Category: Church

Almost exactly four years ago, members of our church sat down and had a “Dream Meeting” where we shared wishes, hopes and dreams for the future of Eastport Bible Church.  One of the biggest shared goals that I remember from that meeting from both young and old, was the desire to connect with young families and to get them plugged into our church community.  Well, fast forward four years and I’m happy to share that we have certainly accomplished that goal!

One way we wanted to continue to help and support these amazing young families, was to host a Big Picture Parenting Seminar which happened this past weekend.  We met first on Friday evening and then finished up on Sunday evening.  Because I love a good family picture, and realize that they are sometimes hard to get, I took a few moments before our Sunday session to capture some memories for a few of the families that attended.

We have such love for these families!

There is nothing greater, in my mind, than raising children to know and love Jesus and we are so thankful that these parents have committed to doing just that.

For our Sunday evening session, the parents enjoyed a beautiful meal that was both gifted and catered by Rhumba.  For the record, the Hersh family is the brilliance behind three local restaurants, Rhumba, Cowfish and Rhum and if you haven’t, you should totally check them all out.  These restaurants have been our family’s favorites for years because of their beautiful locations and oustandingly delicious food.  We are so thankful to Rachel and David Hersh for their generosity in supporting our Parenting Seminar!

While our parents all enjoyed their meals below…

We had an excellent team of adults and helpers looking after the kids upstairs.

Years ago, I remember our nursery being empty some Sundays.  But now, it’s bursting and busy with the most beautiful babies around.

During the seminar, the babies kept busy with toys and snacks (it’s amazing the joy that comes from one container of puffs and a few boxes of raisins).

We also had a big kids room with coloring and activities for all.

After our delicious meal, we met as parents to learn and discuss and be encouraged.  Our seminar was themed after Paul David Tripp’s Parenting Series based off his book called Parenting: 14 Gospel Principles that Can Radically Change your Family.  (By the way, that link will take you to Amazon, where you can check out the book or even buy the Kindle version for $2.99.  Having read and been encouraged by this book, I guarantee you, it will be the best $2.99 you’ve spent!)

Brenda and Nathan Tuttle, and Anna and AK McNall were the driving force behind our parenting seminar.   It was their dream to host this for our families and they all did an absolutely amazing job!

In between video clips we also had time to discuss and it was so good to hear the thoughts and ideas of other parents.  Sometimes, being a parent can make you feel incredibly isolated.

But putting yourself out with other parents is an incredible experience.  You learn quickly that you’re not alone, but that others are going through the same things you are and through our seminar we gained an opportunity to share and support each other.

I got to enjoy a big part of the seminar on both evenings, but also spent some time helping out in the nursery with the many babies that I love.  That being said, if I could share a few things I learned from our Big Picture Parenting Seminar they would be:

1.  We shouldn’t be surprised when we see sin in the home, we should be surprised when we don’t.
2. The call for parenting is captured in one diagnostic word:  Ambassadors.  II Corinthians 5:20 says, “We are therefore Christ’s ambassadors, as though God were making His appeal through us.”  We are ambassadors for Christ to our kids and they can learn about God and His will from us.
3. God reveals the needs of our kids so we can be a tool of His Grace in their lives.
4. And finally, “If your eyes ever see and your ears ever hear the sin, weakness, and failure of your children- it is never an accident, it is never an interruption, it is never a hassle, it is always grace.”  For me, this was a completely different way to look at the struggles that our kids have and to change my thinking from negative to positive!

And friends, that was only the surface!  There was so many great things to take away from the Big Picture Parenting Seminar and I’m so thankful that I got to be a part of it.  Again, a huge thank you to everyone who was involved in the planning and to those who were able to come and participate with us.  Eastport Bible Church is an incredible place for families (young and old) to get plugged in to sharing life together.  For more information on our church, you can check out our website here.

Last night, we gathered together 47 of our amazing students and Youth Group leaders and drove them all out to Tanger so they could participate in our kick off event, The Hunt.

Basically, they got to hide and roam around Tanger Mall till they were found by our church and community friends.  They absolutely loved it.

And for the record, they were all amazing.

It was so fun to see some of our Hangtime friends there as well!  Shameless reminder… Our community after-school program Hangtime starts up this coming week and I could not be happier.  It’s never too late to register your K-6th grader for our Wednesday program and you can do that at: www.eastportbiblechurch.com.

Back to the Hunt.  If you were walking by the Pottery Barn outlet last night and saw this, well, that was just part of our game.

Including this homeless looking kid, I like to call my own.

Chatting with a few parents who had dropped off their kids for our event, I was reminded just how happy we are to get to do what we do.

Fifteen years of working with teens and I’m realizing that now more than ever is the time we are needed.  These kids are amazing.  But they struggle and it’s our goal to reach out to them and to share the love of Jesus.  On that note, Youth Group which is for 7th-12th Graders starts next Thursday Night at Eastport Bible Church from 7-9pm.  We would also love to see your teens there as well!

And at the end of the night, I have to say there were quite a few very successful Hunters. These cuties included.

Gathering everyone together and causing a mini spectacle we tallied up the score to see who had found the most teens throughout the night.

And the winner and take home of our legitimately awesome trophy?

The incredible Dylan.  We were super proud of him for having found something like 42 of the 47 students.  His determination and tenacity (paired with a little help from his amazing mom) ended in sheer victory.

A huge thank you to everyone who joined us for The Hunt!  It was an incredibly fun event and we we are so happy that you were there.

Last October, we learned that our church would be once again in transition and that we would need a new pastor.  It was tough news to hear and suddenly there were many unknowns ahead.  Thankfully, God had a plan, as He always does.  Within the year, we would find that our church could continue to be amazing and that many would step up to fill in where needed.

During the year, a committee was put into place and they were the ones to begin to search for our new Lead Pastor.  At the beginning of the summer, Kaleb and Amber Kemper flew out to visit us and to see if our church was where God might be calling them and their family.

And thankfully, it was.

They moved out to Long Island late July and worked on settling in to a new job and home. And this past Sunday, our church took time to officially welcome them with a fun celebration.

Kaleb has done an incredible job stepping into his role as our pastor.  He’s a strong preacher and we’ve enjoyed hearing the great things that God has laid upon his heart.

We’ve all really enjoyed getting to know and spend time with his family as well.  Kaleb and Amber have four incredible kids that complete their beautiful family.

On Sunday, we got to see messages from Kaleb and Amber’s extended family, all whom are spread out all over the world.  In a fun connection, Kaleb’s sister Naomi married our very own John Caprari, who grew up in our youth group and who has always been a very dear friend.  They are both serving in Tanzania now and sent their love and prayers through a video message.

We took time to pray God’s great blessings over our new Pastor and his family and it was a very powerful time.  I know for myself and for our church that we are very thankful for God’s leading in the Kemper’s lives.  We cannot wait to see the great things that God will do in and through this beautiful family.

Afterwards, we played a game to get to know the Kempers better.

It was fun to see their responses and fun to get to know more about what the Kempers love.

And after that, we gathered together for a beautiful picnic lunch.  If you’ve ever been a part of a church family, you know that there is no greater thing, than sitting down to break bread with those you love.

In addition to the bread breaking, and an entire section of tasty potluck dishes, we also had the most incredible steamed clams and mussels.  We could not be more thankful to this family for their many gifts and talents on the sea (or in the bay).  It was a delicious way to welcome the Kempers and to give them a taste of the great things Long Island has to offer.

I’ll be honest.  I didn’t get as many pictures as I could have, because I spent the meal time chatting with some wonderful families in our church, including this one.  If you are ever looking to come be a part of a church family, we have a pretty amazing one at Eastport Bible Church and we would love to have you join us!  You can check out more information at our website: www.eastportbiblechurch.com

All in all, it was a beautiful day for a picnic to welcome Kaleb and Amber Kemper to Eastport.  We are thrilled to have them with us and we pray that God will bless and strengthen their family in many wonderful ways as they serve and minister here with us.

It’s hard to imagine…  But VBS Kids Camp 2018 at Eastport Bible Church, is over.  It was an incredible week, to say the least.  And so many great things happened.  First off, we had the most wonderful team of adult leaders and teen helpers.  For fact, we could not run our program without these amazing people.

Secondly, our very own Esther Heine concluded a 30 year streak of being our VBS Director.  30 years.  30 years of leading and teaching and helping and doing many, many other tasks that all contributed to children learning more about Jesus.  We are so thankful for her and for her years and years of service.

And now, for one of the best stories to come out of VBS this year.  And that would include these kids having a growing love and desire to help other kids.

For the past seven years at VBS we have done a “Change for Children” campaign where we ask our students to collect their pennies, nickels, dimes and quarters and then bring them in to donate towards helping orphans in Burkina Faso, West Africa.  They learn that this money goes for clothing, food, education as well as teaching these children how much Jesus loves them.

In our more recent years we’ve collected around a thousand dollars each summer.  Which is A LOT of money in change.  Well this year, something about our program resonated beautifully with our students.  These two in particular (and probably others) told me that they emptied out their own personal piggy banks to donate all of their money for the orphans.  How amazing is that?

There was growing excitement throughout the week, because in addition to collecting change, we tell the winning team that they get to slime their team leader.

This year, our team leaders were Brian and Jules.  And amazingly, unlike other years, both Brian and Jules actually wanted to get slimed.  So they encouraged their teams to bring as much money as they could, and the kids responded in the most amazing way.  Jules’ team literally filled a 5 gallon bucket to the brim and she ended up being our winner for the week.

After our closing program on Friday, we gathered our kids outdoors for the sliming.

Jules was a wonderfully good sport.

And I doubt very much that the kids will ever forget her memorable sliming.

And for the record, we set a record this year.  After VBS Kids Camp was finished, Jules and I took the money to her bank to use their change counter.  It took an hour and forty five minutes and the change collectors had to be emptied out three times (they were separated by coins, so it was only the pennies, quarters and dimes that had to be emptied).  In addition to the U.S. Change collected, we ended up with a British penny from 1853, about a dollar in Euros, a lot of wheat pennies, quite a few coins from all over the world and….

$1856 in change!!!  Added in was a generous $200 donation from one of our parents and so our grand total was:
$2056

Which is a lot of money, especially when you think it all came from a group of about 130 kids who had a deep heart to help other kids (and to slime Jules).  This was totally an incredible blessing and outcome from our amazing week of VBS Kids Camp.  A huge thank you to everyone who helped to make our week a great success!!!

It’s been the most amazing week of VBS Kids Camp.  And I would be remiss, no matter how late it is right now, to not share about the good things that have been happening all week at Eastport Bible Church.  I actually just finished up our VBS video and have one other thing to get to before I can sleep, so instead of a bunch of words, I’ll leave you with some sweet pictures from Days 3 and 4.

We’ll finish up our week with a closing celebration and picnic lunch tomorrow (Friday) at noon for the families of our amazing VBS kids.  Thanks for checking in and for seeing the wonderful things that have gone on at our church this week!

Today was our first day of VBS Kids Camp at Eastport Bible Church.

We had an incredible number of kids join us today as well as this sweet little baby friend who stopped in with his beautiful Mama to see what was all going on.

In case you didn’t know, VBS Kids Camp is for kids who finished Pre-K through 6th Grade of this past year.  We enjoy lots of fun songs, crafts, a Bible Story, snack and a game time as well.

We also have a fun Skit each day and Steven and Gina brought all kinds of laughs this morning.

Then, our Pre-K through Fourth Graders stayed to enjoy a fun day of VBS Camp,

While our Fifth and Sixth Graders got to go and cool off in the pool.

This is always a fun time for the older kids.  They enjoy many fun activities including a good belly flop competition or two.

VBS Kids Camp runs throughout the rest of this week, from 9:00am-12:00 noon each day.  All kids are welcome and this program is free to our community.  We would love to have you join us!  Registration is quick and easy and can be done online at www.eastportbiblechurch.com

Or at the church just before we begin our day.  We are really looking forward to having an incredible week so come and join us anytime!