school. It takes just a few moments to register and we hope that all of your kids and friends they would invite would be able to sign up ASAP. While we are making every effort to have things ready in advance, there are certain things that we cannot do until we are within 2 weeks of camp.
I know that a lot of people don't really know what they are doing until they get within the month of an event; but with the scope of something like VBS, here is a picture of what it looks like as we make the run up to VBS. Here are 11 reasons we need you to make the commitment to VBS ASAP. These are not in order of importance because they are all important and dependent on the amount of registrants.
1. Final orders for snack supplies
2. Final orders for craft supplies - then printing and preparing them
3. Determining the proper groups kids will be in
4. Making sure the T Shirt order is complete
5. Determining which environments hold which aspects of VBS
6. Determining the number of leaders necessary for each environment
7. Printing and Preparing all of the Small Groups Activities for the week
8. Decorating is something that has to happen close to camp no matter what
9. Making sure that all of our check in and check out stuff is ready (orange tags)
10. Communicating final approach details with more efficiency because everyone is on the contact list
11. Clearances to work with kids take time to come back once they are requested
So, that is a peek behind the curtain. Help us give these kids the best experience possible by helping us and registering ASAP. Thank you so much!
