Greetings Harbor Light Christian School Community,

First of all, I want to take a moment to give a special thanks to everyone who made the Annual Spaghetti Dinner Fundraiser, Bloom and Grow a huge success! From the event committee to the sponsors and auction item donors, to the staff and students, to all those who took the time to come, mingle, and celebrate HLCS, thank you!!

April is the month HLCS starts re-enrollment for current families and opens applications to new families. This year, re-enrollment will start on April 20th. For re-enrollment, we will use FACTS, our new online platform that replaces Praxischool. Current families, keep your eyes peeled for an email with more details the week of the 20th.

This spring we have been blessed by a higher than usual number of enrollment inquiries. It seems that each week, more and more new families call the school office for information about our school, and to explore if HLCS is the right fit for their educational needs. God is calling new families, staff, and volunteers to HLCS for the 2022-2023 school year. While this will be an exciting season of growth, it will also be critical to protect and fight for the culture of our school to ensure it is the same HLCS we know and love.

While meeting new families, and sharing the mission, visions, and most importantly the heartbeat of the HLCS, I will do my best to share these things:

• HLCS is so much more than just an educational institution. Our unwritten curriculum of modeling and encouraging a mature Christian walk is more important than our written curriculum.

• In order to be successful, we rely on volunteers of all kinds. We are not a consumer population, we have a collaborative environment.

• Our staff are missionaries in every sense of the word.

• We strongly believe it takes each family working together with their church and the school to raise and launch students successfully.

• Parents are responsible for the child they send to school.

• When conflict arises, we use the Matthew 18 principle for conflict resolution.

• Our culture is excellent. There is a reason people want to join this school. It is an absolute gem.

• We all collectively have a duty to prayerfully support the school and students.

In a more administrative vein, I want to announce that at the March school board meeting, the board approved a restructuring at the elementary level. There was a position created for long-time elementary teacher Katherine Johnson that will help move HLCS forward. Katherine will split time as the Head of Elementary Instruction and a Reading Specialist, see her letter below. In addition, we will split each grade kindergarten-sixth grade to have one grade level per class. These changes are being made in an effort to keep classroom sizes intimate, support the needs of individual students, and continue to provide an incredible education in a loving environment.

In closing, I pray your time with the Lord and with family and friends throughout Easter weekend reminds you how amazing God is (Romans 5:8), and how special you are (Ephesians 2:10).

In His Service,

Kelly Dutcher

As we look forward to next year, God has some exciting changes in store for Harbor Light Christian School. One of those changes is welcoming a new role on staff. Katherine Johnson has prayerfully stepped into the role of Head of Elementary Instruction and Reading Interventionist. While she will be deeply missed in the classroom, we are confident that her impact on students' hearts and minds will be even greater in this role! Please join us in congratulating Katherine on this transition.

From Katherine:

"Proverbs 3:5-6 proclaims, 'Trust in the Lord with all of your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways submit to Him, and He will make your paths straight.' Such a fitting verse for my family this year with three kids graduating in the next two months. I found myself proclaiming it to them again and again with great confidence that the Lord knew exactly what He was doing as He straightened the path before them.

Little did I know that as I “preached” this message to them, it was also for me. Despite having the most amazing group of students this year, I felt an unsettled spirit in my heart about whether I was where God wanted me to be. At first, I discounted the nudging, but the Lord has a way of making His voice louder when our ears aren’t listening. As I prayed, my heart kept being drawn to the idea of serving kids in need of extra help in reading, working with kids who were struggling emotionally, and serving teachers on the front lines of loving kids. I fought the idea for a long time, after all, my whole life’s goal had been to be a teacher, and besides, it was not as if a job like that existed.

In March, I met with a friend and shared my heart. Their advice was they felt the Lord was saying that I should take a huge leap of faith. Anyone who knows me knows I am a planner, not a leaper, so this was terrifying advice. I felt so strongly about this prompting, though, that I decided to leap. Within days, the Lord opened a door that was not even on my horizon, but luckily God saw it there waiting for me once I left the safety of what I knew so well.

So, it is with great excitement that I start a new adventure in June as the Head of Elementary Instruction for HLCS along with providing reading support to our students. The job will allow me to do exactly what the Lord had been placing on my heart for over a year. I know that I will miss having my own class, but am thrilled at the opportunity to serve more kids and meet their needs. I pray the Lord uses me to help your kids learn, heal, and grow as they come to understand their great value in His Kingdom plan."

Love, Katherine Johnson

As Harbor Light has shifted the Wednesday schedule to allow more elective classes this year, we have welcomed some amazingly talented new staff members. Meet Janae Ernst! Her son Manu is in kindergarten, and she and her husband Ben are first-year parents at HLCS. We've been blessed by their family and by Janae's presence as a volunteer and teacher.

Significant life experiences that brought me to HLCS: We witnessed God moving in big ways through our family members who were called to the school; they were the ones who first put HLCS on our radar. Then, when the pandemic started during our son's first year at public preschool, the shut-downs gave us an opportunity to step back and reevaluate our trajectory. During the next year, we took time away and traveled across the country in a camper, withdrawing and exploring, seeing the world with fresh eyes. We grew closer as a family and closer to God, and our prayers about schooling, our careers, and the state of our world led us to HLCS. The mission to raise up the next generation of leaders for Christ seemed more important than ever. I'm thrilled for each opportunity to pour out into that mission.

Activities and hobbies I enjoy: Family hikes, mountain biking, paddle boarding, skiing, dancing, drawing, poetry, learning new things.

I love HLCS because... it is built differently. Love, compassion, and service are prioritized alongside academics, preparing students for their higher calling. Every person here is valued and cherished for the important role that they play to make the school all that it is.

Can you tell us a little bit about yourself/your family? I grew up in the suburbs of Chicago. I studied math and physics at Northern Illinois University, and I met my husband, Ben, during graduate school. We moved up to northern Michigan in 2017, the day after our son Emanuel (Manu) turned one. Outside of HLCS, I work remotely for the Chemical and Materials Science group at Argonne National Laboratory, and I teach group fitness classes at a few local gyms and studios.

Favorite Bible verse or story: Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong. Do everything in love. 1 Corinthians 16:13-14

Though I have other tasks, God has made it really clear to me that I'm a Mom first, and that I need to be intentional in parenting and making time for my son. Meanwhile, I’m also a full-time college student at Grace College and Seminary. I serve in the Kids' Ministry at Genesis Church and am blessed to have a retail job on the side, where during the slow season I am able to study at work. I also loved working in the rental at Nub's Nob this winter with the famous former math teacher Kate Kloss. I was a missionary with YWAM for about 7 years, and have a huge heart for sharing Jesus with people, and my son has also joined me. So fun!

My son, Micah, is 9 and is in Mrs. Ernst's class. We were led to Harbor Light when Micah was 3 and a half when I was offered a job as an Assistant Preschool Teacher. I had the privilege to serve under Pat Wendt just before she left. Her compassion in the way she led and cheered on the teachers made my first teaching experience at Harbor Light one to be remembered. However, the next year, the Lord led me to homeschool, and since then every year I go to God about what & where is best for our family.

We enjoy a good movie, curled up with our fluffy pup Bingo, playing music, and basketball, we also love going on adventures with our friends and family when our schedules match! One of Micah and I's favorite things about HLCS is the teachers, whom we love! Every teacher has been so kind and professional, and their heart to share Jesus in their classroom has always been so evident. I like that I can text or email any of these teachers throughout the years, whether for a quick update, concern, or whatever is on my mind, and I always have received awesome communication. It's such a game-changer to have teachers who genuinely care and are good communicators.

Something the Lord is stirring in my heart is how human understanding when compared to the Lord's, is so frail and tiny. I'm challenged and feel revival stirring in me to seek more than my own understanding regarding so many things. I used to think I had an opinion on things, and perhaps a prideful outlook, and now I feel sick when my own sinful human understanding that’s sinful (our natural default) or even my professional outlook tries to speak without waiting on God. I'm hopeful that at 36 years old, I'm learning HIS voice is to override mine, leading me to walk out in courage and obedience. Sometimes what God says does not always make sense, and I would rather err in walking in obedience seeking Him, knowing he leads with lovingkindness.