… And So The Adventure Begins!
Close your eyes for a moment and think about your happy place. What does it look like? Do the blue skies look as if they will never end? Is there soft grass between your toes and can you feel the sweet touch of the sun kissing your face? At night, do the stars burn big and bright and make you feel like you are being wrapped in the world’s most lavish blanket? Who is there with you? Your friends? Your family? Do you feel the presence of God in every scene that you see? If you ask any Chicktime leader from anywhere in the country about her happy place, we can almost guarantee that she is going to tell you all about the Rhodes Resort!
This month, chapter leaders from across the country gathered at the Rhodes Resort in Canyon Lake, Texas for our annual retreat. Sure, you hear the word “retreat” and you probably automatically assume that these ladies spent the weekend hanging out by the infinity pool, eating some of the most delicious food that they didn’t have to cook, laughing at the jokes being made in the afternoon sun, or even receiving one of the most amazing massages in the world. Well, you wouldn’t be wrong in your assumption! However, our retreats are just a little more than a relaxing weekend get-a-way! Our retreats are a collection of women who span across forty chapters. These women all have their stories to tell about what brought them to Chicktime but the moral to every one of those stories is that they all simply want to be protectors of children.
Every year, at retreat, we end the weekend with this amazing ceremony that we simply call our Bead Ceremony and for every year that these ladies have been in leadership at Chicktime, they receive one more rose quartz bead to add to their charm bracelet. Rose quartz has been used for centuries as a healing stone as it is believed to help heal emotional wounds and provide a soothing sensation to not just adults but also to children and small babies. It provides comfort to the hurting and hope to the healing. It was no accident that this was chosen to symbolize each year that our chapter leaders have been part of the Chicktime movement!
Sure, we spent a good portion of our weekend out by the pool, making new friendships, and nurturing old ones, but we also spent the weekend learning how to protect the children of our community. Thanks to the powerful teachings of Motivational Speaker, Kelley Swanson, we learned how to craft our stories in a way that will engage any audience and capture their hearts. We learned how to be powerful story tellers. We learned how to share the pain that we see every day in our communities in a way that inspires others to go out there and make a difference! We learned more about what it means to be a Chicktime chapter as well and how to ensure that our communities never have to go without a Chicktime again.
It was a powerful weekend. It was a beautiful weekend. It was a Chicktime weekend.
