S.P.A.R.K. (St. Paul Church’s Announcements to Read and Know) March 2023
Dear friends in Christ,
May God’s grace and peace be multiplied to you.
This whole month of March we are in the season of Lent. Since I outlined our Lenten worship series “Promised Treasures” in last month’s newsletter, I ‘d like to use this month’s newsletter to update you on the Firm Foundations Academy Northwest that is using our school classrooms. Along with our own preschool, I believe Firm Foundations operating on our campus is one of the best things happening at our church.
Firm Foundations Academy Northwest was started last summer by Melissa Parmelee and Clare Kozushko, two educators who live in this area. Melissa’s children are alumni of our preschool. Melissa and Clare’s vision was to set up a Christian, hybrid homeschool in Newberg and Sherwood, to serve as an alternative to traditional home-schooling, public and parochial school. Students have in-person class three days a week with a teacher, and two days at home working on assignments. For their Sherwood operation, Firm Foundations is using our old schoolhouse and gym (Connect Center), one modular classroom and the adjacent playground. Plus, the kids have the whole grove to explore and play in. When the weather is warm and dry, they eat lunch in the grove. There are 32 students on our campus in grades K through 8th. The students wear uniforms and learn by the classical model of education: grammar, logic, and rhetoric. Within that sphere they learn the classics of literature, art, languages (Latin, French) history, theology, and much more.
Firm Foundations is an impressive operation. The teachers are very professional, and the students are some of the brightest, most personable young people I’ve had the pleasure of interacting with. I am privileged to be able to have devotions with the 6-8th grade classes each Friday morning and afternoon. You can tell just by talking with the students that their parents are serious about a Christian education for them, in a safe environment. It is such a joy to see children playing in the playground and in the grove again. I am fond of mentioning that we haven’t had middle school students learning and playing on our campus since 1968. I hope it is a long-lasting relationship between our church and Firm Foundations. If you have any questions about this school or even if you’d like to walk through the classrooms and see what it’s about, I’d be happy to show you. Pastor Don