After you lose someone it can be easy to think of life as “before” and “after.” It’s easy to feel hopeless. That is why hearing one of our Abba’s Child Family Retreat attendees say, “We still have our encore” and that there is still so much life to live, encourages us and the importance of our mission.

Just a little over a week ago, we had our third annual Family Retreat. We had 54 people and 14 grieving families present, each with their own story of loss. While each family—each person—has their own grief journey, the retreat serves as a way for families to learn that they are not alone, receive support and new tools, as well as spend some much needed quality family time together, while remembering the loved one they’ve lost.

With the setting of the gorgeous Oregon Coast, our retreat families enjoyed learning more about their grief from Byron Kehler and listening to optional worships from Darold Bigger. Our time was split between meetings for the whole family and special time for parents and kid specific programming. With time for expression through art projects such as decoupaging about your lost loved one and grief process, creating sand candles, boat building for our candle ceremony and drawing your emotions—our families enjoyed processing their feelings in a positive, productive way. Families also had some much-needed fun by taking advantage of the activities available at Twin Rocks Friends Camp, such as zip lining, the giant swing, beautiful walks on the beach or enjoying the activity room. It was wonderful to see families laughing and playing together.

One of our attendees wrote “I am grateful for the opportunity to connect with my family and for each of us to get to challenge ourselves to face scary things together.” Grief is scary, loss is hard. But traveling that road together as a family and with the support of others experiencing a similar kind of pain, is helpful.

Thank you to our supporters and our donors who have made this retreat, as well as our kids camps, available to grievers—no matter their financial situation. As one of our attendees wrote, “What a blessing to have grief counseling and fun family activities to help us heal and without the burden of paying for it at this hard time in our walk.” Thank you for making this possible.

The Family Retreat has our team looking forward to our first kids camp of the summer at our new location, Glacier View Ranch in Ward, Colorado, on June 23-28! To see other dates for our kids camps, click here.