2022 WELS Women's Retreat - October 15, 2022

We started the evening before with check-in and some fine food offerings in the Orca room at the Harbor 360 Hotel.  All the women traveling a distance gathered together for a Devotional and a Meet & Greet.  The Orca room was next to the Otter room, with soft, comfy chairs.  You could tell which room you were in by the displays.

The ladies arrived little by little.  There were squeals of delight as old friends were reunited and introductions... sometimes with hugs... of new faces.  There was a lovely devotion followed by a beautiful spread of snacks with water, soda, or wine.  There was a mixer game, lots of talking, and excitement about the Saturday Retreat.

Saturday morning started early with breakfast in the hotel.  It was surprisingly good.  I had little cheese omelets and bacon.  There were breakfast pastries, waffles for the toaster, fruit, yogurt, hot and cold cereals, and even freshly made pancakes that came off a small conveyor belt after pushing a button.

We headed over to the Gateway Hotel Conference Center.  Again, squeals of delight as other new faces appeared.

After the morning Devotional, and some instructions for the day's events our speaker for the day began.  Karen Fischer is a counselor at a mental health institute and for now, she is dealing with teenagers. She had come to her profession, as many of us do, by a road that she had not expected to be on.  Today she was going to give us guidelines on how we can be more Resilient women in today's world as well as how to help others cope with stress and loss.

Karen shared her information with us in three sessions. Between the first and second sessions, the Host Church sold raffle tickets that could be put in bags next to each of the 33 gift baskets that were being offered to raise seed money for the next retreat in 2023.  We not only got to stretch our legs but put our raffle stubs in for the baskets that we wanted to win.

Each table was beautifully decorated.  There were small gift bags and a bottle of hand lotion for each lady attending the retreat.

The ladies who put this event together really worked hard putting this retreat together.  They found an excellent speaker who informed and educated us.  They had a well-planned schedule with plenty of activities and downtime if we wanted it.  They had 33 gift baskets to raffle off and a whole slew of local gift certificates for museums, tourist sights, and tours for the silent auctions.  Take a look at all of the baskets lining the walls.

After lunch and to ease everyone back into an activity we were provided with adult coloring book pages with many different Bible verses on them.  There were colored gel pens and colored pencils to fill in the colors.  I will have to finish mine at home, but they even gave us picture frames so we could frame our art once we finish it.  I don't know about the others but it took me back to my days with crayons and coloring books as a kid.