Shepherds and Sheep - Lovers Renewed

FOR LOVERS ONLY

. . . was a Walking with Jesus seminar specially designed for Pastors and their wives. I have done several Pastor and Wife seminars in the Philippines and Vietnam with Gisela, my partner, coordinator, and hostess in the Philippines (she is now in Germany, her children and grandchildren are operating the mission station in Manila). This was the first in Indonesia, and while similarly formatted, had several elements added or changed. Gisela is the originator of most of the material and flow of the seminar - Thanks Gisela, for getting me going!

The thing that drives me to desire to do these seminars is that for more than 10 years I travelled (mostly in the Philippines) doing seminars for pastors. I usually stayed in pastor's homes during these travels. I discovered that the pastor's wife is the loneliest person in the world: the pastor travels, either locally or away, and comes back tired and full of the problems people have dumped on him. He dumps them on her, and she has no place except Jesus. If she utters a peep, it becomes gossip. Besides this, she is expected to be a co-minister and perfect wife and hostess and . . . so many expectations from husband and congregation - all with no acknowledgment or thanks. The husband is too busy with 'his ministry,' 'serving God' to pay attention to wife and family or to minister at home. I realize that in most pastor/wife relationships this condition exists, so there exists a great need for creating awareness in the pastor and restoration for both.

Shepherds are subject to the same human frailities and failures as the sheep, but are limited in their opportunity to confess and recover from the festering wounds caused. Thus we created FOR LOVERS ONLY for Indonesia.

Most common comment or testimony from pastors and their wives:

Thank you for creating for us an example of a loving community for our families and congregations. Among variations were that it would help them be an example and lead in those two areas; that the environment created allowed them to experience a personal change in their attitude and ability to surrender to love; that their spouse had been demonstrably changed; etc.

The teaching methods were new and interesting. We never experienced such deep and heavy teaching in such a simple way, with exercises and games so it was really fun and we got it!

We never experienced such a seminar (retreat) as this. We hope you will follow-up so we can continue in the loving community and the teachings and practices we learned here. We want to help you if you will do this seminar again for others.

During the testimonies I frequently heard the words 'restoration' and 'breakthrough.'

Click on Dream Maker for our dream for the retreat FOR LOVERS ONLY
--HWK--