Holden Village Retreat

We spent a week at Holden Village in the Cascade Mountains.  It was so good to disconnect from all technology for a whole week!  I'm realizing how much the daily news -- with so many stories of tragedy, pain, and negativity -- affects my spirit.  I also know how tied I am to my cell phone for texts, phone calls, voicemails, and emails.  There was a freedom in not needing to pay attention to these things for awhile.

Leigh, Luke, and I loved our experience at Holden Village, a Lutheran retreat center, formerly a copper mining village, nestled in the mountains, located on Railroad Creek.  We spent time in daily evening prayer with the regular residents of Holden, other special worship services (including two Holy Communion services and a Sunday morning prayer service outside), hikes around the area, playing at the playground, eating good food, and meeting new people.  Lutheran circles are small -- I met people who know people I know, including my aunt and uncle's former pastor in Wisconsin!  I read three books while I was at Holden--all relating to multiethnic ministry and ministry in diverse socioeconomic settings.  I also attended a workshop about indigenous presence in the Cascades - we are surrounded in the Pacific Northwest by signs of the presence of our Native American brothers and sisters, yet we often don't know much of their stories, including the tragedy of their loss of land and culture as white settlers moved in.  Ironically, Holden's mine represents one of the very reasons indigenous land was taken away -- for natural resources.  A question to ponder deeply is, how is God calling us to respond as followers of Jesus?

As I look back on our time at Holden, I especially enjoyed our nine-mile hike to Hart Lake and back with our kids (carrying them in backpacks most of the way -- we even had a strange encounter with a grouse protecting her territory who chased us a long way down the trail) and my solo hike to Copper Basin with some snow crossings.  How wonderful to experience the beauty of God's creation!  Holden survived a major forest fire a few years ago, and now there are green plants growing on the forest floor with blackened trees all around -- a sign of God bringing new life from ashes.  Luke and Joy loved riding the Holden tricycles around, swinging in the hammocks that are placed at different spots along the creek trail, and checking out the insects, birds, and animals of Holden -- we saw large ants, birds (including that crazy grouse), chipmunks, deer (including a mommy and a baby), black bear (including a mommy and a baby), ground squirrels, and a pine martin (who had a ground squirrel for lunch!).  I think the highlight of Luke's time at Holden was pretending to drive the school bus (our transportation down the mountain to the boat dock on Lake Chelan.  These pictures tell some of our story of Holden Village.