Merry Christmas from BC - Part TWO

"Unwrap Your Gifts"

October 17 - 19, 2014

Finally!
Warning! This is a long post with lots of pictures and to see the pictures better.... click on them! 

Arriving at Camp Squeah on Friday morning, we were ready to get to work! 

We were hoping to stay dry while 'schlepping' all our Christmas decor into the Main Lodge but first we had to take care of some other details...... details like filling all our colourful socks with chocolates and candy canes, cookies and a cookie cutter and oh yeahhh ... the matching second sock! For some reason this surprised many of the women, go figure! ! ! ! :-)  

          

After lunch the group that had been enjoying Camp during the week, were finally on their way and it was now our turn to get ready for the ladies that were coming.....soon! 

We were so thankful that a few of our weekend participants had volunteered to come early and help us with the decorating. (Laura Loewen, Mary Goertzen, Lydia Bergen and Elli Koehn (Guenther)) The Staff at Camp also came to help set up the tables, chairs, stage and sound system.

WHAT??? did you think that it was the Christmas Elves? 

Well... I guess these were our Elves this year! 

Our Silent Auction, once again,  had lots of goodies to offer. A special thank you goes to Cynthia Williams for stepping in to help. We could not have done it without you! 

The women are always so generous with their donations for our cause which is to help assist women that may otherwise not be able to attend! 

The Three Kings are on their way! 

Just look at our cute Christmas Stockings!     And look at the pretty baskets?
They raise funds for Mennonite Women Canada's 'Spiritual Growth Assistance Fund'. It helps support women studying to go into the Ministry. 

The women are coming and the fun is starting! 

To begin with we will "Unwrap our Gifts" with a Gift Discernment test and discover the gifts that God gave us!                                                          Cheryl Dyck (Planning Committee Member) prepared the a copy of the test for every women that was present on Friday night. You can download the test HERE  It is a very good and comprehensive test.                                                            
Once the test was done it was time for visiting and getting reacquainted with old friends and making some new friends!  
It was a great start to our Christmas Weekend!

Saturday was going to be a busy day! 
The women had a choice of 3 workshops to enjoy or to go for a walk, read a book, visit or take a nap.

In the Emory Lounge - - -  
Christmas Cup Cake Decorating with Elly Isaak - owner of Elly's Studio of Cake Design

In the Fraser Lounge - - - 
Arm-knitting with Amanda Salmon, who stepped up when our committee member had to be in class and could not be present. Thank you, Amanda.
This turned out to be a very popular workshop and rather challenging even to those that are long time knitters! It messed with their minds just a tad! :-)

But in the end they all mastered it!

Lydia Bergen sporting her new scarf! 

In the Main Lodge - - - 
A writing workshop with our special guest April Yamasaki.
It was a 'creative writing' session where she encouraged everyone to write their Spiritual Story.
You can read her full report of our weekend retreat HERE 
She also told us the wonderful story of the 3 Kings. Learn more about it HERE. 

The workshops were all well attended and the women really enjoyed them and they learned something to take home with them! Some new GIFTS to share!

This year we also enjoyed hosting 2 young international ladies.
They are here via MCC's International Volunteer Exchange Program (IVEP) under the leadership of Sophie Thiessen Eigbike.









Sophie with her 2 girls - Kathryn Friesen from Brazil and Nila Amallia from Indonesia!
I've been told that they really enjoyed their time at the Women's Retreat! 




Before dinner, everyone gathered to take our annual group photo. This year we wore Christmas sweaters
Our two Christmas Trees can hardly be seen but you can spot the Stars!

It gets very animated when 120 women settle in to take a group photo!

it comes with lots of laughter and some serious togetherness!!!

Sporting their lovely Christmas sweaters

La Vern Klassen and Kim Tiessen.

3 generations!
l-r: Cynthia Gortzen Williams,  I am in the middle
and my Mom - Gertrude Nickel

Committee Member Candice Corder.
Behind her - our Secret Santa Gifts!  

The photo session continued for quite a while. It is impossible to show all the pictures here.

Once the photo session was over it was time to enjoy our Christmas Dinner! 

 Turkey with ALL the trimmings. 

It was delectable! 

Our much loved Worship Team
L-r: Carla Hordyk, Cheryl Heinrichs,
Dorothy Friesen and Elly Federau

After dinner was done it was time for some Christmas Caroling, a Live Auction and to share some gifts that God has blessed us with.

It sounded beautiful! ! ! 

Showing and sharing more of God's many Gifts to us! ! !

Our Auctioneer - Heidi Epp showing off her
gift of humour. The Santa sitting on her
shoulder was crafted by our Hmong Sisters.

Laurie Johnson - crocheting 

La Vern Klassen - singing

Theresa Batz - painting

Hilda Barg - bag making

Many other gifts were shared, each special in their own way, card making, photography, etc.
Thank you to everyone that shared their gift with the group!

Ohhhhh.... and did you know that we celebrated 50 years of Women's Retreats at Camp this year? 

This is one of many poster boards of memories of years gone by! 

All those present at this year's retreat received a celebration bookmark!

The top is the front and the bottom is the back!
And, yes, it is a horizontal bookmark! :-)

The Christmas cookies that the Kitchen Staff baked for the ladies.
50 packs with 4 different varieties of cookies for a donation!
They were all gone in a flash!  

Ornaments were also collected and gifted to
"The Thunderbird Motel" Project
You can watch a video abut this Ministry  HERE

The Planning Committee decided to do this in honour of our 

50th Anniversary of Retreats in Hope, BC.

We had a nice collection of all sorts of ornaments! 

Thank you, to everyone that donated an ornament! 

We also have had one BIG weekend prize for the last number of years.
This year's winner was Gladys Huber.
Mary & Joseph with Baby Jesus and
The Three Kings!  

The Planning Committee with our retreat speaker
April Yamasaki 
Thank you for a wonderful time and we look forward to hosting
April again in 2015 for Part Two!
October 16 - 18, 2015

Merry Christmas One and All! ! ! - Part ONE!

As a child, did you ever wish that everyday could be like Christmas? Maybe 'Unwrap a Gift' every now and then during the year? I mean, everyday would just be a bit much to ask, right?

Well, this past year has been all about Christmas! Imagine, 12 months of planning and shopping for Christmas! YES, since November 2013 we have had Christmas on our minds and not just because Christmas comes around every year but because we decided to plan a full blown Christmas Retreat for 2014 when our original retreat plans fell through.

We have had so much fun! ! !  With the 2013 Christmas Season only just beginning, it gave us the opportunity to shop for decorations, candy canes and yes, even chocolates that were nicely packed away in our freezers.                                                                                               Several times over the past few years the idea of a Christmas Retreat had come up but it just never worked out but this time we had to make some new plans fast and Christmas it was! 

Being at one of our planning meetings you would think that we all had a bit too much eggnog but luckily there is none available during most of the year and we were safe. We knew that the Ugly Christmas Sweaters had to be part of our fun and some great Christmas cupcakes and cookies, too!                     

It was promptly decided to connect with Camp Squeah's kitchen and find out if they would be willing to bake some Christmas Cookies for the ladies to purchase at the end of the retreat weekend. 

The staff happily agreed AND they were also willing to prepare a full Christmas dinner for the women for Saturday evening of our weekend. 

The next thing that needed to be done was to find a speaker, on rather short notice I might add, but when we spoke with April Yamasaki, (Senior Pastor at Emmanuel Mennonite Church in Abbotsford) and told her a bit about our plans, she barely hesitated and gave us a resounding "YES"!

Things were coming together nicely! 

We booked a workshop with Elly's Studio of Cake Design to learn how to decorated Christmas Cupcakes and one of our committee members volunteered to teach us how to do some arm-knitting!

Christmas Caroling was a must, as well as, the Christmas stockings and gifts!

The one thing that needed another brainstorming session was the overall theme for the weekend. 

It took a few cups of coffee and some animated discussion but then inspiration hit, and when it's right, you just know it!  

Christmas and Gifts = "Unwrap your Gifts"  DONE! 

But the fun didn't stop after all this decision making. The shopping continued! 

Door prized, gift baskets, birthday gifts and socks, lots of colorful socks were bought that would be our Christmas stockings.

As October came closer the registrations started to arrive. 

Last minute preparations were underway, such as baking 'Pepper-nut' Cookies (Pfeffernuesse - a small German Spice Cookie usually baked only at Christmas) They were part of the goodies in the Christmas Stockings and it would take a mountain of these tiny cookies!  

A mountain of cookies!
It took 3 of us about 6 hours just to bake all these cookies!
2530 cookies! Yes, we counted them! 

All packed and ready for the Christmas Stockings!
They also came in Gluten Free! 

The registrations kept coming! MANY registrations - online and by snail-mail!
From late August to early October, going to the mail-box is one of my favourite things to do! :-)

To be continued!