You are cordially invited to our variety of May concerts!
We are excited to offer Spanish Immersion Camp at Rose Park again this upcoming summer!
This summer we will have three “focus areas” for camp. There will be activities and parts of camp that will be done as a whole group and there will be breakout activities that happen focused on the areas in which you sign up your child! The three options will be: Lego Camp, Arts & Crafts Camp, and Cooking Camp (specifically for incoming 3rd-5th graders).
When: June 15-18 from 9am-12am
Who: Students ENTERING Kindergarten-5th grade
Where: Rose Park Elementary School, 566 Butternut Drive, Holland
The HCS Living Stones Dinner & Fundraiser is a little bit social, a little bit spiritual, and a little bit of fundraising for our Holland Christian Tuition Grant Fund. The night starts with hors d’oeuvres at 5:45pm, a scrumptious catered dinner by Martha’s Catering at 6:30, and concludes at 7:30 when we gather in the High School Auditorium to hear our keynote speaker. Stay tuned for our announcement of our 2027 Living Stones Speaker.
If you are interested in sponsoring this event and/or securing a table, please email Michelle Schaap or call 616.820.2813. We look forward to a beautiful community gathering!
The Spring Kids’ Stuff Resale is a great spot to sell or purchase your spring/summer needs- Toys, Books, Games, DVD’s, Baby Gear, Sports Equipment, Dutch Costumes, Swimsuits & Maternity Wear. We are […]
Soak in the breathtaking views and enjoy a fun day of golf with your friends, spouse, or colleagues all while supporting the Tuition Grant Fund. Grab your clubs and get […]
You are invited! All are invited to the HCHS band & orchestra recital night in the HCHS band/orchestra and choir rooms on Monday, February 3 from 5:30pm to 9pm! You can come for 15 minutes or stay for an hour! You often hear these students in groups of 30 or 50, but have you heard the outstanding talent of these HC musicians in solo and duet performances? These students are prepping for their Solo & Ensemble Festival on Saturday, February 8. We can use you as a real live audience, and you will leave blessed and refreshed!
Holland Christian High School
November 21-23
In the glittering Hollywood of 1927, silent movie star Don Lockwood appears to be on top of the world. His charisma and intense on-screen chemistry with his gorgeous co-star, Lina Lamont, has made them both household names, as well as one of the tabloids’ favorite couples. However, the arrival of The Jazz Singer, the first “talking picture” of the ’20s, threatens to upset everything. Don can dance and sing, but Lina … well, Lina is a silent movie star for a reason. As the studio struggles to adapt to the new “talkies,” Don meets Kathy Seldon, a feisty young actress who may prove to be their salvation–as well as possibly the first person who sees beyond his fame and likes him for the person he really is. But Lina is as possessive as she is pretty, and her jealousy just might doom everyone.
Anchored by witty dialogue, catchy songs, and playful choreography, “Singin’ in the Rain” is a joyful American classic and a comedic adventure for the whole family.
Four shows this week! Purchase your tickets for Thursday, Friday, or Saturday performances!
In the very center of the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus’ most famous message, he says: “seek first [God’s] kingdom and righteousness.” In many ways these words are the core of the sermon, a summary of what it means to participate in God’s mission. But what exact is The Kingdom of God, and how does a person “seek” it?
This year we’re intentionally asking this question in connection with our school’s mission. Practically, Seeking God’s kingdom looks like:
These questions apply whether you’re a student, a parent, a teacher, or a grandparent. They’re relevant for chemists, artists, engineers, mathematicians, biblical scholars, actors, and athletes. These questions apply whether you know exactly what you want to do with your life or if you haven’t got the foggiest idea.
Seeking God’s Kingdom first doesn’t simply mean prioritizing religious activities in our lives (though these things are important!), but about aligning our hearts to His in everything that we do. Seeking God’s Kingdom is the process through which Christ’s heart enters Christ’s Body (AKA the Church) in a way that overshadows all other allegiances, transforming our love, identity, and mission. These ideas can be seen represented in the theme logo like this:
These images—a pencil, a basketball, an airplane, a pie, etc.—are meant to prompt the question, “What does my “normal,” day-to-day life have to do with God’s story? Henry Zylstra wrote that “nothing matters but the Kingdom of Jesus Christ, but because of the kingdom, everything else matters.” Seeking first means inviting God’s reign and rule into every aspect, every element, every corner of our lives.
Halfway through Mark’s gospel, after eight chapters of speculation, Peter declares that Jesus is in fact the king they had been waiting for (Mark 16:13-20). From this point on, the pressing question becomes, “Okay, but how will Jesus king?” How will he take the throne? What kind of Messiah will he be? Will he rule like a lion and challenge Israel’s enemies with the power of the sword?
Contrary to the common expectations of his followers, Jesus insists that he will become king not by taking power, but by submitting to a cross.In the final book of the Bible, the Apostle John sees a vision of God’s throne. An Elder says to him, “Look, the Lion has triumphed!” But when John looks, he instead sees “a lamb, looking as if it had been slain” (Rev. 5:6).
The Lion who won is actually a Lamb who lost! This mystery informs the kind of Upside Down Kingdom we’ll discover (and be called into!) as we seek it with all our hearts, intentionally this school year, but also through all our lives.
Did you know? Each year we take lots of photos of wonderful things going on at HC, and many of them are housed on our HC SmugMug page at hollandchristian.smugmug.com/, also linked at the bottom of each HC webpage under “Photos.” Each athletic team has at least one event photographed by a professional photographer, Brenda Brewer, who also shares a variety of HC athletic events on her professional SmugMug bkBrewer. Many classroom teachers store their photos on Holland Christian’s SmugMug page so that parents can see periodically what their students are doing and learning throughout the day. Plus it can be a fun walk down memory lane, of when your kids and their friends were much younger!
Did you know that students remember better what they learned when they are asked about it specifically at home? Check it out and see what your kids doing at school for 7+ hours a day, and then please ask them what they were doing and thinking in the photos you saw!
You are welcome to purchase and download any photos for a very small fee.
HCS needs bus drivers! Not only will we pay for your training, we’ll work around your schedule and interests!
• HC has many field trips and athletic trips that are available to bus drivers on a first-come basis, since trips are posted on a bid sheet where drivers can sign up as they are available.
• We have consistent daily routes and trips also available.
• Sometimes we have drivers who love attending certain sporting events, so they sign up for driving only for a season of tennis or cross country, for example. It all depends on your availability!
HC covers all training and testing expenses. Our drivers must:
• Pass an annual physical at Concentra
• Take and pass the written and road CDL tests
• Receive 10 hours of behind the wheel driving with a certified trainer.
• No training needed if already certified!
Apply online anytime throughout the year at www.applitrack.com/hollandchristian/onlineapp/
Check out our growing list of HC stories, and meet a variety of families at Holland Christian, some new to HC and some multiple generations old! Each of these families listed were willing to share their story and their reasons for choosing Holland Christian Schools for their children with the larger community through their choice of media. It’s been such a joy to meet so many authentic families with an inspiring passion for Christian education, and then run into them in the halls, the pick up lanes, the football stands!
If you are interested, we would love to hear your family’s story as well–just fill out the “Share Your Story” form at the bottom of the webpage and linked below!
Maybe not your typical high school senior, Ben VanderWoude ’06, would tuck himself into a corner every study hall of his senior year to study for his Residential Builders license. Which he obtained that spring.
He also purchased his first rental property that year.
The week after graduation, with both builder’s license and diploma in hand—while his classmates were off celebrating graduation at Beach Week—Ben took the 40-hour class needed to get his Real Estate Salespersons license as well.
A junior at Hope College a couple of years later, Ben completed the Real Estate broker, or top level of his real estate license, working it into his college classes as a for-credit independent study.
Then he graduated a semester early from Hope with his accounting degree.
“I always had an interest in real estate and building, and I think I recognized I had time on my side,” Ben explained. “Real estate is a ‘get rich slow plan.’ It takes time for real estate to go up in value for mortgages and debts to be paid down. So I was motivated to start.”
Ben is one of six VanderWoude children, all HC graduates, and one of the delightfully unexpected quadruplets the family were famous for back in the early 1990s. The rest of his multiples went off to prestigious universities like Tufts and Tulane, but he stayed close at Hope to continue managing the 50-some properties he was then in charge of, mostly property of family friends.
It helped that he had role models around him in the Holland Christian community, dads of friends: “I had a few different people in my life who worked in those areas that I admired and respected, saw as a mentor, and were role models,” Ben added. But also “I liked the challenge of it. Just because most kids don’t go get a real estate license their senior year of high school it doesn’t mean it’s not possible, right?”
”There were a lot of connections through HC—It speaks to the value of the culture and community at HC, and the support that followed us all.
Plus “my brain was still in that test taking mode,” he said. “I was in the student/study mode and it was much easier then than if I tried to take it now.”
But it wasn’t just that.
“My dad passed away when we were in the 6th grade, and probably like a lot of people with major life events, you kinda start focusing on adulting—because in some ways you’re forced to adult,” he added.
Once he purchased that first rental property his senior year, word of mouth got around to family and friends and he started managing a handful of properties for others who wanted real estate as investment, but didn’t want to deal with the landlord issues—the leaky toilets at 3am, or broken appliances on Sunday afternoons. Since then, Ben has grown his property management business, BVW, into managing nearly 9000 doors, with offices in both Holland and Muskegon. BVW has more than 60 full-time employees and over 100 seasonal employees, for long-term rental maintenance, and short-term rental cleaning, besides the necessary vendor partners.
Ben recognized early on from his dad’s career as a surgeon with a beeper calling him away often from family and dinner times, that if he wanted a family, working harder in his 20s seemed smarter than putting in those long hours in his 30s and 40s with little kids around the supper table.
Then during the recession of 2008 and 2009, while still at Hope College, Ben purchased as many local foreclosures as he could. “It was scary,” he said. “I was this ignorant 20-year-old who figured if it all goes belly up, I was at least no worse off than my peers are. I had little to lose at that point in my life.”
After graduating from Hope in December 2009 with his accounting degree, there weren’t a ton of jobs available due to the recession. When he was offered a job at a bank, he realized he wouldn’t be able to manage properties in the same way as a banker, getting calls to fix things in the middle of his 9-5 office hours. So he looked into handing off the properties that he managed to another company, but it felt like a betrayal to the friends and family who had helped him get started. Ben walked away from the bank job offer to stick with what was then VanderWoude Property Management—a watershed moment he realizes now.
Ben and his wife, Kellye, met their freshman year at Hope College, and were just friends the first several years. A nursing student and busy in her own right, Kellye finally realized that to see Ben, she’d have to join him. So there she would be on the ground of some rental property pulling out carpet staples on a Friday night, or cleaning out old crusty refrigerators, jamming to music til the wee hours, catching up and chatting away. Or she realized that watching a movie together on a Friday night meant Ben sat next to her on the couch with his laptop, still working property details, getting ready to go at 4am the next morning.
The only time that Ben has ever turned off his phone and walked away from all property management completely was the week of their honeymoon.
But they’re both quick to say how much easier it is now to have a better work/life balance thanks to the team they work with, especially now that they are running three different branches of property management: traditional long-term rentals, short-term rentals under the brand Unsalted Vacation Rentals, and home and condo associations management. BVW has acquired six other management companies over the years, and now covers Western Michigan north to Manistee, east to Lansing, and south to South Haven.
”There’s always a genuinely different feeling and a warmth of walking into Rose Park, and our son feels it too…
Ben credits the success of BVW to a variety of factors, including its ability to be technically advanced and agile, being one of the first management companies in the area to accept online payments. But another factor he says is the connections and friends he made through the Holland Christian community even as a student: “I’ve always accredited just having those connections and credibility, various role models, people watching, parents of friends,” he said. “There were a lot of connections through HC—It speaks to the value of the culture and community at HC, and the support that followed us all. There were countless numbers of men who stepped up to help our family [after my dad’s death],” he said, “doing things like taking the VanderWoude boys to the auto shows in Detroit with them, and people who “genuinely invested in me and my siblings.”
It’s partly this same genuine community that drew the VanderWoudes to put their own children at Rose Park.
“There’s always a genuinely different feeling and a warmth of walking into Rose Park, and [our son] feels it too,” Kellye said, commenting on the friendly school secretaries; the other teachers who know their children and greet them in the hallway; and how school principal, Miska Rynsburger, called her as a fellow mom, talking through earache treatments mom-to-mom.
”I can see the faith growth in Reid in just his kindergarten year. It’s amazing to have that for your kids.
But besides the genuine Christian community, Kellye, in particular, as a public school graduate appreciates the solid Biblical knowledge their kids are taking home: “I always have looked up to Ben and his faith, and it’s just so ingrained in him because of Holland Christian,” she said. “Genuinely hearing his knowledge of the Bible to another level—the things that he knew and how he knew the Bible and knew his faith was so different from mine. I would never have the confidence Ben did with his faith, and I think that came from Holland Christian for sure.”
All last school year, their kindergartner came home from Amanda Brouwer’s ’94 class rejoicing in and referencing Bible stories, prompted by simple everyday life, Kellye said. “I can see the faith growth in Reid in just his kindergarten year. It’s amazing to have that for your kids.”
