Pastors’ Wives Retreat
Last weekend there was a retreat here in Southern California for wives of the pastors of the English-speaking congregations in our conference. Ladies from conference churches in Southern Cal, Northern Cal, and Hawaii met to support and encourage one another. Below Renae shares a few thoughts from the retreat.
This past weekend, Shelsea Wenell and I had the opportunity to attend the annual pastors' wives retreat. After a hiatus of three years, it was a wonderful time of bonding, support, devotions and prayer for the nine of us that attended.
One of our theme verses was 1 Peter 4:10 - “Each of you should use whatever gift you have received to serve others, as faithful stewards of God’s grace in its various forms.” Through quiet time in Scripture and prayer, worship in song and sharing, we drew closer to God and reflected on our unique calling as pastors’ wives. Some of the areas that I found impactful were about observing Sabbath rest (taking intentional time away from regular activities to connect with God), and about preparing to encounter God at church service before anything else. Our Saturday devotions was centered around a paraphrase of 1 Corinthians 13. It took each of the “Love” phrases and put them in the context of pastors’ wives. One that was particularly meaningful to me was the last Love phrase: “ Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends. The pastor's wife can engage in the difficult work of ministry because God‘s love for her never ends. She can serve even the hardest to love because she knows she has been welcomed into the very heart of God.” Through our time together, we experienced refreshment and renewal.
One surprise activity we did on Saturday was an Indiana Jones themed escape room. In an escape room, you and your teammates are placed in a room, and you have to find various clues around the room or decode messages to help you unlock chests and drawers that hold clues to the next challenge. Our eventual goal in one hour’s time was to unlock a trunk where the “Ark of the Covenant” was located. The person running our group said that if we got stuck and needed help to move on, we all needed to wave our hands in the air and she would let us to know if we were on the right track and would give us a clue or a tip that would help us move on.
The next day in devotional sharing time, Karen Mashita from Orange County Holiness likened this to our need to “wave our hands in the air” before God and ask for His help when we’re stuck and need to know if we’re on the right track and what to do next. And as exciting as it would be to find the Ark of the Covenant in the escape room, how much more glorious and amazing it will be when the way to heaven is opened to us and we come face to face with God!
For those of you who are wondering if we were able to open the chest to the Ark of the Covenant - yes we did, with 7 minutes to spare! And not only that, but we were also reminded of some valuable spiritual principles along the way!
Renae Kishimoto
