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Report on the 2011 Fall Retreats
For many women of the East Coast Conference, Women Ministries is synonymous with Fall retreat. This year we once again sponsored two retreats in different parts of the conference. If you attended one, we hope these brief reviews bring back warm memories. If you didn’t attend, we hope you are intrigued and will consider joining us next year. A retreat is a great way to “get away,” “go deeper,” meet old friends and make some new ones. Invite your daughters, aunts, nieces, sisters, girlfriends. We try to have something for everyone.
Black Rock Retreat Center, Quarryville, PA
We had 51 attending, including two “alumnae” who have moved out of the conference and several first timers! Everyone loved the speaker Rudy Wilson Galdonik (the 2010 Pilgrim Pines speaker), who spoke on “Got Heart? Living from the Inside Out”. One feature of the Black Rock retreat is the Mission Marketplace. People bring handcrafted items to donate and the sales support various ministries. This year from the proceeds we raised $250 for the conference's Raise the Flag project and $380 for the denomination’s Just Women (Lydia) project. In addition, there was a generous “love offering” for the speaker. We cut workshops this year and only had one. Colleen Cox, our conference AVA Coordinator, came on Saturday and did a presentation. The results were obvious; a special offering raised $550 for the ECC WM project to support AVA. For our reflection groups we conducted another “mugging”. (This is a prayer partner idea we’ve used for several years. Everyone brings an unwanted mug from home with their first name and prayer requests inserted. Each person picks a mug and promises to pray for the mug’s donor for the year. Even if the mug you get has prayer requests but no name, we figure God knows who the owner is, and we can still pray for the requests.)
This year we had 6 attending from Christ the Redeemer Church’s Childcare Center (one of whom was the director’s sister - who absolutely loved the weekend). Some volunteers there want to help with plans for next year and with extras in the program. They also have gotten enthusiastic about Rip-n-Roll, and they are planning a joint session with the church later in the year. Delores, the director of the center, has arranged for payroll deductions to cover the cost of next year's retreat and hopes to have all of her staff in attendance. They'll close the center at 2:00 pm on Friday, with some staff leaving earlier, and hope all will be able to get to Black Rock in time for the first session on Friday night. They also want to take part in worship there and handle a couple of workshop offerings. One of their gals sings beautifully, and another does liturgical dance, so we'll schedule both into next year's worship program. Since most of RCCC is female, we should have at least twice as many next year.
Our speaker next year is Catherine Gilliard. The Black Rock retreat will overlap with the gals in the north again, scheduled at Black Rock for September 21-23, 2012.
Pilgrim Pines Conference Center, Swanzey, NH
This year the retreat at Pilgrim Pines was full and we returned to double seatings for meals. Despite the rain on Friday, 136 women were blessed by the weekend! At the Friday night ice-breaker, creativity blossomed as participants created hats from toilet paper and paper plates. Surprises and laughter banished the rainy chill.
Barbara Ettinger, who serves with Intervarsity in Connecticut, led us in an exploration of “The Beauty Magnet: God’s Pull on Our Hearts.” We explored the beauty of God, which David sings of in Psalm 119, and how the god-given love of beauty in our natures draws us to Him. The singing group Legacy returned to lead worship and received rave reviews. Both the financial workshop and the “Meet the Speaker” sessions on Saturday afternoon were well received. Ann Wiesbrock, CEO of Covenant Trust, (she formerly lived in NJ and attended Pilgrim Covenant Church in South Plainfield) helped make the language of investing much less fearsome as she shared insights into financial planning. Women appreciated having workshops timed so that they could choose to attend both if they wanted. The Market Place included a return of the Sisterhood of the Travelling Scarves, the bookstore, Hearts and Hands for Uganda crafts and displays about Women Ministries at the national and conference levels. The conference Global Missions chair challenged women to support the Raise the Flag visitor for Triennial in 2013 by using their skills and talents to make a craft to sell at next year’s retreat. One eager participant handed in something the next day! (See separate article about the challenge elsewhere.)
Next year’s retreat is scheduled for September 21-23, 2012, and will feature Judy Peterson.