Moving on down the highway – within an hour our whole visable world changed! What?
From Pine trees and gentle deer…to the desert, scorpians, snakes and havalinas….
…and from pine trees, to cactus trees (Saguaro) to “cell tower trees’, to palm trees! What?
Welcome to the Shepherds Canyon Retreat at Standing Stones! Van and Teri Rice, the property managers and host couple, treated us to a great “welcome dinner” at a nearby resturant. The property is literaly an oasis in the middle of the desert, about 15 miles West of Wickenburg, AZ.
The Shepherd’s Retreat refers to an intense crisis management / intervention for Pastoral leadership and their wives. They provide counselors, therapists, and clergy couples to rescue these hurting and burned out church leaders. Their motto is, “caring for care-givers of the soul”. We never interacted with the guests but helped provide behind the scenes support and prayer.
We had a beautiful spot to set up our rig and live for the four weeks we were there. The office building right behind our rig also has the staff break room (we had devotions with the staff) and the kitchen. We were the only SOWERs this month but they had several other couples come to volunteer to serve and minister to the 8 guests. The retreat lasts a full week – it was a busy place while the guests were there.
Lorree spent her days working with and helping Teri with hospitality, making up the rooms, cleaning and laundry. They changed the table settings for every meal based on what was being served. I think Chef Dave’s award winning chili was the meal for the above setting!
Lorree also helped clean, sort, and organize closets of linen storage. She even got to do some sewing! She measured every tablecoth, sewed labels, color coded the sizes and hung them in an organized fashion in the closets. This will really help to find and use what they have.
The retreat center is in the middle of remodeling an existing area into a commercial kitchen. One of Dennis’s first jobs was to get it cleaned up and de-cluttered again so they could work. You know how building projects go – stuff everywhere and can’t find what you need.
They must have liked what they saw ’cause Dennis’s big project for the remaining weeks was to tackle their maintenence shop and storage area. It needed some love and attention to sorting things out, building shelving, and organizing the plumbing, electrical, tools, and lumber.
See those rows of little white boxes and bins on the shelves? We got to sort boxes and boxes and buckets of mixed nuts, bolts, screws, and more. We ended up with close to one hundred boxes of sorted hardware after we were done…whew!
He had fun being able to do this. The maintenence manager Raine and his helper Jerry really liked what Dennis did for them! There were several times they came in to get something and found it right away (and didn’t have to go buy a new one!)
Oh, and we were able to complete several miscellanious jobs as well. We helped take down a couple of trees and clean it up for the neighbor across the highway. Dennis was able to be creative with replacing broken stone/tile on one end of the swimming pool, and installed base board in one of the rooms. Lorree did a thorough cleaning of an RV trailer for one of the counselor couples to live in while they were here.
The work here wasn’t “hard” but we always had something to do. It was fun to serve this ministry in ways that probably won’t get noticed by anyone except the staff. We made some good friends and enjoyed the relaxed atmoshere.
Every morning and every night we were blessed to see these beautiful sunrises and sunsets! The 15 acre campus has a walking path that goes around the property and through the prayer garden. there are several water features on the property that adds to the “oasis” feel in this desert setting. It was a beautiful adventure and retreat for us!
The wonderful staff we were blessed to serve with! Raine, Van, Teri, and Chef Dave. Not pictured, Jerry.
One of the guests asked if there were any art supplies avaialable, he was impressed to paint something to express what they experienced here. Dennis was able to loan him his art supplies. This is what he painted for the retreat center and what he wrote. A beautiful reminder of God’s abundant and never ending grace! Amen!