Imminent changes are exciting but also mean temporary inconveniences. The road of planning and preparation within the Build Here, Build There campus improvement plan and the march towards a new 12-classroom building by August 2024 will intersect this coming week as bulldozers and builders descend upon the campus of Northwest Christian School. And, although this prospect is truly exciting (see the new playground debuting this month to the right!), as seen in the explanatory video here and below, the campus improvements will result in some temporary inconveniences. To learn more about the Build Here, Build There campus improvements, please follow this link. And, to better understand the inconveniences, click here.

Everybody loves Adam! He's an exchange student from Slovakia that has come to mean as much to the Northwest Christian community as the international educational experience means to him. Blessed both with rare height and a gregarious personality that immediately endears him to all that he meets, as Adam--hosted in the US by the awesome Bourland family--waits for basketball season, he decided to try his hand at American football. It is a sport with which he had no prior familiarity and it has been a learning curve--but one that recently caught the attention of 12News...

Northwest Christian's own talent show is this Thursday night! Live on Facebook, Crusaders Got Talent enables the Crusaders community to celebrate the amazing talents that God has invested in our students. Join us LIVE at this link and use your phone to pick your favorites and determine the winners of cash prizes in elementary, middle school, and high school divisions. Click on the images above or below to enjoy last year's CGT...but don't forget to join us live this Thursday, October 19th on the Northwest Christian Facebook page!

Collection for The Sutton Project starts TODAY! 

For well over a decade, The Sutton Project has been an integral part of Northwest Christian's spiritual formation program for students. The Sutton Project is a school-wide missions learning effort in which all Crusaders get involved in providing meals and gifts to precious students within in the Isaac School District.

Located in central Phoenix, according to sources, the Isaac School District is a 100% Title 1 school district that provides free or reduced lunch to all 7,500 of its students. The district is comprised of eleven schools in the Phoenix metro area. The Isaac community experiences high rates of crime, has limited access to health and social services, is located in a food desert, and has an above average poverty level. Residents in the area also face significant language barriers.

There are numerous ways to get involved for alumni, NCS Online, NCS Flex, and NCS on-the ground students and their families! Early Education and Elementary students donate food items, ranging from canned vegetables to cornbread mix to dried potatoes. Middle School and High School students are invited to sacrificially, generously contribute $20 to pay for turkey vouchers. For more information, please watch this video and consider following this link.

LIVE from Rwanda! Northwest Christian's monthly prayer breakfast for men took an interesting twist in October. In place of the traditional devotional, NCS Spiritual Formation Director Chris Gardiner and the NCS tech team connected the 7:00am men on the campus of Northwest Christian with the 5:00pm men on the campus of the City of Joy Christian School in Rwanda, Africa via a live video connection. The live connection facilitated an update regarding Northwest Christian's partnership with the City of Joy via missions trips, professional development training, and school improvements within the African campus via the Northwest Christian "Build Here, Build There" campus improvement program.

Student-led worship for students. It would seem obvious but it's a powerful truth worth revisiting as often as possible: student-led worship means greater engagement within the community of Crusaders. This past month, student-led worship happened powerfully in chapel but also happened within a spontaneous evening session of worship that came together in the Don Sanderson gymnasium

LIVE from Mexico! Through Northwest Christian's "Pursuing His Purpose" spiritual formation game plan, every grade level has a "Missions Learning Partner" within whom they work closely to facilitate student ministry and spiritual formation opportunities. In the case of the Kids Kingdom orphanage and church in Imuris, Sonora, the missions learning partner does triple duty in partnership with 4th grade, 8th grade, and high school ministry teams. In addition, Kids Kingdom is a NCS partner through the Build Here, Build There campus improvement plan--providing financial fuel to drive improvements at both the school and orphanage. Pictured here, 4th grade students are engaging with students at the orphanage via a live video connection facilitated during October's high school mission trip to Mexico.

Sutton Project yields chapel chaos and real results. The annual chaos that descends upon the campus of Northwest Christian School during each autumn's launch of the Sutton Project held nothing on the recent launch chapel for elementary students. Student body president Ben Leuders dressed as a turkey and he and his Student Council compatriots facilitated a crazy chapel featuring games, worship, and a time committed to exploring the "why" of the Sutton Project. "The key to Sutton has always been students," explains Assistant Superintendent Samantha Maszton. "It's their unguarded, unfettered enthusiasm and leadership that carries the day each and every year. Whether it's grant-writing, student leaders organizing the collection, or leading the communication efforts, these students are learning and growing into their roles as world-changers and difference-makers."

Trust falls. The annual "Egg Drop" facilitated by Mrs. Van Liew and the AP Physics students went off without a hitch right before Fall Break. The students measure subject heights, pace, egg mass, and use gravitational constants to time the release of said egg--hopefully and most often--to the wonderful effect of egg and target colliding under the bleachers.