Besides designing the shirts for our retreats, I also created customized games, activities, decorations and props that went along with the theme.  To see more details of the all the fun stuff click on the Retreat Name on the "Faith" tab!

I attended my first Calvary Chapel Goochland ladies retreat in October of 2023, located in beautiful Cape Charles.  One church and 20 ladies attended.  “Rooted In Christ” was the theme for this retreat.  So, for the shirt design I used 3 nails in a cross as the tree, added a center ribbon and roots of a tree.  I had the name of each lady that attended attached to a root.  So, we were literally “Rooted In Christ”! 

Besides the wonderful teachers' teaching, testimonies, and devotional times we had lots of activities.  We played several rounds of customized bingo, trivia, and a Bible Trivia & Charades Card Game where you selected a card from one of several categories and followed the instructions on the card.... the category is Act it out / Don't talk and your word/phrase is "being born again" or the category could be Explain But Don't Say and your word/phrase is "Faith".  It was hilarious!  We even held a foot washing for each lady present.  It was a truly amazing experience.

May of 2024 was a retreat unlike any other!  There were 2 churches, Calvary Chapel Goochland and Proclaim Christ Church.  Proclaim Christ Church is a Calvary Chapel church and our sister chuch planted in Short Pump.  For the shirt for this retreat we used butterflies and flowers!  Everyone that attended has their name embedded into the petals of the 4 daisies on the top of the cross.

For one of the activities at this retreat we prepared a scavenger hunt using many accounts in the bible starting in Gensis with the Garden of Eden (complete with naked Barbie and Ken dolls in the flower garden), and going through to “Well done my good and faithful servant”.  Each of the 20+ biblical events we used had a visual prop to search for, held a clue as to what the next event was and held a clue as to the location of the next event.  I even included some “common sense” clues and not strictly biblical clues in order to make the participants think a little deeper.  For example, one of the clues said “don’t take credit for something you didn’t do”.  This is referencing Moses claim for getting water out of the rock.  The prop was a rock and a stick.  The ladies went “Wild” over this event. 

Of course, everyone was worn slam jam out and some of us even experienced more exercise that we had in years!  (We did not know the layout of the retreat center and ended up having them run all over the place…uphill, downhill and back uphill, you get the picture.)

Another activity was rock painting.  First we painted a rock with our burden, shame, sorry or weakness on it and then we painted a different rock with a pretty picture or saying.  The burden rock was left with Jesus and our load was lightened.  The pretty rock was for you to take home and remember to give your worries and burdens to Jesus.  Leave them at the cross!

THREE CHURCHES COMING TOGETHER!!  Calvary Chapel Goochland, Proclaim Christ Church and Calvary Chapel of Greene, three Calvary Chapel Churches united as one body for Christ!  This is our 3rd retreat and we had 3 churches attend.  Our 2nd retreat in 2024 was 2 churches and our 1st retreat in 2023 was 1 church.  What will 2026 bring, lets wait and see!

Our 4th retreat, "Spiritual Heart Surgery", is coming up April 30 - May 3, 2026 so far has three (3) churches attending with .  These are Calvary Chapel Goochland, Calvary Chapel Greene and Calvary Chapel Crossroads!  We are waiting to hear from a few more Calvary Chapel Churches in the area!

This is being called the

"Calvary Chapel Ladies Retreat"