Who Are The Hilltoppers?
Margaret Broersma
When Cutlerville Hills Christian Re-formed Church was still meeting at the South Christian High School, there was an on-going group called Women's Fellowship. They met for Bible study every week (in someone’s home) and had the occasional social event. Our faithful church secretary, Mary DeVries, went through a bunch of old bulletin announcements, and what she found was that in May of 1991, there were surveys handed out to all the women in the church asking what kind of group they would like to be as we moved into the new building and became Hillside Community CRC. From the survey, an in-depth Bible Study was formed, for all ages of women, which was just called, Women’s Bible Study. This later became Coffee Break, which then became Women in the Word. Shortly after the survey, Senior Women also began meeting for fellowship. One of the get-togethers found in a bulletin announcement, dated September 26, 1991, was a tea at Barb Bosma's home in honor of one of our missionaries, Tina Ipema. The second get-together that was advertised for Senior Women was a Thanksgiving brunch on November 21, 1991, at Eleanor DeGraaf's home. Someone recalls that Viv Baker and Doris DeVries (who both now reside in heaven) were official or unofficial leaders of Senior Women at that time.
Eventually, there was a meeting of minds, and Bea DeWeerd and Angie Mast volunteered to be the official leaders of a group which would now be called Hilltoppers. At the same time, another group was formed called Prime Timers, led by Riek and Burt Tameling with assistance from the Bakers and the Klompiens. Hilltoppers was for women over age 55 to fellowship with coffee or a meal or a holiday party. The Prime Timers was for both men and women and usually involved longer, off-site events like plays or concerts or travel to a unique place for dinner. Several times they went to Shipshewana.
Eventually, the time comes for leaders to retire. When the Tamelings retired from leading the Prime Timers they weren’t the only ones getting older! So were all of their members. As of now, we do not have a Prime Timers group. We do have a senior men’s breakfast group and the Hilltoppers survive. Angie and Bea led this woman’s group for many years. They had the best Christmas celebrations! And there were always devotions.
There were many coffee times, lunches in, lunches out, and many parties, complete with games and decorations. I experienced their last Christmas dinner. It was a full meal served in the lounge, complete with beautiful tables, games with gifts for the winners, table favors, and of course, devotions. I loved what I saw and experienced that night. It wasn’t just a fun time, it was truly a “fellowship in the Lord” time. At that dinner, Angie and Bea announced their retirement and said they hoped someone would take over. My heart was powerfully drawn to this group. I wanted to jump up and say, “Yes!” After all, at one time my first husband and I were the social directors of a medium-sized church and Roger and I have “specialized” in putting on nice dinners in our home. I really wanted to take up this mantle. But alas, I was still teaching. I couldn’t see how I could manage our home and have time with our young grandchildren as well as work. So I didn’t volunteer. I made a mental note to do this at retirement. But at retirement, I had to have back surgery and several surgeries thereafter. I became semi-handicapped and had to re-learn what I was capable of. But I did not forget Hillltoppers. The idea still excited me. But I knew I could not do it alone. I asked Cheryl Stapert if she would do it with me. She would love to, she said, as soon as she retired.
Then COVID came. While we were in quarantine, I felt a real burden for all of the women my age and older, who were isolated at home. As a prayer team member and also a member of the visitation team, I got an idea that I believe was from the Holy Spirit. I decided I would call every woman in the directory that looked old enough and ask them if they had a specific burden and if I could pray with them on the phone. More women than I could have dreamed of were grateful for my call. I prayed with so many I lost count. And in the conversation, I asked them if they would like to join a Hilltoppers group. Again, more said yes than I expected.
I learned that like me, Joan Opthoff had a burden to make sure that Hilltoppers continued. When quarantine was lifted we put on a couple of events. Since masks and social distancing were still required, our first event was coffee and doughnuts in the park. The following month we went to the Caledonia Wildlife Refuge. We had enough women at each event to know for sure that Hilltoppers was a viable group. But Joan was also a shepherd leader, and although she had a great burden for this group to continue, at the same time she was concerned that she wouldn't be able to handle the obligations of both groups. I promised Joan that I would continue and just take it one month at a time. Then I heard that Cheryl had retired! So I asked her again if she would co-direct Hilltoppers with me. Of course, she said yes and we began to roll.
Neither of us can believe how smoothly this has gone. It’s as if we have worked together all of our lives. We both come up with ideas. It turns out I am more concerned with pretty tables, food, and devotions. While Cheryl always thinks of fun games, food, and charitable deeds. I try to get things as fancy as possible; Cheryl keeps us simple and saves us from more hard work than we can handle. Like I said -- a perfect team. We average about 20 women, give or take, and almost every time, someone brings a friend.
We still do the traditional coffee and donuts, meet in a restaurant for lunch when the church is unavailable, and have Christmas tea parties that have broken new attendance records each year. We have made greeting cards, stuffed snack bags for college students for exam week, written cards to missionaries, brought flowers to the sick, taken up an offering for Cuba, visited some shut-ins, and gone to the lavender farm to put soothing pouches of lavender into stuffed animals for foster children. But most of all we take a few moments each time we meet to remember the Lord through a brief devotional from the Word. We pray together. We have fun together! And in all we do, we never forget that we are the Lord’s.
We meet on the first Wednesday of each month for a couple of hours. The time of day varies. Please watch your bulletin or the announcement screen to see what our plans are for each month. If you are a woman over 55 (or any age you’d like!) we would love for you to join us.