2026 Queer Family Retreat

Hands On

Jam Making!

with Kendra Foster-Mitchell

Come and experience the sweetness of God’s earth by making jam. We will be making delicious jams from berries gathered and grown in Northern BC and learning more about saskatoons, which flower and grow abundantly in Lheidli T’enneh territory.

Making jam is a delicious way to connect with family and friends, and to share this traditional practice in loving community. Don’t wear a white shirt!

Bio: Kendra lives, works and plays on unceded Lheidli T’enneh territory, in what is currently known as Prince George. Kendra and her wife Sheona share three children, Destiny, Amilie and Jay. One of Kendra’s passions is to live as close to the land as she can, and she grew up making jams, pickles and gardening on a farm in Treaty One territory in Manitoba. Making jam is a way of celebrating tradition and family and practicing deep gratitude for the richness of creation. Kendra works as the Regional Minister, Justice for the Pacific Mountain Region.

Contemplative

Nourish!

with Carol Lynka

Take time to NOURISH! This workshop will link contemplative practice with Jolene Park’s self regulation framework, N.O.U.R.I.S.H. (Notice Nature, Observe your Breath, Unite with Others, Replenish with Food, Initiate Movement, Sit in Stillness, and Harness Creativity.)

We will explore how these activities can help you have a better connection with yourself, with others, and with the natural world. Come experience practices that are both mindful and playful!

Bio: An educator and perennial student, Carol is excited to lead a workshop in this amazing community. Naramata Centre has been a place of rest, rejuvenation, and making wonderful memories with her family. Carol is passionate about equity and inclusion, and has been a lead in SOGI education at her school. She and her son, Adam, have recently joined a Trans Family Support Network in Port Moody, BC. Carol has also become a member of Living Interfaith Sanctuary. With a background in Humanities and Religious Studies, Carol loves learning about other wisdom traditions. In 2023, she completed her Masters Degree in Contemplative Inquiry in Education, which led her to Christian contemplative practices such as Centering Prayer, labyrinth walking meditation, Taize worship, gratitude gatherings, and Mindful Movement and Meditation through Pacific Jubilee.

Justice

Doing the Work of Justice

with Martha Juillerat and Tammy Lindahl

In this workshop, we will discuss how to work for justice effectively. We’ll look at how we can be strong, grounded activists, how to be an effective storyteller and what the best models of activism might be to achieve your goals.

Martha Juillerat: Martha was born in West Virginia and later lived in Boston and Chicago. She graduated from Northwestern University and McCormick Theological Seminary. While still in university, she worked at a racial equality and community development project in Mississippi. She was ordained by the Presbyterian Church USA to work in the field of domestic violence. For fifteen years, she worked in women’s shelters and with projects focused on women’s equality and human rights, while also serving as an Intentional Interim Minister in small Presbyterian churches across northern Illinois and western Missouri. Martha met her partner, Tammy Lindahl, in 1986 while each of them was pastoring churches in southwest Missouri. Six years later they came out publicly, at a time when LGBTQ+ ordination was still banned in the Presbyterian Church, and they lost their ordinations. Martha spent the next twenty years working as an advocate for LGBTQ+ equality, most notably as the founding Director of the Shower of Stoles Project. Through that work she continued preaching at churches, universities, seminaries and denominational gatherings across the U.S. and Canada. They moved to Canada in 2008 and she worked for a Member of Parliament for 14 years, primarily with immigrants, refugees and new citizens. After retiring, she began working at Esquimalt United Church. Through an act of gracious reconciliation, the Presbyterian Church reinstated her ordination in 2025, clearing the way for her appointment as a Minister at EUC.

Tammy Lindahl: Tammy loves hearing people’s stories. Growing up on a farm in northern Minnesota, she spent countless hours in a large kitchen where everyone gathered around the table to share their experiences. With a heart full of stories and hope, she attended a large state university and earned a degree in psychology and sociology. She felt called to ministry after working as a social service worker in a long term care facility and earned a Master of Divinity from McCormick Theological Seminary in Chicago. She was ordained in the Presbyterian Church USA in 1986. Her first pastoral role was serving three small churches in southern Missouri, where she met Martha Juillerat, her partner to this day. After they publicly came out, they lost their ordinations. Determined to continue her vocation in a new way, Tammy pursued a Master of Social Work, which led to a 25 year career in hospice and end of life care. After emigrating to Canada, she became an ordained minister in the United Church of Canada. She served as Minister of Pastoral Care at First Metropolitan, Victoria, for five years, and most recently spent five years ministering to two churches in the remote community of Bella Coola, BC. She is now thrilled to serve as co minister with Martha in the vibrant and faithful community of Esquimalt United.

Wellbeing

Beyond Resilient

How to Stay Centered in Your Most Activating Relationships

2 hour workshop with Nancy Shadlock

You’ve had to be resilient to survive. These are the tools to make life feel more like ease. You have already proven you are resilient. This is about what becomes possible when you stop spending all your energy just surviving.

Using tools from neuroscience and the Positive Intelligence® framework, you will learn to recognize the internal patterns that drain you most and practise moving into calmer, wiser thinking, even in your most triggering relationships.

You will leave with:

Pre work: Nancy will grant access to an online assessment for each participant ahead of time. It only takes 5 minutes and provides deep and practical insight.

Bio: Nancy Shadlock | She/Her | Founder, Centered Mental Fitness. Nancy is a Mental Fitness Coach, certified Positive Intelligence® trainer, and the founder of Centered Mental Fitness. She has spent more than two decades helping people in boardrooms, classrooms, and community circles get out of their own way and into their wisest thinking. She grew up as a missionary kid in Africa, has been a pastor, a tree planter, and a tiny house dweller. She speaks English, French, and Swahili. She is a queer, non binary single mom of two kids in elementary school, a community builder, and a person who believes that when people genuinely arrive at peace within themselves, the world actually changes. Nancy is honoured to have been invited into teaching these practices to world leaders so we can create a new world of more beauty, love and belonging. Her work is used by organizations like the Government of Canada, KPMG, McMaster University and the Wisdom Centre in Calgary. She shows up to this work because it changed her own life. She knows what it is to have a relationship that activates every Saboteur you have and to slowly, rep by rep, stop letting it take you offline. That is what she is here to help you do.

Creative

Dr Frankenstein Stuffed Animals

with Maia Walker

Unleash your inner Doctor Frankenstein by making your very own crazy creature out of thrifted stuffed animals and craft material: spooky and sustainable! Maia will teach you the basics of sewing while encouraging your creativity.

Don’t just learn to sew a button, learn to sew a button on a unicorn lizard monster! Make something unique, just like you.

Bio: Maia is an artist hailing from the unceded territory of the T’kemlups people in Kamloops, BC. Art has been her lifelong companion, shaping her identity and purpose from a young age. Her creative journey spans a diverse range of mediums, including painting, textiles, and digital art, through which she explores themes of nature, the human body, social justice, and spirituality. Through her art, Maia invites viewers to contemplate the intricate web of existence, celebrating the beauty of impermanence and transformation. Driven by a passion for sharing both artistic and spiritual knowledge, Maia extends her expertise through workshops on astrology, painting, and crochet. She guides others on a journey of self discovery and creative expression, fostering a space for exploration and growth. Beyond the studio and workshop space, Maia finds joy in dancing, playing Dungeons and Dragons, and embarking on outdoor adventures with her beloved adventure cat, Raven.

Sound Bath

Crystal Singing Bowls Workshop and Sound Bath

with Therese Laforge

Good Vibrations: Therese Laforge is a sound bath facilitator active with sound as medicine since 1990. With 35 years of practice in healing vibrational sounds and singing bowls, she brings specific bowls and insights to our hearts and minds, geared to inform and inspire our sense of service both to the self and to the other.

What to expect: For those who want a bit more on crystal singing bowls, join us as we harmonize some more to ground, to balance, and to inspire us. Come with your favorite camping chair or sprawl out on the grass with your mat. Bring your open heart and your intentions for internal growth and we will meet you there.

Join us with your camping chair or yoga mat and blankets to make a cozy nest of safety and relaxation so we can harmonise with our beloved best selves and dispel the knots of limited conditioning. Let sound remind you wordlessly that you are a creator being, full of light, wisdom and joy!

Bring: a camping chair or yoga mat, blankets, and your journal if you are a writer.
Reflection prompt: Bring 2 descriptive words of what you are releasing and 2 other words describing what you need next to be your best self. Everything shared is held in confidence.
Setting: Outdoors in nature among the trees at the back of the chapel.

All three players sound out from 20 bowls in various sizes and tones to assist and inspire you with little or no human dialogue. We are so excited to do this presentation.

Maple Court, 1 bedroom

Private room style stay with shared kitchen • Max 3 • 1 queen + 1 twin

$700 for 4 nights  •  $175 per night

East Court, 1 bedroom

Suite with kitchen • Max 3 • 1 queen + 1 couch

$780 for 4 nights  •  $195 per night

East Court, 1 bedroom, pet friendly

Suite with kitchen • Max 3 • 1 queen + 1 couch

$820 for 4 nights  •  $205 per night

East Court, 2 bedroom

Cottage with kitchen • Max 5 • 1 queen + 2 twins

$900 for 4 nights  •  $225 per night

East Court, 2 bedroom, pet friendly

Cottage with kitchen • Max 5 • 1 queen + 2 twins

$960 for 4 nights  •  $240 per night

Orchard Courts, 3 bedroom

Kitchen + living area • Max 6 • 6 twins

$1780 for 4 nights  •  $445 per night

Creekside, tent

Quiet, pet free zone • Max 6 • No power

$220 for 4 nights  •  $55 per night

Creekside, pop up or vans

Quiet, pet free zone • Max 6 • No power

$260 for 4 nights  •  $65 per night

Eastside, tent

Easy access • Pet friendly • 15 amp

$220 for 4 nights  •  $55 per night

Eastside, trailer or RV up to 33 ft

Pet friendly • 30 amp

$300 for 4 nights  •  $75 per night

Southside, trailer or RV up to 24 ft

Pet friendly • 30 amp

$260 for 4 nights  •  $65 per night