Leaders' Retreat

Last weekend we had a great retreat in the Czech Republic led by Ron Kuest, father of our field director Kelly. We have a new role this year as "country administrators" overseeing five other ESI teachers. This retreat was for the eight CA's in Central Europe along with Kelly our field director and her parents. Our sectionals dealt primarily with two topics: growing the soul and trust (trusting God, trusting others, and becoming a trustworthy person). We had so many valuable discussions together. It was a really spiritually rich time. We knew all the CAs from training last year but this gave us an opportunity to really share on a much more personal level. Ron Kuest also gave us a signed copy of his book "Embracing Conflict".

Our pension was located in the old city of Kromeriz so we were able to walk everywhere when sight-seeing time was scheduled. On Friday night we spent over an hour enjoying some gardens, and on Saturday we toured the archbishop's castle, a UNESCO World Heritge site.


This is the garden we toured on Friday night.




The view of the garden from the archbishop's castle.




The city square, with the archbishop's castle in the far corner.




Playing "hi-ya!" (It got us all laughing!)




The self-serve wine cellar at our pension. We are with Kelly Kuest and Vic and Darla D'Ettorre.




The archbishop's castle as seen from the back garden.




One of the sculptures on the grounds of the archbishop's castle.