I went to a ladies retreat - THRIVE 2018

6 months ago, some fellow missionary women here in Guadalajara told me about an organization called Thrive.

Thrive is an organization that ministers to missionary women working in cross-cultural settings and they put on 4 day spiritual retreats all over the world. They have divided the globe into regions and they make sure they go to each region at least one time every two years, and now in April they were coming to Puerto Vallarta.

There are a few women that run the ministry and then volunteers sign up to come as well. The volunteers are made up of professional counselors, those that want to come to pray and encourage, a couple of hair stylists and massage therapists, and those that want to come and serve in any way.

And get this, they raise all of the funds for all of the missionary women! Meaning that in order to attend, we had to pay a minimal registration fee and get ourselves there. The rest of the stay was completely covered by donars.

I am so thankful for this opportunity to attend and that I got to go! We have had several months, half a year, of non stop busyness and I have been feeling that I haven't had the space to process life recently and spend that extended time resting in God. The speaker that came spoke on topics that we KNOW to be true, but that sometimes we forget to believe.

God is Sovereign

God is Good

God is Love

It was a timely retreat for me.

I also enjoyed so much the times of discussion. We were split into small groups that we spent much of the time with in discussion and prayer. This was my group, made up of 2 leaders and missionary women from all over Mexico. 

I also enjoyed spending time with fellow missionary from Guadalajara, Melissa, who I went there with and who I roomed with. We don't get together a lot with missionaries from other agencies here so it was nice to have a longer to visit as well.

I also enjoyed meeting women in other cities of Mexico and building friendships with them. Everyone there is working cross-culturally so we "get" each other. It was interesting too to play the "Mennonite game" and make connections! One knew my brother and sister-in-law from language school in Texas. One was the niece of my mom's friend in Canada. One knows some of our friends from the States.

Thrive also works in between retreats offering their services to missions agencies by offering mentoring, coaching, and counseling over Skype to women that work cross-culturally. They have such a good handle on the needs of missionary women and I would encourage missions agencies to take advantage of this ministry as another member care tool!

So, I wish I could go every year :) Recharges the batteries. 

Thankfully, God is here right with us where we all are and amidst the busyness of life we need to work hard at carving out time for him each day, week, month, year. Our circumstances can overtake our minds but I want God overtaking my thoughts before anything else.