"One of the Best"

I need to write about the Retreat before I forget some of it....

Usually, I spend months planning and arrainging a retreat - building momentum, and meeting probably way too often. I love planning things, and this is usually right up my alley. I've learned that I am good at setting things up, and then finding wonderful women to help pull it all together. I guess that makes me global!

In January, I got questions about a retreat... that's too long to go into here, but I called the place we usually go. The ONLY date they had available was in a month... REALLY?!? So, I pulled my group together and gave them two options; go to our favorite place in a month, or wait and go somewhere later. That would allow me the time I was used to, and the weather would allow for more outside time. ALL 6 of them wanted our "go to place", so off we went!

It turned out to be one of our best. I heard that over and over, which makes me feel so good. Although I don't do a lot of the little detail stuff, being the person "behind" the retreat puts pressure on you. To know it was a success makes you want to do it again, you know?!

We had a good mixture of ladies; several of the usual, several of our new converts, and several visitors. The challenge was to mix things up, so that each group didn't stay within itself, and I think we pulled it off. We focused on friendships - within the church, outside the church, and with our friend, Jesus. The inspiration, as usual, came from a hymn: "What a Friend we have in Jesus". An oldie but a goodie. More on that later....

It's funny how you can plan things to the minute, and yet the unexpected is what sets the weekend apart. During our orientation on Sat. morning, the speaker mentioned that the foundation was building a new campsite solely for families. After he told us about it, one of the ladies asked if we could see it. "Sure" he said, and that afternoon, he brought around a flatbed trailer and took us on it to see the new site. SO FUN! We laughed, we sang, we yelled at other campers, and we took silly pictures. Lots of pictures were taken that weekend, but my favorite was the one of our feet, mingled together on that trailer. It was so symbolic of the blending we were doing!

The other "surprise" was the weather! We awoke Sunday morning to sleet and rain... not a good combination when you have to climb several rock steps up to your car and drive up a hill to get out of the camp! We decided to go ahead and leave early for safety's sake, so we were not around to hear our speaker discuss our friend, Jesus. (We plan to follow up with that, soon!) After getting things packed up and the site cleaned, we were on our way home. While the Hill country is beautiful covered in snow, driving on the hills and curves was not fun! Thankfully, soon we were out of the frozen stuff and safely home again.

Now that it's behind us, I have only good memories of that weekend. Andy asked me what I was most looking forward to, and I told him that it was just watching the women at work, bonding and serving as Christ asked us to do. I saw lots of ladies loving one another in such special ways, and I received a lot of that myself!

Not bad for having been "thrown together"!!