Women Of Purpose Retreat

This weekend I had the privilege of attending a retreat put on by Women of Purpose, who come in from the U.S. just for the weekend to bless us. The whole time was very prayerfully planned, from the songs we sang to the activities we got to do. 

The cabins made for a summer camp feel.

I was overwhelmed by how the women leading the weekend came to  bless us and so intentionally serve us from the moment we arrived. We even found chocolate on our pillows (chocolate is expensive here, so it's even more special!) and were given a copy of all of the worship songs we sang, an endless supply of coffee and hot chocolate, cookie dough for snack, a scrap-booking table, and an effort by the leaders to talk to each one of us. 

Serving us by washing our hands.

Friday evening they had set up different stations for us to worship at. This ended up being a great place of meeting with God. Some of the stations were: hand washing by the ladies in charge, making crowns out of tin foil and later as we sang,"We bow down, we lay our crowns..." we laid them at the cross of Jesus, praying over the names of God and writing one that meant the most to us on a banner, writing a letter to our sponsor, stapling our prayer requests in faith to the hem of Jesus' robe, praying for all of the different areas of Honduras that had ministries represented at the retreat, and creating something out of play-doh that God was working on your heart. These things may seem cliche, but the explanation we were to read before each station took it to a beautiful level of worship. 

Saturday morning we woke up and found that we had 6 parrots in a cage right outside our cabin. These were talented parrots. They spoke Spanish...."Hola. Hola. Hola. Hola. Como esta? Hola......." and whistled cat calls and one also cried like a baby, and I must admit I looked around to be sure there wasn't an actual baby somewhere. There wasn't. It was the parrot. 

On Sunday, we ended our time together with communion. As we got in line to receive communion, we were asked to lay a hand on the woman in front of us and say a prayer for her. The blood of Jesus is what unites us all as we go back to our daily ministries. What a powerful visual that was.

Another touching moment was when the ladies presented us each with t-shirts. Not just any t-shirt, but representative of the women in the states who had chosen to sponsor us, pray for us, and bless us with making the weekend possible. We were reminded that those backing us in prayer, from those who understood being on the mission field to those who have our picture on their desk, are praying not only for each of us but for each person we come into contact with. This prayer ripple is such an awesome thing as I think that all of my students are also covered in prayer. There was not a dry eye in the room as the ladies wrapped a shirt around us and gave us each a warm hug. 

 There were missionaries there who were who rarely got to see other English speakers in Honduras. That is one blessing of Pinares. Even if we get tired of each other because we work together and keep each other company, the Christian community we have with one another is a support that I will not take for granted.

The women from Pinares who were able to attend. What a wonderful group!