The HCOS WeeklySixth Edition

An InterviewBy Jennica Wlodarczyk

Where are you originally from?I am originally from a little coastal town in South Africa called Durban. It used to be a sleepy hol-low, with great beaches and awe-some waves! Sharks (Big Whites) were known to prey on swimmers, when they escaped the nets. ;) I spent much of my early years go-ing fishing with my dad and broth-er and also frequenting game re-serves. As a result I love the out-doors.

Where do you live now?I live in the beautiful suburb of South Surrey close to the beach in a village called Ocean Park. As you can tell I love the sea!!

What is your family like?I have a very loving hubby John (married for 26 years) who has run a mountaineering and backpack-ing store in South Surrey for the last 22 years, has climbed all over the world, but now chooses hiking with his wife and friends on the weekend. I have three grown up children. Cara who lives in Vancou-ver and has finished a communica-tions degree, traveled overseas and has worked as a marketing as-sistant. Emily is 22, lives in Alberta a!er graduating from BCIT as a ra-dio broadcaster, and runs her own "EmilyClaire" show in Peace River Alberta for YL Country. Matthew is my youngest, 17 years old and up

until this year was a full time homeschooler. He is presently cross enrolled with a local Chris-tian school and HCOS. He is very techie, helps in our store, teaches martial arts and loves a good de-bate!

What would you say was the best time (or one of the best times) of your life?I would have to say that one of my most inspiring and most enjoyable experiences in the last few years w a s d o i n g t h e C a m i n o d e Santiago, a trail that runs from the French alps all the way to the Spanish coast. I went with a friend I have known for years and togeth-er we walked about 250 kms in 10 days (we did not have time to do the full 800 kms). Not only was the experience physically challenging, but mentally, socially and spiritu-ally upli!ing. This walk is called "The Way" for a reason. Many pil-grims have walked it for thousands of years, starting with the pilgrim-age of St. James, before he was martyred along the Spanish coast. Along "the way" I met many other pilgrims, enjoyed hearing their up-li!ing stories, and felt the Lord blessing me and releasing me as I found my margin in this beautiful country. I learned some Spanish and found a peace that I have nev-er experienced before. God was definitely present in this margin!

What was it that inspired or moti-vated you to join the Heritage

team?I started with Heritage many years ago, about 11 to be exact. I had worked for the Surrey school dis-trict as a teacher librarian, public librarian (teens) and also many other libraries. God certainly chose me as I did not even know about homeschooling in those days. A friend of mine Carrie Despres who works as a French teacher encour-aged me to learn more about what she was doing with homeschooling at HCOS, and asked me about whether I might like to do some li-brary work with the school. I was excited to do something creative and interesting with my life ( I love learning new things!!), and a!er Mr. Bitgood invited me to join the library team I never looked back. I love working with students, em-powering and encouraging them to pursue their goals in life, especially when it comes to literacy.

2 The HCOS Weekly

Verse of the Week

By Megan Ferguson

How long have you been working with Heritage?I think it is close to 11 years! Wow that is the longest I have been in one position. That validates how much I love my job. :)

Since you’re a teacher librarian for HCS schools, can you recom-mend our readers a book that you really enjoy? Ohhh to choose one book is sooo hard! I would have to say that I loved The Book of Negro's, because it resonated deep in my soul. Having lived in South Africa and experienced the deep struggle of Apartheid, I empathized and felt the peoples' longing cry for justice in this story. Another great read is The Hiding Place. This book really helped me understand what it means to have true faith, a faith that never stops believing even when gross brutalities are in-flicted on mankind.

What kinds of things do you like doing in your spare time?Well did I say I love to read?? I am in too many book clubs to mention, and I also help lead a bible study in my community with a bunch of fun loving women. I love surfing the web- yes even in my own time. I love music, taking my sweet doggie Delilah for walks, going to the gym, having lunch with my friends, hiking on week-ends and hanging with my kids.

What would you say is your pas-sion above all else?My passion above all else is to serve God in all I do. Without God in my life nothing would have meaning. Every day I am reminded that whatever I do I need to glorify him in all. I am also passionate about ed tech, and literacy.

What is one of your fondest mem-ories?

One of my fondest memories was helping my then 85 year old dad move to Canada. I went back to South Africa to help him move, and said a nostalgic goodbye to my old house and community. When we stepped off the plane and met the emigration people at the airport I remember being soooo thankful that my dad was being given a new lease on life as a Canadian citizen. He is now 89 and doing incredibly well! Having him close to us is a huge blessing!

What is one reason that helps ex-plain why Jesus Christ is so im-portant in your life?One thing I have struggled with is knowing how to be holy without losing sight of the fact that I am a sinner. Understanding that my sal-vation is never lost, and my jour-ney towards Christ is ongoing I can accept gracefully that I am a work in progress. Jesus's blood on the cross and his ability/love to walk daily with sinners helps me to grab onto his Faithfulness, and pray for a desire to surrender to His will, and reach out and do the same.

What is a random fact about your-self that the readers wouldn’t know about?I have rock climbed, sailed a boat, kayaked the Orange River grade 3 white water, and been chased by a Rhinoceros. The end result of be-ing chased by a Rhino, was climb-ing an Acacia tree with the most vi-cious thorns you have ever seen. Climbing time= ten seconds.

But if serving the Lord seems unde-sirable to you, then choose for your-selves this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your ancestors served beyond the Euphrates, or the gods of the Amorites, in whose land you are living. But as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord. - Joshua 24: 15

I’m not sure about you guys, but sometimes I find it really hard to do what God wants me to do, to stand up and witness. Like this past Halloween I constantly got asked why I didn’t celebrate it, go trick-or-treating. I get asked re-peatedly every year. Sometimes I just wish I could say “Yeah I cele-brate it”. But I have to remind my-self to stand up for Jesus. Follow-ing Jesus can seem “undesirable” when you get ostracized because of your faith. Every day we have to choose whom we will serve. Will we serve the world and be slaves of sin? Or will we serve the Lord? Who will you serve?

3The HCOS Weekly

I.M.O. With Grace

By Grace Kelly

This is my first ever rant for the HCOS Weekly, and I am exquisitely excited to share my biased opinions with you.

The first subject that I would like to broach is that of Stephanie Myer’s books; particularly the Twilight se-ries. Now unless you have been liv-ing under a rock or have little to no contact with the outside world, you know what I’m talking about. These four books contain every-thing you don’t need to know about vampires, werewolves and their packs and immortal/mortal love from the mind of a very inter-esting human who has clearly had no education on any of the above subjects. While I have read another book by Miss Meyer, The Host (which I’ll get to in a second) that I thoroughly enjoyed, I have to say that she completely missed the mark with this series. Nevertheless they have spiked in popularity, even among all the criticism and annoyance (much like Justin Bieber). I’ll be the first to admit that this subject is boring and old, but a!er reading these books I was struck by how terribly she has rep-resented vampires. She has one of the main characters, a vampire, try and kill himself by walking into the sun (?) but instead of dying he starts sparkling. In my opinion this is the very epitome of stupidity. Being, myself, a die-hard vampire fan, these books disturbed me to a morbid level. Instead of being terri-fying and mysterious, these books made vampires seem whiny, self-absorbed and impotent. Now if vampires did indeed exist, from the depths of time there have been stories that have remained the

same about their character traits and their thirst. And never, ever, ever, ever, has any vampire story before this one EVER had a sparkly vampire. It’s beyond ridiculous and it’s humiliating to any actual vam-pires that ever existed. These books humanized the un-human, and that’s the major beef that I have with this work of literature.

Moving onto an only slightly more upli!ing topic, I read the first book of Stephanie Meyer’s new series re-cently. The name of the book was The Host and the topic of the book was that of an unconventional alien invasion. I’m happy to say that this was an actual enjoyable read (I can’t rant about nice things too, right?). The ways that these aliens are portrayed are as being serene and peaceful beings that in-vade peoples’ bodies so that they can improve our planet with their perfection. And while earth be-comes a sort of utopian place free of crime and pain, there are hardly any conscious humans le! to enjoy it. The major theme of this book is hard to pinpoint, and that’s mainly the reason I loved it so much. It jumps around from emotion to emotion, story line to action de-scription, morality questions to un-explainable love. While this book le! me an emotional wreck in tears, I still had a problem with it,

well not with ‘it’ per se, but with the movie adaptation. If anyone hasn’t seen this movie; by the same name as the book, a simple Google search will show you just about everything you need to know about it. In a word, it was awful. From the choice of actors to skipping essential scenes, they in-dulged their worst ideas and em-bellished on them, making this sto-ry into Stephanie Meyer’s 5th hor-ror. It would be unkind for me to expand on the terrible production team that created this monstrosity of an ‘original’ film, and since I’m not a movie review panel, I’ll cut my criticism of the film right here. I could go on for a while about this subject, but for the sake of actually boring you to death with unimpor-tant and irrelevant details, this is where I’ll end. I leave you with en-couragement to stay far away from every Stephanie Meyer movie adaptation ever made, and to maybe pick up The Host and tell me your opinion on it.

I believe this week is a sort of test run, to see if this is an engaging part of the newspaper that anyone will enjoy reading. I have opinions on almost everything, so if you want me to rant about anything in particular, I would welcome you contacting me with your ideas. My skype is grace.olga1 and you can easily find me on the Ning or HCOS with any and all thoughts.

4 The HCOS Weekly

By Kristina FedorovNeed advice? Got some questions

sitting at the back of your mind

bugging you? Well say goodbye to

unanswered questions!

Ask Dr. Wise

Dr. Wise is here to help, ready to

answer your questions about

anything and everything! Just send

your questions to:

hcosweekly@outlook.com.

HCOS Weekly, if you are continu-ing the paper then this is a ques-tion.

I have MASSIVE anger problems and cant seem to find a cure for it, do you know anything that may help or cure me from it?

- Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

Anger issues are difficult to deal with. Most of the time, the real root is self-control. It's good that you have realized your problem and want to do something about it. My advice to you would be to pray and ask God to help you defeat the anger and stay strong. Imagine you're in a battle with anger, it's coming for you. It wants you. Are you going to let it take you over? It will always keep trying. You can't do it on your own, you need the help from your Father in Heaven. Remember Philippians 4:13: "I can do all things through Him who strengthens me"

Hope this helps,Dr. Wise

Dear Dr. Wise,

What is the micro glittery sub-stance in toothpaste, and what is it made of? Unicorn dust, perhaps?

- Anonymous

Dear Anonymous,

I am sorry to disappoint you but the glittery substance in tooth-paste is not made of unicorn dust. Toothpaste is made up of many minerals, one being mica. Mica is what makes the toothpaste sparkle.

Thanks for your question,Dr. Wise

Dear Dr.Wise,

How does a person stay in the friend zone when a boy and a girl are best friends? My best friend is a boy and I have a major crush on him. I'm having trouble with keep-ing my thoughts pure. Can you give me some advice?

-Just Friends

Dear Just Friends.

If you are having trouble keeping your thoughts pure, I suggest you take a good look at your relation-ship. Are you spending a LOT of time together? Is this friend taking away from your schoolwork, family or even your time with God? It's important to prioritize your time well. God loves you more than any-one on earth ever could, he has beautiful, amazing plans for you, if you are willing to listen. I encour-age you to give your heart to Jesus. Tell Him you want Him to keep it and give it away to the RIGHT per-son and the RIGHT time. "I fix my eyes always on The Lord. With Him at my right hand, I will not be shak-en." (Psalm 16:8)

Also, Try and find an adult friend or family member who can help you to stay accountable. Talking about your relationships will always open your eyes to see if something is wrong our out of place, otherwise, it's all in your head.

I hope this has been helpful and encouraging,Dr. Wise

5The HCOS Weekly

Literature CornerA Place to Showcase YOUR Writing!

Who Cared?

A PoemBy Megan Ferguson

Alone in the dark by yourself …No one caresRushing by without a care is the world too busy to notice…No one caresStarving, cold, hollow insideNo one caresHomeless, doing anything to sur-vive,No one caresOne pale morning the pigeons cryYou ceased to be, slipped away into eternity.No one took the time to know youNo one cared.Actually in the end only one person caredWho cared?

God cared.

Chasing A!er

Refuge - Part 4

A Short StoryBy Samara Paine

“Please! Leave me alone!” I cry, as I frantically slash my arms around me. By now I’ve gotten that it’s hard to defend yourself without a useful pair of legs.

“We’re here to help,” a tall woman with curly ginger hair tries to ex-plain to me.

I continue my panicky rage until one of them looks at me with her deep green eyes and places her le! forefinger and middle finger on the inside of my wrist. I immediately recognize this as our code of safety, amongst all Christians throughout Newpine.

I decide to trust this group of wom-en. A!er all, I’ve never heard about any government officials finding out about or using our sign.

“Are you able to walk?” a black woman with short hair and full, swollen lips asks me.

“My… my kn…” I hadn’t even fin-ished my sentence when she gen-tly presses down on my demol-ished knee, sending a bolt of sear-ing pain in every direction in my leg. I shriek and hold the bottom of my leg with both hands, rocking back and forth as if to try and ab-sorb the pain.

“Shattered kneecap” the fourth member of their team, a freckled-faced young woman, informs them.

Because we hadn’t been able to buy much during the past few months, the lack of vital nutrients in my diet had probably weakened my bones, causing my kneecap to easily break when I tripped on that patch of ice.

“I’ll carry her,” says the woman with green eyes to the rest of them. She also has a bulky backpack over her shoulder. She looks like she’s only about 130 pounds, but she li!s me up with such ease I would’ve guessed her to be at least 150 by the feel of her strength. She hastily yet so!ly transfers me across the street, over to their large van, the other woman follow-ing her with their stable, agile foot-falls. Once there, the lady carrying me is helped by the young woman with freckles to steadily li! me onto a reclined seat with an ex-tended footrest. Around me I see five other severely wounded peo-ple. A very young boy with a deep gash to the side strapped into a smaller seat, a young women with a seriously damaged right hand sit-ting on the floor of the van, an old woman who seems to be under a concussion lying on another re-clined seat, a middle-aged man with a fresh slit in his neck lying down on the floor, and a boy about my age who has his arm in what looks like a hand cra!ed cast made of sheets sitting upright in the

chair next to me. Compared to some of them, I’m much more for-tunate.

The women pile in the van, two of them in the back with the severely injured and two in the front seats. They speedily pull out from the side of the road and turn around back towards my house. For a mo-ment I imagine myself with my family, driving home from church (which had been demolished a couple of months ago). I have to remind myself that things will nev-er be like that again.

TO BE CONTINUED...

6 The HCOS Weekly

Literature CornerContinued...

The Rose

A PoemBy Jaleesa Taylor

A rose once grewAmong the thornsSome hope amidst the pain

Its bud reached upToward the moonAnd waited for the rain

The thorn pressed closeAnd squeezed its rootsTight around the rose

The rose reached upDefied the thornAnd all its painful woes

The hard stone rocksAround the roseMocked the bloom with glee

And choked the roseUntil it bentWith a desperate plea

The blood red roseTurned sickly brownThe green turned yellow too

The thorn and rocksCheered as they watchedThe pretty rose anew

They thought it diedThat noble bloomBut then the sun arose

It slowly turnedIts petals upAnd still the flower grows

Outward Beauty

Can Be Superficial

By Jaleesa Taylor

In our current day, society places an inexplicable importance on out-ward physical beauty. Celebrities and super stars are portrayed as the pinnacle of beauty-something that everyone wants to be. People, everywhere, idolize these stars. Children, teenagers, and even adults are mesmerized by their supposed “perfection”. Did we not observe a significant increase in the number of swooped haircuts for guys, when Justin Bieber rose to fame? Yes, yes we did.

So what makes these people so mysteriously popular? Is it because of their talents? Perhaps because of their looks? I strongly believe that our own lack of self-confi-dence contributes to the alleged “superiority” of celebs. (Hello!?! Ever heard of Photoshop?) Confi-dence is not something that you are born with; it’s something that is gained throughout a lifetime. True confidence cannot be bought with money or by owning expen-sive clothes and possessions. It is deeper than that.

Unfortunately, people all over the globe continually want to look

nicer, be slimmer and have a flaw-less complexion. This provides a wonderful opportunity for money-makers. Have you ever gone to the store and just looked at all the dif-ferent types and brands of prod-ucts designed to make you more beautiful? There are thousands of hair products and make-up items, all designed to make you look per-fect. This can translate into mil-lions and billions of dollars spent on something that doesn’t exist.

That’s right. The perfect outward appearance is not even real. It is nothing more than a fantasy gener-ated by society and a fictionalized concept that only lives in our imag-ination. Everybody has a different idea or interpretation of the ideal person. Ideal, meaning it’s appeal-ing, but most certainly not reality.

We were each created as unique in-dividuals, special in our own way. True beauty comes from having an inner kindness and a genuine con-sideration of others. When we find our identity in Christ and not in our outward appearance or material possessions, we find our foremost purpose in life; not to bring glory to ourselves, but to bring glory to God.

7The HCOS Weekly

Unexpected Response - Star Wars - By Joshua Wlodarczyk

Super Comics

Events

WHAT: HCS Digital Photography Competition 2013/14 “So You Think You Can Photograph” with the theme: "Seen Through the Eyes of the Creator".

Here are some of the criteria for HCOS, ACOS and HCS participants wanting to enter:

You may use photos you have al-ready taken, but we encourage you to go out and create new content.

You will be judged on:

• Theme• Creativity• Composition• Skill level• Is the image crisp or clear?• Is the focus adjusted appro-

priately?• Lighting?

There will be Amazon or Best Buy prizes awarded to the top 3

entries. The winning entries will be displayed on the ning, and in the campus learning commons!

WHEN: Now until the November 22nd. The judges will decide the last week of November and will an-nounce the winners.

WHERE: http://heritageschool-slearningcommons.ning.com/group/so-you-think-you-can-pho-tography-competition-2013-

WHAT: Christian Music Sharing and Poll Competition!

List one of your top favourite Chris-tian song of the moment, or from the past, and then we can do a poll and see whose favourite song wins the top ten! Post your favorite song as a new discussion forum and the forum post with the most likes wins! :D Amazon gi! prize to follow.

WHEN: Now until the end of November!

WHERE: http://heritageschool-slearningcommons.ning.com/group/christian-music-sharing-and-poll-competition

Prayer Warriors

Paige Riley’s Grandpa has a serious infection that’s spread to the bloodstream. Pray for health and speedy recovery.

"Rejoice always, pray continually, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Je-sus." - 1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

8 The HCOS Weekly

WEEKLY

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