MARCH 2014 SPECIAL MISSIONS WEEK EDITION
C O L L E G E
CHCS News H E I G H T S
C H R I S T I A N
S C H O O L
by Sonya Wilkins
Another incredible Missions Week has come and gone, but the spirit of service remains. At College Heights our mission statement reads in part, “…that produces servant-leaders…” What better way to put this into action than Missions Week. We strive to make serving others an everyday occurance. However, it is a lot of fun to focus one entire week to this endeavor. A total of 11 high school groups served in Jamaica, Mexico, Kentucky, Oklahoma, and Arkansas. Locally students served at Crosslines, Rapha House headquarters, Life House, and Spring River Christian Village. Another group of students put their craft skills to work creating projects that when sold, will benefit the Missouri Baptist Children’s Home. And finally, another group of students served by helping a CHCS teacher’s family build their home after losing theirs in the Joplin tornado. High School students weren’t the only ones out serving. Our Middle School students jumped right in and had their own variety of projects (see related stories). One exciting thing that was different this year was partnering each of our middle school and high school groups with an elementary class. Our sweet younger students prayed for the “big kids” and did their own acts of kindness and service by encouraging them and supplying donated items. Mrs. Woolridge’s third grade class even made a video that was sent to their partner group in Kentucky. (To view their video, go to http://youtu.be/r-xaVHTMRxw). After the week was over, several of the high school groups reported back to their elementary partners about all that they did during Missions Week. It was a great unifying process for our whole school! This year every student and staff member received a t-shirt. Everyone wore them on March 7th as we had a big allschool send-off chapel. It was a beautiful sight to see our elementary students gather around the secondary students and pray for them. We even took a historic all-school photo (check it out—it’s hanging in the gym foyer). When all is said and done from Missions Week, our goal is to continue to live out this year’s theme: STAND FIRM, which comes from I Corinthians 15:58. It reads, “Therefore, my dear brothers and sisters, stand firm. Let nothing move you. Always give yourselves fully to the work of the Lord, because you know that our labor in the Lord is not in vain.”