What an amazing retreat! Wow, so I learned a TON on the first ever Pink Princess Retreat! Can't wait till the next one! I feel so blessed to have had the experience and provide others with the same. I only wish we had had more survivors and more time to experience the area, the bonding, the "Never look back" ministry provided by Vicky Adkins and the list goes on! I will say that the activities were fun and exciting, too exciting for some;) The whole premise of Team Pink Princess is moving beyond cancer whether that is a literal cancer or the kind that life and or bad decisions bring. It really is about closing the book on the past and beginning to live again. Many of you have seen the pictures of the survivors at the bluff overlooking the river bottom, that was a really cool place. That spot is where we each took a vessel filled with dirt, the dirt was full of many things for each person in attendance, and tossed, threw, shook and rid ourselves of the cancer, brokenness, sin, hurt....you name it we had it. Key word.....HAD! We all left cancer and all the rest of the stuff behind as we threw it over the side of the bluff down into the river. It was no longer a part of us or who we were meant to be. It was amazing to watch each of us as we emptied our vessels. We each has our own way, tossing it about at once, handful after handful at a time. Some of us were mad, others hurt, some happy it was finally over, one thing was for sure....there was not an dry eye in the crowd. We canoed, zip lined and hung out making s'mores at night while running away from skunks. We traded war stories, we prayed we sang, we loved and we even lost. We lost the people we in came as. We came in as Pink Warriors with battle wounds and scars that not only cancer had left but life too. The last day before we started home many of us were baptized in the Niangua River just outside Bennett Springs....always a dream of mine, not Vicky's but she was a sport! We brought the vessels to the water before the baptism and each washed them of the dirt residue that had been in them from the previous venture. The vessel was not just a place to store the dirt but it had symbolized us, each pink princess. We were now sparkling clean and without all of the junk that had been plaguing us since cancer and way before that. I was amazed how each of us had come with needs, hurts, problems that to my surprise didn't have anything to do with cancer. Let me just say that God is so good. The ministry that took place is the forefront of what Team Pink Princess is. The activities and adventures that you will see from the organization in the future will be fun and exciting, but the "real deal" is the love of Jesus Christ and how His death on the cross free's of sin, gives eternal life and is the basis for healing for cancer and all other disease literal and figurative. So with that said, I want to say thank you, thank you, thank you to all that came out, donated, supported the fundraising events, bought T-shirts, bought flip flops for the next 5 or 10 retreats, sponsored survivors and assisted with airfare. I want to thank Vicky Adkins and Ashlee Meyer for the ministry and events that took place in regard to making each survivor feel at home, loved, and strengthened. You guys did an amazing job, I will tell you if you donated to this retreat in anyway there were many lives changed and many people that didn't even get to attend that have experienced breakthroughs through the survivors after they returned home. Until the next time remember.....Never look back, you're not going that way!
