East Africa Ladies Retreat

On 14-17 of April the ladies on our team headed to Rondo in Kenya for the East Africa women’s retreat. Rondo is a retreat center in the rain forest, an absolutely beautiful place! The ladies of the Jinja team planned the retreat. We talked about misconceptions of God and of ourselves; the theme was “we are created in the image of God.” It was a really restful time, which was much needed. The discussions we had were very stirring as well. On the last night we had a masquerade and ended with a poster silent testimony when we removed our masks. To me that was very powerful. I really enjoyed getting to meet ladies from other areas of East Africa. There were women from the Mwanza, Tanzania team, 3 ladies from various parts of Kenya, and all of the Uganda teams. Also, two ladies who recently arrived in Tanzania were there. They’d been staying with the Mwanza team and were going to visit teams in Uganda and Rwanda after the trip. They were really nice, but what was really cool about meeting them was the connections we have from home. I had seen Christie Harrison and her husband at Gulf Coast Get Away in 2008 and met them very briefly. At the time they were planning and preparing to move to Tanzania. Among other things, hearing them talk about Tanzania stirred my mind and pulled my heart towards coming back sooner than I had planned at that time (which would have been a few years later). Also, Holly McNeal and her husband worked with the new University Christian Ministry campus minister Duane Dixon before he went to University Church. Holly told me that Duane had mentioned me to them, but the likelihood of us actually meeting seemed really slim. Guess Duane was right. I’m glad I got to meet them and all the other ladies there. There were a few other connections I had with them and others; it is amazing just how small the world can be (especially in the Church of Christ and within missions and then within missions in Africa)! I’m interested to visit the teams and see their ministries first-hand. I'd love to be able to travel around and do that in the future.