Women's retreat

Last weekend I had the privilege of attending a women's retreat! Our church hosts this women's retreat in Toral that women from all over Spain attend. It was an amazing experience for me!

There were 3 sessions with beautiful worship before each message. I've really began to appreciate and enjoy Spanish worship music! I find myself humming it and listening to songs on YouTube. (By the way, this song is one of favorites. Our church sings it all the time and I LOVE it!!)

And here is the speaker in her first session. She was a very sweet and dignified lady that spoke on prayer for the weekend. I understood a little bit and had someone translate for me. On Saturday I had a chance to briefly chat with the speaker in English and really enjoyed talking with her. I was telling her that I felt bad about butchering Spanish every time I speak and she was so encouraging; she reminded me that my effort is what matters and just to enjoy the process and not mind making mistakes-I will get it eventually! She was super sweet!

The highlight of the weekend was time away from the boys and life at home to spend quality time with ladies from our church. Sunday mornings are sometimes rushed with many people to speak to, so this weekend I was able to spend time and talk with ladies I didn't know very well-huge blessing!! I came away so much more thankful for the ladies and my church!

Here is Sheila and Cristina, two sweet ladies from my church. I roomed with Sheila and we had SO much fun! She speaks English and can compensate for my lack of Spanish; we had many great conversations-all in Spanish! I learned a lot of Spanish this weekend, actually, including some idioms from León.

One of the events of the weekend was a tea that ladies from the pueblo village were invited to. It seemed like quite a few ladies came and the outreach opportunity was very exciting!

Here are all the ladies that came from my church. There were overall over 100 ladies that attended the weekend!!

After the tea, they had a little session of celebration, since this is Toral's 20th anniversary. People have been coming to Toral for camps for 20 years! Including women's retreats. The story of Toral and how it has evolved was told. Many women gave testimonies. Some sang and read poems. This lady below gave a testimony. Her name is Ester and she is a sweet lady from my church. It was a very encouraging time to see how the Lord has used and blessed Toral for 2 decades now!

Overall it was a great weekend and I am so glad that I went! Also huge props to my husband for watching both boys alone for 2 nights and 3 days! He did a great job and the house was still standing (and even pretty clean!) when I returned! Thanks Gus for letting me go and taking such great care of our family!!