Missionary Retreat

This past week we participated in a retreat for all of OMS Mexico missionaries. It was an incredible time. In fact, one of our fellow missionaries, Jonathan, who has served in Mexico for over 12 years said in the closing that he felt it was the best retreat ever - not because of location, or our speaker (although he was awesome!) but because there was such a sweet communion between all of us as missionaries - the spirit was so sweet and the Lords presence was easily felt.

Our speaker was Barney Davis, he is a Christian counselor who works full time with missionaries. He brought us a message based on the stresses of missionary life and with a focus of looking at all of the passages in the Bible when Jesus says, "Follow Me." We particularly benefited from Barney's teaching on grieving.

We took over 250 photos on retreat - we just felt as though we wanted to catch every moment - it was such an awesome time!

Our team ate in a family restaurant that specially prepared fresh shrimp and fish (all caught that morning) just for us! It was delicious and a wonderful taste of the local specialties!
Our retreat was held in the city of Veracruz on the Gulf - The city was beautiful and we took time as a team to explore a little!

Christian, Gary and Jonny in full business attire for the retreat - I am sure they were talking about strategic planning or something important here!

Our hotel had direct access to the beach and the kids had a great time playing in the warm ocean water!
Veracruz has the largest aquarium in Latin America. The kids were most impressed with the sharks!