Playcation Mission Trip 2011
Are you looking for a family mission trip where your kids can serve alongside you? Are you looking for the experience of serving God in a third world country without having to fly 12 hours to Africa? Do you have a heart for orphaned children, families, the lost and a desire to disciple others? Have you served in VBS or Playcation and would love to reach out to children in other countries? Do you have experience in carpentry and/or light construction and you would like to use your skills and talents to glorify God?
Playcation is heading to Haiti and we would like you to join us!!
Where: Jacmel, Haiti and surrounding cities
When: Saturday November 19th through Saturday November 26th, 2011
Who: Adults – singles and/or couples of all ages; Children – older elementary aged through high school (5th/6th grade onward)
Purpose:
* Evangelism
* To minister to orphaned children living on the street who lost their parents in the Haiti earthquake of 2010
* To disciple people who are part of a partner church and to further equip members of a church plant
* To provide VBS/Playcation for Haitian children
* Light construction/carpentry (building benches)
Approximate Cost: $495 – $595 for JFBC Members
Looking for more information? Please contact Suzanne Perrin at suzanneperrin@bellsouth.net or 770.650.8384.
Important Announcements
1. If you haven’t picked up your Playcation t-shirt please do so immediately! We have a shirt with your name on it reserved for you in our office. Bring $7 cash or check to the Children’s Ministry anytime this week and we’ll help you out.
2. It’s important for you to have your t-shirt because we need you to wear it! First, wear your t-shirt tomorrow during the Blitz day. Remember, we will meet in the Fellowship Hall at 9 AM.
3. We will also wear our t-shirts on Sunday morning to be commissioned in all 6 services this week.
4. Finally, we still need folks to sign up for our afternoon mission opportunities. The clipboards are in the Matchbox and will be available tomorrow in the Fellowship Hall. Those afternoon trips will meet in the Fishbowl at 1:15 and return by 5 PM.
Playcation is One Week Away!
Here’s what you need to know today!
- If you haven’t gotten your free lunch tickets for the week of Playcation, please stop by our office or call 770-794-2990 to reserve yours ASAP. We have a limited amount of lunch tickets! Each day there is a different color lunch ticket.
Monday – Blue
Tuesday – Orange
Wednesday – Green
Thursday – Yellow
- Please let us know if your children will be riding the bus with you to your site each day by e-mailing Sheryl at sheryl.beck@jfbc.org so we can make sure there are enough seats on your team’s bus.
- Finally, this Friday is Playcation Blitz day! Please let us know by Wednesday if you are able to attend so we can order you a Subway sandwich. Please call or e-mail Christina to let us know if you’re attending the Blitz. (770-794-2991 or christina.metry@jfbc.org)
- For the Blitz we will meet in the Fellowship Hall at 9 AM on Friday. Hope to see you there!
Final Playcation Meeting – Sunday, June 12
Hello elite members of our Superhero Squad! I hope you’re all doing well as you continue to prepare for Playcation! We have seen many site teams preparing supplies in the Matchbox over the past few weeks. I hope to see the rest come through sometime soon!
Here are the most important things you need to know about Playcation this week:
- Our final Playcation meeting is this Sunday, June 12 from 4-6 PM in the Sanctuary. Please bring $7 for your Playcation t-shirt.
- If you need Childcare for Sunday’s meeting, please call or e-mail Sara Henderson with your child’s name and date of birth. (770-794-2994 or sara.henderson@jfbc.org) The deadline to register for childcare is Thursday, June 9 at 10:00 AM. Childcare is available for Birth-5th Grade
- Site 2 has a confirmed location! You will be at Murdock Elementary!
- We are in need of several hundred t-shirts in order to be able to make our cape craft on Day 1. If you have any old t-shirts, please bring them by the Children’s Ministry office. We would prefer shirts with at least one blank side (it doesn’t matter if it is the front or the back).
We can’t wait to see you this Sunday!
Site Team Announcements!
We are very excited to be announcing our site team locations! Please start praying right now for the kids that will be impacted each day at your site.
Site #1 – This team has been split up and placed on other teams. If you were on on Site #1, please call Christina at 770-794-2991. She can let you know where you have been placed.
Site #2 – This team’s site is still pending. When it is official, check back for the latest news. Also – Site #2 is still in need of an administrator. If you are interested, please call Sheryl at 770-794-2990.
Site #3 – This team is also missing an administrator, but will be held at the JFBC Fields.
Site #4 – Tina Savasuk’s team will be at Addison Elementary.
Site #5 – Kerri Greenway’s team will be at Harrison Park.
Site #6 – Kelly Whitehead’s team will be at Sewell Park on Lower Roswell Rd.
Site #7 – Robyn Wong’s team will be at Hightower Trail Middle School.
Site #8 – Carey DeLucca’s team will be at Riverside Park.
Site #9 – Kathy Kennedy’s team will be at East Cobb Park.
Site #10 – Mara Miller’s team will be at Timber Ridge Elementary.
Site #11 – Suzanne Perrin’s team will be at Walton Community Apartments on Columns Drive.
5 in 5
Here are the 5 things you need to know this week about Playcation in 5 minutes of less!
1. We will be communicating with Playcation leadership mainly through this website. Please bookmark it, make it your homepage, or refer to it regularly to stay in the know.
2. Our next leadership meeting for all Playcation volunteers in Sunday, June 12 at 4:00 PM in the Sanctuary. Please mark your calendars! It is important that you attend.
3. Your site administrator will be contacting you to welcome you to their team. They will let you know when your team will work together to prepare in the Matchbox.
4. If you have a Preschool age child or a kindergartner that needs to enroll in Preschool VBS, please download the Preschool VBS registration form and return it to the Children’s Ministry office. Click on the link to the right.
5. If you did not list a cell number on your application please send it to lynn.wolford@jfbc.org
See? Faster than a speeding bullet, you have all the info you need to know this week about Playcation. Thanks for serving with us and keep checking in for updates!
Come get your Playcation notebook!
If you missed our Playcation meeting on Saturday, please stop by the office soon and pick up your notebook! You can find out what site team you have been assigned to and start learning about what all is happening at Playcation this year!
Playcation 2011: The Top Ten
Playcation is back and it’s better than ever! Without further ado, here are the Top Ten new things about Playcation that YOU need to know!
- Playcation has a theme for the first time ever… SUPERHEROES! We are working on writing new curriculum based on heroes from the Bible. So that means new stories, new small group activities, and new ways to share salvation! We’ll also be doing new crafts… this summer, each child will have a chance to build their own SUPERSUIT based on the Armor of God!
- This year we wanted to freshen up the take-homes for the kids. We were inspired by The Action Bible (check it out… it’s AWESOME) and our superhero theme… so we are hoping to create our own comic book and/or superhero action cards (similar to baseball cards) that the kids can take home to remember the Bible story and Bible hero of each day.
- Our sites… will be back in the East Cobb area. We are following our pastor’s lead to reach out to the children in our community that we can definitely follow up with. We will even be doing a site right here on our own campus! That site will meet at the fields each day. We hope that providing a site on campus will help our preschool workers with elementary age children. Their kids will no longer have to get on a bus to participate in Playcation. Instead, they will just walk out to the fields! This site will also be open to kids from the community.
- We want to give 5th graders an opportunity to serve. We found over the last two years that fifth graders have not been as involved with Playcation as they were in VBX. So Christina is in the process of developing a mission trip training for 5th graders to help as junior leaders in Playcation. There will be an application and screening process as well as a few training meetings to get the 5th graders ready to serve. They will be used mostly at the JFBC site, but a few will be assigned to teams. We think this is an exciting way to involve the 5th graders and give them a chance to share Christ with other kids.
- Family Night will also move back onto the JFBC campus. We’ll meet on Thursday night in the Activities Center with some very special guests… Team Impact. Which leads me straight into #6…
- Team Impact is coming to be a part of Playcation! If you don’t know what Team Impact is, then you need to check out this video: Team Impact fits perfectly into our superhero theme, because hello! They are real-life strong men! Each day, members of Team Impact will visit the Playcation sites to do a Family Night promo… they’ll do a quick feat of strength (like breaking baseball bats or rolling up frying pans or tearing phone books in half) and share a challenge or a testimony. We think that kids will get excited and really want to come back to the church on Thursday night for Family Night to see Team Impact’s full program.
- We are doing a mission project! We are partnering with Sweet Sleep an organization that works with orphanages to provide beds, Bibles and mosquito nets for orphans in Haiti, Uganda and Moldova. We will challenge the kids to collect money to buy beds and mosquito nets to help other kids in other countries. The neatest thing about this project is that we can partner with Sweet Sleep and take a mission trip to one of these countries after Playcation to go put the beds together and do children’s ministry with the orphanages. We’ll have more information about this at our training.
- In the afternoons, we are going to have an extra ministry opportunity. You can be a part of our traveling team! On Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday afternoons we are hoping to visit some ministries that JFBC already supports that are further outside of East Cobb. We’ll bring Team Impact, some festival supplies, and of course, our Superhero Playcation material!
- We have our big training meeting coming up faster than a speeding bullet! Mark your calendars for May 7th. We’ll meet in the Student Center North at 9:00 AM. This meeting is the most important Playcation meeting of the year. You’ll learn everything you need to know at this meeting! Please make it a priority to attend. We’ll be finished by noon.
- We need YOU to join our Super Squad! If you haven’t already, please register online to volunteer for the week of Playcation. If you’ve already registered, recruit a sidekick or two (every superhero needs a sidekick, right?) and get them to register online!
We are so excited about Playcation this year. I hope that you are too! Bookmark this page for updates, announcements, and maybe some fun things… who knows what you’ll see at Playcation.org!
Playcation is Back for Year #3!
Can you believe that it’s already time for Playcation again? Here in the Children’s Ministry office, we spend all year thinking about our summer programs, but they still sometimes sneak up on us! Playcation is one of our favorite weeks of the year for many reasons: we get to serve alongside the best and brightest volunteers, we spend a week doing ministry out in our community, and we get to hear amazing stories about what God is doing at each site and in the lives of the people involved in Playcation!
We had our first information meeting last night and we have another one coming up! Be sure to meet us in the Matchbox on Wednesday, March 30, 2011 to hear about some new and exciting updates to the Playcation program. Until then, feel free to register online to be a Playcation leader! We hope that you are already praying for Playcation week this summer and getting excited about all that the Lord is going to do.
From playing games with the kids, to praising God through worship and testimonial, Playcation really opened my mind to what God has in store for all of us. I really enjoyed seeing all the kids singing and dancing to all of the worship songs. It was really cool to see all the kids getting into the music, even though it was really hot. It was nice being able to share my talents that God gave me to those sweet kids. Also it was amazing how so many kids came to know God, and I was glad that I was able to help some of those kids out through making that decision. Playcation was truly a great experience for me and for the kids in growing with God.
-Lindsey Long was a Jr. Worship Leader last summer at Murdock Elementary. For more information about leading worship at Playcation, please e-mail Eden at eden.hutchins@jfbc.org or by clicking on the link in the right hand column.
It’s not too late to sign up for Playcation! Register online at www.johnsonferry.org/children
God is faithful!
Playcation 2009 at Murdock Elementary was quite an exciting adventure! For many it was a huge leap of faith in our local mission field of East Cobb. It was almost like being on the “foreign” mission field not knowing what to expect on our first day. God was faithful! He brought 50-70 children almost every day to our site that week, many who were unchurched! God’s hand was upon every detail including the knitting together of our amazing Murdock leadership team with the perfect blend of many different gifts and talents. What a blessing to serve along side of my awesome teammates both young and old alike who are my new “forever” friends in the Lord. God grew each one of us in our faith each day as he faithfully equipped us to lead worship, to share testimonies, and to tell the Good News of God’s amazing love with the children. Wednesday was the “miracle day” of the week at Murdock. The Lord gave our team the word “worship” as His theme for the morning devotions. As we worshipped him throughout the day almost a dozen children came forward to receive the gift of salvation that day alone! The Lord gets all the glory for the many great and miraculous things he did through Playcation -too many to recount here! I look forward to joining you this summer in God’s great adventure as we share His love and grace with his little children through Playcation.
Susan Brantley
Murdock Storyteller
For more information about being a Presenter/Storyteller, contact Janice at janice.nesbitt@jfbc.org or 770-794-2991.
God is good in HOTlanta!
I had a wonderful experience participating in PLAYCATION 2009! My team went “on mission” to Brumby Elementary School to an area of many unchurched kids. Although we did not have huge numbers of children, we loved the kids God sent to us, and we rejoiced with the eternal decisions made! I remember one beautiful little girl named Angel who made a decision! I remember one evening, Jill, our leader, sent out a late e-mail wanting the Hallelujah chorus for her presentation time. I didn’t have it, but amazingly one of our worship leaders/teachers (Natalie) just so happened to have it on her iPod that next morning although she had not seen the e-mail the night before!!! When God is into the details like that – you know He is up to something good! We actually played the Hallelujah chorus afterwards when we rejoiced over decisions amde! That was one God story I remember… however, what was most memorable about the week was truly witnessing an effective “microcosm” of the body of Christ at work. Romans 12:4 says: “We have many members in one body, but all the members do not have the same function.”
Everyone had a different key role to play in the daily laboring of the harvest field for God’s kingdom. What a joy it was to serve in the area He called me to participate and also to watch God’s family serve in other areas of specific calling! Because we had smaller numbers at our site, our team ended up adding a music rotation that proved to be a good way to reinforce the music we introduced at the beginning/ending of the day. We actually were able to bring in a little movement to this time also and taught the kids a simple line dance (which turned into a circle dane to “Shackles”) and the kids seemed to really enjoy dancing! It also was the last memory of the week which the kids chose to do… getting together with the whole group in a huge circle with the kids in an outer circle facing inwards and worship leaders/teachers in the inner circle facing outwards to the camp kids and everyone dancing and praising the Lord together at our final worship gathering! That was such a happy climactic time of worship with the kids that I don’t think I will ever forget! We were so thrilled later that day when several of the children came to the family night with their moms and aunts and other siblings! It was sweet confirmatino that God was indeed at work in the hearts of the kids He brought to us that special HOTlanta summer week at Brumby!
-Andrea Kasuya was a Worship Leader last summer at Brumby. For more information about being a Worship Leader, contact Eden at eden.hutchins@jfbc.org or at 770-794-2992.
