Emanuel Lutheran Tiger Talk

Emanuel Events This Week Monday  A Boys basketball practice from 3:15-4:45 A Girls basketball practice from 4:45-6:15 Tuesday Cheer practice 3:15-4:45 B & C Boys Basketball practice from 4:15-5:45 B & C Girls Basketball practice from 5:45-7:15  Wednesday A Boys basketball practice from 3:15-4:45 A Girls basketball practice from 4:45-6:15 Crossroads Youth Group (grades 5-8) at 7:00 pm Thursday Cheer Practice 3:15 - 4:45 pm B & C Boys Basketball practice from 4:15-5:45 B & C Girls Basketball practice from 5:45-7:15  Friday School chapel at 8:05 am 6-8th Grade Singing in Chapel JAM! Time from 8:15 - 9:15am Saturday FVL Band Rehearsal 8:00 am Worship at 5:15 pm Sunday Worship at 8:00/10:30 am Bible study between services Bells Alive practice at 6:00 pm

  Emanuel Events This Week Monday  A Boys basketball practice from 3:15-4:45 FVL Schools Band Concert starting at 6:30pm in the FVL auditorium NO Girls A Basketball practice tonight Tuesday Musical Auditions from 3:15-6pm (Scheduled audition timeslots) Cheer practice 3:15-4:45 B & C Boys Basketball practice from 4:15-5:45 B & C Girls Basketball practice from 5:45-7:15  Wednesday Musical Auditions from 3:15-6pm (Scheduled audition timeslots) A Boys basketball practice from 3:15-4:45 A Girls basketball practice from 4:45-6:15 School Board Meeting from 6-8pm in the Community Room Crossroads Youth Group (grades 5-8) at 7:00 pm Usher/Greeter Training from 7-8pm.  Thursday Cheer Practice 3:15 - 4:45 pm B & C Boys Basketball practice from 4:15-5:45 B & C Girls Basketball practice from 5:45-7:15  Friday School chapel at 8:05 am 6th - 8th grade singing in Chapel JAM! Time from 8:15 - 9:15am Chapel Family Food Pantry Collection Day - Send your food pantry...

  Emanuel Events This Week Monday  Parent Teacher Conferences A Boys basketball practice from 3:15-4:45 A Girls basketball practice from 4:45-6:15 Tuesday Parent Teacher Conferences Cheer practice 3:15-4:45 B & C Boys Basketball practice from 4:15-5:45 B & C Girls Basketball practice from 5:45-7:15  Wednesday Parent Teacher Conferences 4th Grade AMVETS presentation A Boys basketball practice from 3:15-4:45 A Girls basketball practice from 4:45-6:15 Crossroads Youth Group (grades 5-8) at 7:00 pm Thursday Parent Teacher Conferences Cheer Practice 3:15 - 4:45 pm B & C Boys Basketball practice from 4:15-5:45 B & C Girls Basketball practice from 5:45-7:15  Friday School chapel at 8:05 am 4th & 5th grade singing in Chapel Saturday FVL band rehearsal at 8:00 am Worship at 5:15 pm Sunday Worship at 8:00/10:30 am Bible study between services Worship Media Team Training 9:15-10:15 am Bells Alive practice at 6:00 pm

Enrollment at Emanuel Lutheran School for the 2024/2025 school year will be opening for current school families and members of Emanuel Lutheran Church on Monday, December 4. If you are a returning family, simply re-enroll or enroll your new children on Fast Direct. If your family will be new to Emanuel Lutheran School, please stop in the office for enrollment information. 

Please keep in your thoughts and prayers Mrs. Amy Lawonn, whom the leadership at Emanuel has Called to serve as our 4th-grade teacher beginning in the 2024-2025 school year. As you may recall, Mrs. Kim Mulder graciously accepted a one-year Call as our 4th-grade teacher for the 2023-2024 school year so that we could use this year to Call for a permanent teacher. This Call is independent of our 1st-grade position, which will be vacant when Mrs. Emily Rodrigue and her husband, Pastor Kenny Rodrigue, head to Burlington, WI to begin his new pastoral ministry following Thanksgiving. Your church and school leaders are working on covering that position with an experienced teacher for the 3.5 weeks between Thanksgiving and Christmas break, and we are praying that God would bless us with a mid-year December graduate from MLC who will join us in January and forward.  Please keep both of these efforts in your prayers. If you would like to contact Mrs. Lawonn and encourage her, please stop in t...

At the risk of everyone finding out what a nerd I am, I'm going to tell you something about myself: My favorite genre of literature is non-fiction military history. If you stop in my office, you will see a bookshelf that has several excellent Christian titles, a good number of useful educational volumes, a handful of fantastic books regarding the Green Bay Packers, and two full shelves about World War II. I find all aspects of World War II both fascinating and horrifying at the same time; I could read about it all day, every day.  Some of the statistics from World War II are staggering. The United States lost just over 400,000 military personnel to the war, breaking the hearts of at least that many people over again who were spouses, parents, children, or siblings of those casualties. However, our country's losses were nothing compared to those of the countries in the top three of the war casualty list. Those countries' numbers, in military casualties only (not counting civ...

For as long as I have been alive (and then some), my father has worked in an industry with metal at the center of it. Because of that, I found myself on a factory floor one summer during college working with wire spooling machines, citric acid baths, and annealing furnaces, praying for my shift to end so I could go outside into the 90-degree weather instead of staying inside, where it was always 100+ degrees. I learned a lot that summer, including why I was going to finish college and never work there again! Metal is interesting. We use it so often in our daily lives that we probably don't think about it very much. The different applications for iron, copper, steel, gold, aluminum...they seem endless. I find it especially intriguing that, in order to really get the most useful properties out of metals, we usually need to apply an uncomfortable level of heat in different ways. For example, those annealing furnaces that I worked with would heat the coils of wire to a temperature at w...

Good morning everyone, and Merry Christmas! The results of our 2022 Christmas Collection are in, and once again, your generosity has been an example of Christ's love. You collected and donated: -135 pairs of socks -219 sticks of chapstick -155 coffee cups All of those things were wrapped and are being delivered as I write this, along with some Christmas caroling joy, to our Emanuel shut-ins and others who could use the message of Jesus, to the tune of 122 people! What a blessing to not only partner with you in your children's education, but also in showing love to many who need it most this Christmas season. Special thanks to Wolfrath's Nursery for donating the pine boughs we used in our coffee mug projects, to Erich Osterman for delivering those pine boughs, to Angie Kamba for showing the students how to make the coffee mug projects and helping out, to all the adult volunteers who helped with crafts, wrapping, and driving today, and to Lynette Wilson for supplying a Thrive...

DEADLINE TO APPLY IS THURSDAY- Is your family facing a financial hardship that will impact the upcoming Christmas season? If you are an Emanuel school or Church family that could use a little extra help with groceries or Christmas gifts, please reach out to the Emanuel office regarding the Adopt-a-Family program. Paper applications can be picked up in the Emanuel office or you can complete the online application by going to https://forms.gle/gDbKfoifB6aXhmCfA . Calls and applications are confidential. Applications must be submitted by December 15th. Emanuel Office: 920-982-5444 Email: school@emanuelnl.org Fast Direct: You can message SchAdmAsst:Mrs. Kim Lodewegen via Fast Direct

Making decisions can be exhausting. Have you ever stopped and tried to count all the decisions you make each day? What time to get up, what to have for breakfast, how much coffee do you REALLY need to make/drink (the answer is always more than you think), which clothes to wear, who gets to use the shower first, which clothes your kids will wear, what the kids will have for breakfast, who is going to feed the dog, what time you need to leave so you aren't late, who is driving, which child sits where in the car...and all before you even leave for the day!  Maybe your job is full of decision-making responsibilities too; I know how that goes. Whether you view the decisions you make as small and insignificant, earth-shatteringly important, or somewhere in between, they add up quickly. Constantly having to make decisions can be exhausting; don't take my word for it, check this out . Experts don't necessarily agree on it yet, but they are studying "decision fatigue" as a...

As a school-aged child, you remember the scene. The class rushes out to recess, and as they reach the playground, the chorus begins: "Johnny and Becky, sitting in a tree, K-I-S-S-I-N-G!" Or maybe it's the whispering in the hallway: "Did you see what she's wearing today? How can she even leave the house like that?" Perhaps it's at basketball practice and a teammate misses an easy layup or free throw; laughter and jeering erupt from the other players. In all of these scenarios, an "old" saying that has not aged well might come to mind: "Sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me." Except they do. I've worked at schools for long enough to see the damage words can do. I've seen the frustration in a student's body language when classmates tease and won't stop after being asked. I've seen the broken heart written all over a child's face when someone they thought was a friend or teammate utterl...

A month ago, we were averaging around 38 degrees for a high temperature in our area of Wisconsin; today, it will be 92 degrees. Welcome to spring in the Midwest! Aside from states where you can drive from the beach to the peak of a mountain in a few hours, I'm not sure there is anywhere else in the country where seasons collide as drastically. We are certainly accustomed to sudden changes in Wisconsin! Change can be difficult. There are pages of jokes about Lutherans and change, and if you have been a member of a Lutheran church for your entire life, you probably have heard many of them. You can see another example if you spend a day in one of our classrooms at Emanuel when the regular teacher is out sick and a substitute teacher is filling in. Especially with our younger students, when that substitute doesn't do something exactly the same way as the regular classroom teacher, it can be very difficult for them to accept. These are small, sometimes funny, examples of how hard ch...

Job 19:25-27 I know that my Redeemer lives, and that in the end, he will stand upon the earth. And after my skin has been destroyed, yet in my flesh I will see God; I myself will see him with my own eyes--I, and not another. How my heart yearns within me! We live in a world where most people believe there is no absolute truth. What's true for you may not be true for them, and vice-versa. You might think doing drugs is wrong, but for some, it feels right, so it must be right! To us, abortion is murder; to some, it's just a woman making decisions about her body. The Bible says that homosexuality is a sin, just like any other; but many people say, "No, that's not true! It's just an alternate lifestyle!" People want a truth that fits their earthly wants and needs. To the world, truth has to be comfortable; if it's uncomfortable, then it must not be true for me! Unfortunately, there is absolute truth, and the truth is that we are all sinners. God laid down h...

Have you ever been lost before? Husbands, it's okay to say yes; otherwise, we'll have to ask your wives. Cliches aside, try to remember a moment when you were truly, hopelessly lost. Do you recall the feeling in the pit of your stomach when you realized your situation? I certainly do. When I was in third grade, I played soccer in our city's recreational league, along with my sister who is two years older. We had practice on the same night and had a midweek church service that we were supposed to attend afterward. My sister's classmate happened to be on her team as well, and her parents were going to pick us up from practice and bring us to meet my parents at church. Only, my sister forgot to tell them that. When her practice ended, they got into the car and drove to church, leaving me at the other end of the soccer fields as the sun started to set. I felt terrified, hopeless. Alone. Do you ever feel like that now? Maybe you struggle with loneliness because you often are...

Easter is my favorite holiday. Celebrating Christ's resurrection from the dead, especially after the somber forty days of Lent, is exciting! The music we sing in Easter services is upbeat and joyful, even more so than Christmas music. As Christians, Easter is a celebration of our victory through Jesus. Isn't it interesting that the world seeks to undermine the two most important holidays in the church? Christmas is no longer about Jesus' birth, but about candy canes and presents, Santa and reindeer. People say the "true meaning of Christmas" is sharing, family, or loving each other, which are all good things, but which eclipse our Savior's birth. Easter is no different. Instead of being about Christ's resurrection, Easter has been transformed into another Halloween in which a rabbit lays eggs (what??) as a representation of the pagan god of fertility. Somehow this has morphed into parents giving children absurd amounts of candy in colored baskets....

Holy Week is my favorite stretch of the church year. Palm Sunday is full of excitement as Jesus entered Jerusalem to the joyful shouts of the crowds. Monday, Jesus, in his righteous anger, cleared the temple of the greedy merchants and money-changers. Tuesday, Jesus visited the Mount of Olives with his disciples and spoke about the End Times; this was also the day that Judas Iscariot negotiated the price for his betrayal of his Savior. Thursday through Sunday are, of course, the main events: learning about the Lord's Supper and watching Jesus wash his disciples' feet on Maundy Thursday; the agony and gut-wrenching sorrow of Good Friday; the hopeful anticipation of Saturday; the triumph and all-consuming joy of Easter Sunday. But what about today, the Wednesday of Holy Week? The Bible does not record anything about Jesus' actions on the Wednesday of Holy Week. For this reason, many call it "Silent Wednesday." Perhaps Jesus took one last opportunity for rest and com...