Winter Retreat

Our English Ministry Winter Retreat was Dec. 31-Jan. 3 this year. We had over 400 people attend from all of the Southern CA EFC churches. This is the chapel at Pine Summit during our worship time. James Lee took this picture and I thought it was awesome. Many people received Christ while at the retreat. It is always so exciting to me to watch God work!

Personally, I've been learning SO much about my life right now. I've been learning how to be a pastor's wife with young children. It's a very unique position to be in so it's taken me 4 years (so far) to aquire the limited knowledge I have on the topic. This is the first retreat I've been to that I really feel like I've been able to minister to people and still be with my kids. Retreats look much different than they used to. For example, I never get to hear the speaker, I don't get to hang out with the youth, and I have to sit by the same 2 people at every meal. BUT I've learned that retreats (along with many other things such as a good night's sleep, a successful afternoon of house-cleaning, or a lot of time with Gabe) look much different than they did before I had kids. I had a great time at Pine Summit. One of the high schoolers was awesome and came to visit me during naptime in our cabin so we could talk. There was another young mom in our cabin and we stayed up late chatting away while waiting for our husbands to get home after the kids went to bed. I got to walk around with the kids after naptime, during freetime and visit with other people. Sitting at the end of the table for every meal (for high chair purposes) gave me the ability to smile at and talk to many of the people who walked passed us. After 4 years and 3 Winter Retreats, I finally get it.

Big Bear was cold and snow-covered while we were there. It was so fun to walk outside in big jackets and gloves and see the beautiful snow everywhere.

Andrew with his bear friends... ahem... imaginary bear friends.

This was Keira's favorite part of the snow. She loved this bridge and walked across it at least 90 times.

On the other hand, she didn't really enjoy the snow. She fell a lot and I think that annoyed her. It was icy snow, not fresh, powdery stuff.

Andrew loved it. He's showing off his bear belly here.

Here are a couple more pics from back at home yesterday. I didn't know Keira knew how to do this, but I guess she does!

Well, she kind of does. If you can't tell, she has little seeds on her tongue and chin.