Make Summer Count: Parent Workshop!

Hands on ideas to make the most of your summer!

Hands on ideas to make the most of your summer!

Parents! You are invited to join us for our spring parent workshop: "Making Summer Count", on May 22nd during either the 9:15 or the 11:00 service in the gym! Rhiannon Rutledge will be sharing fresh and fun idea's on how to make the most of your summer with hands on ideas and activities. Everything from rainy days to fun in the sun... from family activities to date night... even road trips to stay-cations! 

We will also be joined by Five Oaks new Family & Discipleship Pastor, John Eiselt, for a time of teaching and sharing his heart for families! 

We hope you will join us for this exciting workshop and time of learning with John & Rhiannon. 

*No need to RSVP* Just show up! 

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FMSC Meals to Our Haiti GVCM Orphanage

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We have wonderful news! Five Oaks is sending a full container of food (272,000 FMSC meals) to the GVCM All God's Children Orphanage outside of Mirebalais, Haiti!! This past March, Feed My Starving Children designated the All God's Children Orphanage as an official food distribution site.  Five Oaks Church will be sponsoring the shipment of one full container of FMSC meals to the orphanage each year. The circle is now complete. We will pack the food at Five Oaks Church during our FMSC events, ship containers to the orphanage, and finally send teams of Five Oakers to help distribute that food to malnourished children in Haiti's Central Plateau. The first container is scheduled to ship May 2016.

A little history and background: Back in 2005, Five Oaks Church began its partnership with Global Vision Citadelle Ministries, led by Pastor Yves Prophete. At the time GVCM was renting some land and a small shack to house orphaned children from the area of Fedja, Haiti. The conditions for the orphans was deplorable. The one room shack served as sleeping quarters, school and pretty much everything else for the kids. We committed helping GVCM acquire land and to building an orphanage building. Here is a photo of the old orphanage:

Bedroom.JPG

Between the first building mission in January 2006 and August 2009, when we cut the ribbon of the main orphanage building, over 200 different Five Oakers traveled to the building site in Haiti and gave of their TIME, TALENT & TREASURE to make the orphanage building a reality. Many of those people volunteered several times over several years.  

The mostly complete main orphanage building.

The mostly complete main orphanage building.

We continued to send building teams for a couple more years building the orphanage wall and support buildings. The All God's Children Orphanage is now a complex of buildings serving newborns to 17 year-olds. There are, as of today, 106 orphans housed there. The orphanage is the main school for 225+ local kids, and a school of 14 deaf orphans was moved to the campus. Five Oaks has since transitioned from sending building teams to sending teaching and evangelism teams. That effort continues to this day. Our next Haiti Mission will be from July 30 - August 6, 2016. Five Oaks Church has also supported the welfare of the children, the orphanage / school operations, and staff with ongoing financial support.  

The All God's Children Orphanage campus.

The All God's Children Orphanage campus.

Approximately 3.5 years ago I started working with Yves Prophete, and various FMSC staff to forge a partnership between FMSC and GVCM. Five Oaks began packing meals with FMSC in 2008 and it seemed like a natural partnership to get those meals to the GVCM orphanage in Haiti. Haiti is the poorest country in our hemisphere and indeed, many FMSC meals go to Haiti. The bulk of those meals, however, go to Port-au-Prince. The orphanage is in Haiti's Central Plateau and we could not find a local distribution point near that area. I will not bore you with the details and red tape, but now that partnership is a reality. With the 272,000 meals the orphanage will receive, we know that the orphans and school children in the area are protected from the recurring famines that sweep through Haiti. The food also gives GVCM pastors and missionaries license to enter villages throughout Haiti to spread the Gospel.  

I consider this development the most important brick we laid since we set out to Impact Haiti back in 2005. The orphans are housed and now we know that they are fed. Glory be to God for orchestrating all of this!!

- Jerry Meras, Director of Outreach

  

The Little Hand

It was Easter weekend and this little guy was having a rough time after his parents left for the worship center to hear the weekend's message. I left my post at my hostess stand and walked to the nursery to see if I could help in any way. Seems my new little friend just needed a walk, so, we walked. We looked at the bulletin board, decorated with Easter items, and the table that had different art forms depicting the story of what Jesus did for us all so many Easters ago.  As we walked through the halls, I couldn't help but feel the tight grasp he had on my finger. He didn't care that my hands were cold and stained with paint; he just knew that he didn't want to let go!

As we sat and talked...actually, I talked as he awkwardly stared at me.... and he held my finger, I thought about how quickly in life we can loosen our hold to Jesus and we can become comfortable with letting go. My new little friend's grip reminded me of the importance of holding on to Jesus and His promises when it becomes easy to want to let go of Him. 

Our hearts, in the Tree House Children's Ministry, are to help kids tighten their grasp with Him, so that they will never want to let go and to help equip parents to maneuver through that journey with them, according to God's word. 

I challenge you to pray for our kids as they learn what the word of God has to say about Jesus and that their hearts would always be willing to grasp tightly to Him.

My little friend's parents came back after service, and his little hand was back in mom and dad's (as well as was the blood flow to my finger tip) and all was well with his world again! But, I hold that precious time with him and the faith he had that my hand was there, as a reminder to hold tightly to our Heavenly Father's grasp of us!

 "he didn't care that my hand was cold or stained with paint..."

 "he didn't care that my hand was cold or stained with paint..."

Five Oaks Puts the "F" in Fun

The Five Oaks FUN Team is off to a brilliant start with two special events to kick off the year.  We started with a special Valentine show of love in February, and just finished the night of FUN that is called Game Cafe in March.  Both of these were made possible by the Five Oaks FUN team and about 50 additional volunteers.  

Hopefully you had a taste of the delicious chocolate-dipped marshmallows or strawberries when you came to church on Valentine's Day.  If not, just check out the photo below and you might feel like running out to grab a chocolate dessert.

 

We also hope you stopped by for a night of games and hot dogs at our Game Café.  Over 460 people attended the event and it was great to see spontaneous fellowship happening that night.  A number of small groups met for a social outing and lots of kids and parents got to have an "unplugged" night of fun together.  We had BINGO, Mega-Twister, bounce houses, slides, Puzzlemania and tons of board games for all tastes.  

This was a night of FUN for all ages, and just to prove that we would like you to view this video of our Senior Pastor and Director of Outreach facing-off on the inflatable Bungee Run! 
 

 

The FUN Team is back at work planning our next surprise for Mother's Day.  Plan to bring your mom or someone who is like a mom to you to church the weekend of May 7/8 and let her be honored.

Special thanks to the members of the Five Oaks FUN Team below.  They made it all possible:
Dawn Beavers
Nate Benson
Peg Benson
Jenna Friedman
Kris Glewwe
Shawn Grams
Heather Hanafee
Marge Lindberg
Jessica Mata
Meleah Miller
Kristin Sellers
Rachel Westurn
Pam Hawley (our fearless leader)
Jennifer Clemens (our equally fearless leader)

 

News from the Worship Arts Team

Hey! Welcome to the Five Oaks Worship Arts blog! We are looking forward to getting to share with you all a bit more of who we are and why we do what we do. We might even throw in a funny story or two once in awhile for your amusement….like that time during the service a couple weekends back when someone got a little dizzy and nearly fell over, prompting her to grab her equally unstable mic stand. Yep. It was a near display of something NOT described as graceful. :)

Our Worship Arts team is made up of a variety of people who give of their time and talents one or more weekends a month to serve any number of roles in our weekend services. We are a diverse crew with different gifts serving together with one common purpose— We love Jesus and want to give God glory by bringing praise and worship to him and leading our church body to do the same.

We all have different styles and preferences of worship, and every so often that leads to some interesting conversations. Not long ago, I was asked by someone how a person leading worship could be sincere in their outward expression (in this case, hand raising) week after week. While genuine worship is a matter of the heart and is not for us to measure, this was a reminder to me that we worship God because of who he is, not because of how we feel. We serve an unchanging, ever faithful God. He is worthy of our praise!

See you on the weekend!
Aimee

 

Our worship is not based on feelings alone.
We praise God because he is worthy of it.
He is worthy of our praise.
This is true regardless of our personal day to day circumstances.

We come before him with all that we have.
We lift our hands, we cry out, 
we lift our voices and our eyes, because of who God is.
He is worthy.

Even if we can’t see past our hurt;
even if we can’t see past the struggle;
even when we don’t understand,
we know that he is still God.
He is still good.

So we lift our hands and we praise him anyway,
regardless of our fleeting feelings.
The truth is why we continue to praise.
The truth is not disingenuous.
His truth is not based on our feelings,
or lack of understanding, or level of trust.

The truth of who God is, the truth of his promises --  are fact.

We choose to praise.
Our lives are not perfect. Our praise is not insincere.
We aren’t fakers. 
We are worshipers.

He is worthy of our praise because of who he is.
He is worthy of our worship. 
Always.
 

Every day I will bless you and praise your name forever and ever.
Great is the Lord, and greatly to be praised, and his greatness is unsearchable.
Psalm 145:2-3
 

For the Lord is good and his love endures forever;
his faithfulness continues through all generations.
Psalm 100:5

The freedom to live for God

“Now I have found the freedom to truly live for God. I have been crucified with the Anointed One—I am no longer alive—but the Anointed is living in me; and whatever life I have left in this failing body I live by the faithfulness of God’s Son, the One who loves me and gave His body on the cross for me.”
— From Galatians 2
 
 

Keep this as a reminder with you all week.
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Haiti Child Sponsorship Drive a HUGE Success!

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I want to take a moment to send out a gigantic "Thank you!" to all who felt God's calling to care for the orphans of Haiti! These kids truly are the least of these. For the past two weekends we displayed photos of the orphans from the GVCM All God's Children Orphanage just outside Mirebalais, Haiti. We asked our congregation to select an orphans photo and story and to make a financial commitment of $35 a month to provide them with food, clothing, medicine and an education.

So many of you came through in a HUGE way to help provide a future for children growing up in our hemisphere's poorest country. Over the past two weekends we saw 19 orphans gain sponsors! That brings the Five Oaks total to 35 sponsored orphans. We more than doubled the number of kids we are supporting monthly.

These are the things that make a tangible difference in our world. I am so proud to be part of a church that is truly concerned with being the hands and feet of Christ to a hurting world. I am so proud to call Five Oaks my church home!

I want to thank Ron & Lesley Schlegel, our Haiti Impact Coordinators, and Sarah Bowers, who has an incredible hearth for these kids. Sarah provided us with the photos and stories and tracks our GVCM ChildVision sponsorships.

The opportunity to sponsor an orphan in Haiti is always open. Contact Sarah Bowers,  sarah@gvcm.org, and she will answer all your questions, introduce you to your child and set-up your sponsorship.  

Below are some photos of our newest sponsors. We were not able to get pics of all of our sponsors. If I left you out I sincerely apologize. You are all heroes to me.

Psalm 82:3 (NIV) - Defend the weak and the fatherless; uphold the cause of the poor and the oppressed.

- Jerry Meras, Director of Outreach

  

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Psalm 1

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Keep these words as a reminder with you this season.
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Listen to the audio from our morning Lent prayer service on iTunes.

The Psalms are a prayerbook meant to help us, God’s sons and daughters, learn prayer. And, as we pray with the Psalms we find ourselves not only praying Scripture — God’s Word (Jesus is the word made flesh) — but also praying with Jesus, the same prayers he learned from. 

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Psalm 23

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Keep these words as a reminder with you this season.
Click the button below to download a lock screen for your phone.

Listen to the audio from our morning Lent prayer service on iTunes.

The Psalms are a prayerbook meant to help us, God’s sons and daughters, learn prayer. And, as we pray with the Psalms we find ourselves not only praying Scripture — God’s Word (Jesus is the word made flesh) — but also praying with Jesus, the same prayers he learned from. 

Join us Thursday mornings from 6:30-7:10 am for our Lent prayer services.