Ladies' Retreat 2011

May 03, 2011

Our annual Ladies' Retreat was three weeks ago, and it was wonderful! I have to apologize for how long it's taken me to write about it; we've been super busy getting ready for spring and I let blogging get away on me. Apologies.

Our speaker at Ladies' Retreat was Heather Boersma, from Winnipeg. Heather was fantastic! Here's some of what the ladies at the retreat had to say:

"Heather was awesome: would love to have her back!"
"Heather was excellent; she shared a personal and Biblically-sound message."
"I wish there were more speaker sessions."
"Heather was great. I enjoyed the theme and her honesty."
"Heather was amazing! And she really spoke to me; I'm excited to go forth and make changes in my life with what she talked about!"
"The speaker was exceptional. Heather was very real and the message very impactful."

So what did Heather speak about that impacted our guests so greatly? She spoke from Ephesians 3:14-21, which is, incidentally, our summer 2011 theme:

For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God.

Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.

Heather talked about dreaming big in our lives and about discovering God’s purpose for each of our lives. She spoke about what it means to give into how much more God has for us: he has a future in mind for each of us, that goes beyond all we can ask or imagine.

In addition to great times listening to and learning from Heather, we enjoyed worship-through-music with Colleen, Connie, Karen and Sydney (thanks, ladies!). We also enjoyed camp activities ... some of them were the usual fun (the zipline, trail rides), some of them were our traditional Ladies' Retreat fare (our ever popular cooking-with-Ken class), and some of them were totally unique to this year!

Sydney treated us to manicures, Karen led a group of women through making authentic pysanky (Ukrainian Easter eggs) and Ten Thousand Villages visited with some of their fantastic fair trade goods!