Our family hosted our first, “Unless the Lord Build the House” marriage retreat this past weekend, and it was a tremendous blessing for our family. We had room for twenty seven couples, and even with last minute cancellations, we still had twenty seven couples attend. We were humbled by the honor of encouraging families from 13 states to include as far away as Hawaii. Many drove long distances, and our prayer is that God blesses their families with lasting fruit for their investment of time and effort.
It began months ago when God put the idea on our hearts. The children immediately were thrilled, and it became a vision that they owned.
Teri and I are often greatly distressed over families where the dad and mom are not united in heart in pursuing Jesus. The primary goal of this retreat was to help Dad and Mom have a common vision for the future of their family. I saw a secondary benefit of hosting a retreat like this to be the opportunity to teach our children what it was like to successfully organize an event.
The children excitedly discussed and planned for weeks because they were responsible for all of the logistics concerning hosting the retreat. Teri and I worked on the material for the sessions and critiqued their plans. Finally, the weekend arrived and is now gone. We are all feeling quite spent, but what a good feeling that is.
We also invited any couples, who had the time, to worship with us on Sunday. In addition to four families from the retreat to our church, there was another family that visited from Texas. It was a blessing indeed.
Steve for the family
Sarah took this picture as several of the children were unloading. Notice the walkie talkie? The children enjoyed communicating with each other during the weekend.
Jesse was our “chief soda conference servant.” He did a great job at keeping the sodas cold! Here he and Mary are pushing the big cooler out of our hotel room and down to the meeting room!
Saturday evening, I felt prompted for the children to sing/play “I Feel Like Traveling On.” The guys had just played/sang this song for the men at the homeless shelter that morning. Sarah took this picture.
We had a wonderful time at the conference. As far as I, the average conference attendee, could tell, the execution was flawless. As a planner of other similar events, I am sure behind the scenes there were a few issues, but for those of us who were at the conference, no issues were visible.
Thanks to the entire Maxwell family for allowing God to use them for an experience that was humbling, convicting and enriching.
To Him goes all the Glory…Mike
We are still processing all that we experienced, and both cannot express what blessings your family was to us! I have so much I could say, but will refrain for the sake of space. Zane and I were partners before, but now our bond is truly through the Lord, to buiild up our marriage in His name.
Thank you so much for sharing your time and hearts.
Zane and Melissa