Each year, the Shawnee Lodge hosts a retreat for Joni and Friends. This is a time for special needs families to come together and be ministered to through interaction with families in similar situations while provided lodging, meals and activities for all participants. The women of Grace Community Church at Bigelow have been blessed enough to be able to participate in serving dinner to the mothers that attend, in hopes of providing them a time of prayer, relaxing discussion with friends and a delicious meal prepared by the GCC@B women.
We were blessed to serve roughly 20 mothers who say that they look forward to this meal every year. So much so, that they request the same menu of chicken salad with fruit each year. Dinner was served and the GCC@B women were able to connect with some of the mothers as we joined them for dinner. Many of the mothers are local Ohio residents, but others come from as far away as Illinois and New York.
After dinner and dessert, April Chaffins began our focus on worship by leading us in songs, followed by a brief message from Ginny Cook on prayer and trusting God. As a fitting close, we opened up a time of prayer requests from the mothers and were overjoyed to listen to many of them also had praises for what God had done or was doing in their lives.
We closed with a circle of prayer, but as is common when women and mothers gather, the evening discussions went on for a while after. Many of these mothers only see each other when they attend Joni and Friends, and as many only see the GCC@B women at this time as well, much catching up was to be done. It was a wonderful opportunity to serve those who give so much of their time to their special needs families. As is often the case, both those serving and those being served were ministered to through our time together.
Update provided by Sarah Johnson
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