Finding Silence and Solitude at the Starrette Farm Retreat Center

This week we take a field trip to the beautiful, peace-filled Starrette Farm Retreat Center on the outskirts of Statesville, North Carolina to speak with founder Ann Starrette and host Nancy Bellamy. We speak about the importance of nature, silence and solitude to foster a deeper spiritual journey. Wish you could have been with us! 

Besides running the Retreat Center, Ann and Nancy lead spiritual formation coaching and deeper journeys including the School of the Spirit through the Lydia Group. 

The private Retreat Center offers "Quiet Space Fridays" on the 2nd Friday of each month to registered guests who want to get away for a day of silence and introspection. The Retreat House can be rented out to groups for small events and day retreats. More information can be found on their website HERE.

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Want more resources? The Leverage Your Time Balance Your Life book is available on Amazon! Visit www.leverageyourtimebook.com to order the book, read the blog, and listen to the podcast.

Discover more about Dr. Walker HERE and Wende HERE

Transcript

Wende 0:00

Hi everybody, we have a treat for you today. Dr. Walker and I are here at the Starrett Farm Retreat outside of Statesville, North Carolina. We are here with the founder, Anne Starrett. We're going to talk to her about spiritual transformation today. How being in nature, being away and retreat where you can get silence and solitude just fosters a deeper connection with God. We are in this beautiful location. We just took a tour. There's a retreat center, there's a chapel, there are woods that have a labyrinth where you can walk and pray and meditate. There's the stations of the cross, a beautiful pond. I wish you could be here with us, but we're going to try to bring it to you through the podcast today.

John 0:48

All right, here we go. Leverage your time. Balance your life, Dr. Walker, with my delightful daughter, Wendy Whitis. Hi, Dad.

Wende 0:59

We have a treat. We are not in our normal location. We have a retreat out here.

John 1:04

It's beautiful. Got trees all over the place, got squirrels, got birds. It is really nice out here. We got a beautiful woman with us.

Wende 1:15

We have a wonderful guest. I can't wait to get to know more about. So we have Anne Starrett here, and she is the founder of the Starrett Retreat Farm. Sorry. Starrett Farm Retreat. Starrette Farm Retreat. Starret Farm Retreat, which is where we're sitting right now. It is so peaceful out here. It is. And so I want to hear all about it, Anne. Thank you for being with us today.

Ann 1:39

We're delighted. So tell me, Wendy, what do you want to know about it? There's a lot of pieces to this puzzle.

Wende 1:46

Let's start from let's start from our connection. So I know someone who comes here a lot, Mimi Sherman, and she was on our podcast, and then she said, I know who you should contact next. She would love to be on your podcast, and the listeners would love hearing about it. And that's Ann Starret. And so we got connected. I get your newsletter now. And so I know a little bit, but our listeners don't. So I would like to hear how the retreat center, this is a private retreat center, a spiritual retreat center. Tell me about how you got started with this, Ann.

Ann 2:25

We began this place because uh mom and pop starette willed it to the children. Okay. And three brothers bought out the other nine children. Oh my god. Nine children. Wow. What we it was in the older days, you bought land 40 acres plus or minus.

Speaker 4 2:43

Right.

Ann 2:44

And so this was a farm. And it was not really much of a workable farm because you can see the hills and valleys and it's very hill. Yes. It's beautiful. And so when the three brothers uh bought it, they split it in threes, and then one passed, so then we split it in two. And my brother-in-law lives on the property, and then we wanted, I wanted a retreat place because I had been doing retreats here and there and everywhere. And I wanted a place that I could do my thing, so to speak, and that is tending the souls, giving people a space to tend their souls, you know, um, stretch their minds, free their spirits, and there wasn't a place like that. There just wasn't a place. And you had to drive here or there. But I thought, you know, this is a good place to do that. So my husband and I built this place just for that purpose.

Wende 3:40

Oh my goodness. So the building that we're sitting in now, when was this built?

Ann 3:45

In 2005, and we had our first retreat in January of 2006.

Wende 3:51

Okay. Well, it's a great place for a retreat because you I'll just try to paint a picture for the listeners. You look out and there's uh like three large windows that look out into the woods, and it is, I can imagine, in especially like in the fall and the spring, it is beautiful because right now it's we're in winter. And even now it's beautiful, but you can only imagine.

John 4:17

I'm already relaxed, Wendy. I was so uptight and tense, and I'm relaxed and peaceful and calm just for being here. I mean, it's and wonderful being with Ann. Yes, and uh Nancy and uh Nancy say something.

Nancy 4:34

Nancy tell us what's good to be with you, yes.

John 4:37

We got Nancy with us, and she's the um manager, as I would just say, or the yeah, that's that's what I would say.

Ann 4:45

So all things stop with Nancy. So that includes the maintenance, but it also includes the rental. So a lot of working with the people that come here um to the property and showing them around, but also and just letting them be however they need to be for the day.

John 5:01

Yes.

Ann 5:02

So whatever that means for them.

John 5:04

So and uh do you have an agenda, or do people come over here just on their own, or how does this work?

Ann 5:11

Well, for the Quiet Space Friday, uh there is no agenda. You know, people come, they might they bring a bag lunch and we provide beverages, but they walk the trails, they walk the labyrinth, we have stations of the cross. Oh we have a pond. I say it's not my pond, but those are my benches, but so you can sit by the pond.

Speaker 3 5:32

Yeah, wonderful.

Ann 5:33

And then uh, you know, some people crochet, some people that's a day that they fast, they never come out of their room, they fast and pray. So it's just a day for them to balance themselves, to level their uh energy. Yeah, right. Yes, yes.

John 5:50

Yeah, because so much of our time now is so frenetic, and people are into all sorts of different deals. We're listening to things, listening to stuff, podcasts and whatever, TV and radio and internet and all that, and the phones are ringing. It's nice to get away to a peaceful place and get in touch with God because it's hard to be in touch with God with all the noise going around. And out here, you're you can feel the presence of God. So it's so wonderful that you have these places.

Ann 6:26

Yeah, and this and the people that rent it, and that's what Nancy uh we uh people donate, you know. We ask for a uh donation and we have a sliding scale, and people can rent it. We call them uh uh, I guess we call them renters. And when they come, Nancy sets up the space to their specifications, and then she leaves them alone. They've got the place by themselves for the day. And we don't do any cooking here. They either bring in their own or they cater it. But uh we have just a lot of people that use this space.

John 7:05

Well, what do you have an agenda on Saturday? Do you have things that you do or just people come and have a retreat and are on their own?

Ann 7:14

On well, on their own, but Nancy does quite a few things here. You you want to tell them about guard of heart?

Nancy 7:20

Yeah, we do a number of different types of retreats here in-house. Um, usually there is spiritual practice, and by that I mean centering prayer, welcoming prayer, something that's gonna enhance your relationship with Christ.

John 7:36

Yeah.

Nancy 7:37

It's some way to meet God in a in a specific way. Um, yeah, so we do offer that. Here we have someone that offers art retreats here quarterly.

Wende 7:47

Okay.

Ann 7:48

So it's art is a spiritual practice.

Wende 7:50

Right.

Nancy 7:51

So is the way that she um the way that she has those days, and um all of this has to be registered ahead of time on the website.

John 8:00

Oh, so I guess Mimi, our friend Mimi, will bring uh have a seminar out here, is that right?

Ann 8:07

She did something with oh, what was that? With Earth, Church of the Wild. She did Church of the Wild. Okay, and she had her own agenda. We don't provide an agenda, they provide their own agenda. Oh, a church group could come out here and have a retreat. So I see.

Wende 8:24

I could lead a retreat up there.

John 8:26

So what you do is you have a facility for other people to come in. Okay, I got the idea now. Okay. So Wendy, you can have a retreat.

Wende 8:34

I know. I'm already thinking about that. That's great. So, yeah, so I like to encourage people to take a day for themselves. This is my my whole um brand, I guess, my mission with Personal Retreat Day is I encourage people to take a day for themselves, one day a month, to get away from the to-do list, to really rest deeply, to reflect on what they've learned from the past month, and then to look ahead to the next month and kind of chart out a little a few steps, plan out some steps, but leave it leave it open for you know, however God's working in their lives. And so that's what I encourage people to do, and I love to lead workshops on that. This might be an idea.

John 9:20

This would be great for you to make your workshop. Yeah, so that'd be really good.

Wende 9:25

You also have uh places for lodging, is that right? No lodging. No lodging, okay.

Ann 9:30

No, but we do uh Nancy can speak to that. We have a lot of people that do two and three-day uh retreats, and we have relationships with hotels.

Nancy 9:39

If you want to talk about that, just about all the major chains in Statesville. Okay, yeah, we have some partnerships. Like a partnership, okay. You get a discounted rate if you tell them that you're gonna be at Strett Farm. Great.

John 9:52

So they would rent a hotel or something and come out here for the day. That's right. Yeah, yeah.

Ann 10:00

Okay, eight to eight during the summer, eight to five during the winter months because darkness. Um I imagine it's dark. It's dark, it's really dark. So yeah, we like to close up at dark.

Wende 10:16

Well, I have to mention that we this is postponed. We had to reschedule because of the big ice storm and snowstorm a couple of weeks ago. I'm sure that was a wise decision not for us to go.

Ann 10:28

But you can because the road, yeah, the road was just ice. We tried to clear it because it's the first real deep snow that um since I've been here the last um it's been seven years now, going on eight. That was that's the that's the deep never had. I was convinced that we could clear the road, you know. I was like, ah, we can get it cleared. So we did that. We had the gentleman come out here and he did it, but it was not passable. It was just a sheet of ice.

John 10:57

Oh, yeah, well, it's kind of difficult to get in here. I mean, you're really in a retreat up here. Well, uh, and tell us about your spiritual life. Tell us about your spiritual growth and what brought you to Christ and how that's giving you some pizza.

Ann 11:14

Well, it was uh early 90s. I think it was early 90s. Um, I remember being in such a dry, dry time, and I was doing all thought I was doing the right things. You know, church, um service, small group. Nothing was feeding me. I was just so dry. And I was with uh went to a spiritual director, and she said, Ann, I know this really feels bad, but you are going through a good thing. God's inviting you into a different kind of relationship.

Wende 11:46

Exactly.

Ann 11:47

And so she uh journeyed with me and introduced me to the contemplative practices, which are centering prayer, welcoming prayer, the Lectio Divina, which I hadn't ever read scripture to be transformed. I'd ready to check it off. It was caused what we were studying. So I just learned a whole new vocabulary.

John 12:11

Now you use the word that is not what was that?

Ann 12:13

The Lexio uh Lectio Divina is holy reading. It's Latin.

John 12:19

It was uh the way the early I had Latin in high school and challenge, and I did I forgot all my Latin.

Ann 12:26

But in the early days, uh people were literate up into the 17, 1800s, and so they would uh they would hear the word, right, and then they would what word or phrase spoke to them as they heard the word, and then they would ponder that word. And it really got into their hearts.

John 12:46

Right.

Ann 12:46

And today we don't do that so much.

John 12:48

Well, you know, you said a real important thing, and that is so many of us who go to church regularly, we get into doing things at church, having a committee on the petunia plucking committee of the church and all that, and we lose the Christ center to it. And what a lot of times, like what you're saying, is we kind of do our Bible study and we fill in all the blanks on the Bible study, but we don't absorb it. And what you're talking about is absorbing Christ through the real word and really listening to what that says to God.

Ann 13:26

Yes. And like Nancy mentioned a minute ago, everything we do here is to deepen your relationship with God. Yeah, there's not one thing we do that is not about even if it's walking in the woods. Yeah, you know, nature is a wonderful teacher. Yes, there are some guides that say it's our first Bible, right? But we don't pay attention.

John 13:46

So well, Saint Francis, remember, Saint Francis was really into that. He would talk to the birds and preach the birds and walk around in nature, and um nature will bring us closer to God, and that's what I mentioned earlier, Anne, about all the noise that we're hearing, all the cacophony that's all around us, prevents us from hearing God. And so talk to us a little bit more about hearing God, what you mean by that, that you absorb God and hear God. Tell us about that.

Ann 14:22

Well, there's so many different ways to hear God, but we have to learn to how to be quiet. See, that's the trick, learning how to settle ourselves. And so one of the practices that we do is centering prayer, which for about 20 minutes, we just are quiet and we love on God and we let God love on us. And I won't go into the practice, but what that does is help clean out the debris in us, it lets all that come up and away, and then we can more clearly hear.

John 14:54

Right.

Ann 14:54

That's one of the ways. And with Lexio Divina, we hear God through the scripture.

Wende 14:59

Right.

Ann 14:59

The slow reading, a word or phrase that might catch our attention. What's God inviting of us? Like when I went to the um Ash Wednesday service this week, they have a different uh reading than was read in my earlier days. Troubled spirit. God is asking for a troubled spirit during Ash Wednesday. What does troubled spirit mean? And I thought of um John Lewis. Good trouble. Yeah. So this is not a negative thing, it's a good thing. How can God flush out what is not a healthy thing at all?

John 15:40

Well, you were telling me something interesting where you were in that desert, in that empty time, and your counselor said to you, your spiritual counselor, this is good. It's bringing you closer to God. So a lot of times, these tragedies, these bad things that happen to us, we think that's horrible. Actually, that's God getting in touch with us. And you know, that's another thing about America. We are so quote materi uh materially successful, or so successful that we don't get stressed out in the usual ways, if you know what I'm talking about.

Wende 16:21

We we're so independent, right? We don't feel like we need God because we we can go acquire things or or live comfortably. Right. And so that's the yeah.

John 16:31

And so we're not until something really stressful happens to us, we don't hear God. Uh so really stress and bad things are God's way of getting our attention. And that's what happened to you. Right. Do you have an ex uh story?

Nancy 16:49

That's my story too. That's what brought me to this to this farm. That's uh was being in that dry place where what I was doing just was not working anymore. I had exhausted that and didn't know where to turn. And I was filling out an application for one spiritual formation school that was across the country, and I took the the um application to a friend of mine to get a referral, and she said, Why are you going across the country when you could just go to Statesville? I said, Well, because I didn't know about statesville, I didn't know about School of the Spirit in Statesville. Tell me about School of the Spirit, so she did, and I went home and applied for School of the Spirit. And that's how I got to know Ann. And um, yeah.

Wende 17:36

So well, tell us about that. What is the what is School of the Spirit?

Nancy 17:41

Well, it is a one-year uh formation course. We have like five subjects, and the way I look at it is these are the the ancient practices of Jesus in the early church. Okay. We take three months for each of the sections. The first one is holy listening, the second one is silence and solitude, the third one is on prayer, the fourth one is discernment, and the fifth one is creating a rhythm of life from one or two or three of those practices and putting them into a rhythm that can help you stay balanced.

John 18:20

Oh, good.

Ann 18:21

To use your word. Balance your life. Yes.

John 18:24

But balance your life in a spiritual way, which is the most important thing.

Wende 18:28

So then it's the core.

John 18:30

Right. The core is the spiritual aspect, right.

Wende 18:33

So this reminds me of uh celebration of discipline. Um, the book by Richard Um Foster. Yes, Richard Foster. Yes. So are some of this, these are some of the same practices that I remember reading in that book a million years ago, it seems like, but silence and solitude and um and all the other spiritual disciplines like prayer, of course, that we think of. But silence and solitude, when I read that book, I was like, huh, I never thought about silence and solitude being a spiritual discipline. But it's foundational because you can't receive if you're not being quiet and accessible.

John 19:09

Yeah, I read that book a long time ago. I've been underlined and all sorts of stuff. It's in my library, but I hadn't pulled it out in about 20 years. I need to look at that again. Yeah.

Ann 19:20

Or just pick one of them and practice.

John 19:23

Yeah. Right. Well, you know, what about meditation? If you meditate every day, uh, isn't that good for you? Medit meditation or something.

Ann 19:33

Well, centering prayer is a form of Christian meditation.

John 19:37

Right.

Ann 19:37

Yes.

John 19:38

Well, that's what I call it contemplative prayer.

Ann 19:41

Yes.

John 19:41

Now, when you do that, and is it do you just are you quiet or do you say a word? Or how does it say that?

Ann 19:47

Well, there are four steps to it. Number one, you get quiet. That's exactly what you said, John. You get settled in your seat and you prepare yourself so you get settled in your seat, and then we have what we call a sacred word.

Wende 20:02

Okay.

Ann 20:02

That because our mind is going to wander.

Wende 20:05

Right.

Ann 20:06

So when we settle down, we consent to God's presence and action in our life. The consent's very important. So that's number one and two. And then you uh introduce this sacred word, or it might be your breath. I could never figure out a word. It just and so uh somebody said, Well, just use your breath. So when my mind wanders, I bring it back to the breath. And we don't retain a thought, we don't resist a thought, we don't react to a thought, we just return to that sacred word. And then after 20 minutes, I usually close with the Lord's Prayer. But it's just a time of settling my mind, loving on God, and let God love on me.

John 20:51

Yeah. One of the things I do, Anne, is I try to visualize God in the vastness of the universe. And in that silent time, I just see the whole universe surrounding me and God's love all around us, and you know how we're bound together through love. Well, when I love you, Anne, that binds us up with God. So one of the things about these retreat centers, when you come to the retreat centers, not only do you get in touch with the loving God and the loving Jesus, but you get in touch with the loving people that are there that brings you closer to Jesus. So, you know, the saying is when you look in a person's eyes that you love, you see the face of God. So when I look in your eyes, I see the face of God. And uh that's so wonderful. When you do that and you get in touch with people in a choir. Silent place like this is, you become more and more attuned to loving other people and loving God.

Ann 22:12

Yeah. Thank you, John.

John 22:15

Hey, I could be a good preacher, couldn't I? Hey, let's face the collection boys.

Wende 22:22

But uh Yeah, that just made me think also about like there's something about being, even if you're focusing on silence and your own relationship with God, something about doing it in community, away from your normal day-to-day routine. Can you tell us about some people that have uh maybe had a testimonial about that, like that the place being here, being fostering that new relationship?

Ann 22:49

You are so on target, Wendy, really. It is, I find it much easier to do in community.

John 22:56

Right, exactly.

Ann 22:57

Much easier to do it in community.

John 22:58

Well, you're something like you bind with others.

Ann 23:01

That's right. That's right. And you know, oftentimes what happens here doesn't manifest until a week later, two weeks later, a month or so we have no idea what the fruit is.

Wende 23:14

Right. Sure.

Ann 23:15

Because it it doesn't normally happen here, but it starts here.

Wende 23:18

But something starts here. And have you heard people come back to you? Has anyone come back to you and told you about like, oh, this started here and now I'm, you know.

Ann 23:30

We do have those stories, but one of the greatest things is they just come back. They come back, okay? They come back. That's the people vote with their feet. So, you know, they come they come back.

Wende 23:41

Yeah.

Ann 23:41

That we have been here over what it's 20 years this this year. Right, 20 years, okay. And uh it's just amazing to me. It's just it's just amazing to me.

John 23:53

Well, you're doing some wonderful things, you're bringing people together to love Jesus, to praise God, and to be together. So that's a wonderful thing to do. And this retreat center is so nice, uh, so good.

Ann 24:10

We create space for the fullness.

Wende 24:13

You just create the space and then he he does the miracle. He does the miracle, right? He even gave us the space. Yeah. Well, even just looking out the window right now, I see the leaves just they're just like hang look at that. They're just kind of hanging there, almost like the spirit is moving. Yeah.

John 24:35

God is dancing out there, giving us a message and loving, tell us how much he loves leaves out there.

Wende 24:42

That's really, it's really beautiful. I wish everyone could hear it, could see it rather than than just listening to me talk about it. But it's a beautiful place, and you really just do feel peaceful out here, and I feel like you could just really open up that space for your to renew a relationship.

John 24:59

Yeah, and if people want to come out here, what do they do? Do they call you or or what?

Ann 25:06

The our website, uh thhelydia group.com.

John 25:11

Say that again.

Ann 25:12

Uh or is it sturetfarmretreat.com won't get you there. Storetfarmretreat.com and it will list different opportunities. Soul tending retreats is the way we call it. Soul tending retreats.

John 25:27

Oh, good. Now, how do you spell sturet?

Speaker 2 25:29

S-T-A-R-R-E-T-T-E. All right.

John 25:34

I'll have that in the show notes. Yeah, because it's it's when you hear it, if if you're from Texas like me, when you hear it, you won't be able to get that. So we'll get it on the show notes. And you'll be written down. Yeah. For us Texans out there, you can see it in the show notes. Yeah.

Ann 25:52

Yeah, because people often leave out a R or a T or E. There's a lot of double letters.

John 25:58

Yeah, it'd be uh easy to loof that up. Yeah. So they go to your website and they can see all the different aspects, all the different uh programs that you have, and then they can choose, and then they can get in touch with uh guests uh just the website to get in touch with you.

Ann 26:19

And then on the website it's got a contact, and you just would fill that out and it would send you to Nancy. Okay, Nancy be glad to answer any questions. And okay.

John 26:28

That's correct. So Nancy, you get email, you don't get phone calls, right?

Nancy 26:33

I get both.

John 26:34

Okay.

Nancy 26:34

Yeah, my phone numbers all over the website. Oh, yes, okay. They'll call you. I love those conversations. I do too. I love to hear from the people and what they're looking for and why they want to come and you know how we can work together.

John 26:49

Yeah, Nancy, where do where do most of the people come from? They come from around this area or do they come from most area?

Nancy 26:56

Most do Charlotte, Greensboro, Ashborough, uh Ashboro, and Asheville is what I mean to say. Hickory, Hendersonville, we have Raleigh, Carey, Durham, yeah, Matthews, Fort Mill, South Carolina. So it varies.

John 27:14

Wow. A lot of different areas.

Nancy 27:16

Yeah, a lot of different areas. Waxall, Mint Hill.

John 27:20

Yeah. Wow.

Wende 27:21

So the whole Greater Charlotte area. Well, really, uh central North Carolina area. Yeah. And not in some drop. In South Carolina, too, yeah.

John 27:31

That's great. So it's great.

Nancy 27:32

So and if they go to that website, uh people ask me so many questions about how this became. There is a little link there, Path to a Dream. And they can read.

John 27:45

They can read the story.

Wende 27:46

Yes.

John 27:47

Yeah. Well, that's wonderful.

Wende 27:48

And so we're about to go take a tour, which is exciting.

John 27:52

We get to see some of the paths that people take the tour and take our little microphone with us and talk about it when we go on the tour.

Wende 28:03

Well, what I'm gonna do, Dad, is I'm going to um be fully present in this tour, and then I'll come back and I'm gonna talk a little bit about it in the introduction so people can hear about it. How's that sound?

John 28:16

Well, I thought I I thought it was a pretty good idea that we could do a mobile deal and take the little computer and something really fancy in the gun. It's really she needs to have all these good ideas, and you know, like a daughter. They never listen to you. You know that? I mean, they never listen to you. I mean, it's amazing. It's amazing she turned out to be as good as she did. Because she never listened to me, I worded, you know.

Wende 28:44

I think the opposite's probably true. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

John 28:48

I listen, I look it sinks in. I want to say something. Uh, this is true. I have learned when I was a parent, a young parent, I learned so much more from my kids than I taught them.

Ann 29:02

Oh, yes.

John 29:02

Wendy and Brad, when they were growing up, they taught me how to be a human being. They really taught me how to slow down, how to do things. And I I'll tell you this little story. I don't know if we have time for it, but I'm gonna tell it anyway. When when Wendy was about 14, I was in my study and I was reading, and Wendy came in and she said, Dad, guess what? We studied Emerson in school today. And I said, hmm, that's good. And I went back to my reading, and she looked at me with a stunned look on her face, and she said, Dad, you get after me for not talking to you. Maybe I don't talk to you because you never listen. And so that reminded me of wherever you are, be there. Wherever you are to be there. And so from that day, I started taking Wendy out for breakfast every Sunday, and I sat there and listened. And I took Brand out every Saturday and I sat there and listened. And there was uh just one example of how my kids have taught me so much. So they taught me more than I ever taught them. Now, I kid about some of the stuff, but I'm not kidding about that. They taught me more than I taught them.

Wende 30:41

That's sweet.

John 30:42

And they are sweet, sweet kids. Okay, is that it? That's it.

Wende 30:50

Anything else that you'd like to share with us? Anything that we left out that's important about the Star at Farm or the place or your story? Anything you want our listeners to know?

Ann 31:02

Last year we um built the chapel workshop, which is the other building that's here to the left. And so it's about 2300 square foot total. The main space um is quite beautiful, so I want you to take a peek in over there. It's great for worship or group, group meetings, any kind, any kind, and um even small, intimate, like family weddings or Christmas. We would love to to um have people use it for that purpose. So wonderful. It is new. I just want people to know about it. Great come and use it. Yes, that is great. Okay. Yes, come and use it. The kitchen there. We don't allow food in there, so it's um it's just a kitchenette over there. There's not a full service kitchen like there is over here.

Wende 31:58

Okay. But you can have your food under here. That's right. It's right next door. That's perfect. Oh, that's great. I can't wait to see it.

Ann 32:04

We'd love for people to take advantage of that new space. All right, perfect.

Nancy 32:10

What about you, Ann? Anything that we No, um, the only thing I know is it's just the people. It's about people connecting with God. That's just it's just a a fresh encounter, I like to say. Because we've all encountered God, but it it's a fresh one. You know, we need a fresh encounter every day. Every day.

Wende 32:31

Right.

Ann 32:31

And this is one place that you can let go of everything else and be fully present. Like it's a good thing.

John 32:38

And you know, when you come here, you get in that habit of listening to God, and you set up something that you can establish later on. A lot of times it's hard for people to put the brakes on and start with contemplated prayer or listening to the word of God. But here's a good starting place, right, Ann?

Ann 33:00

Just driving down the road to get here to the entryway. I mean, you're just surrounded by nature and just this big warm hug. Yes, exactly.

John 33:09

And yeah, this is a good thing to say. It's a warm hug. As you drive up here, you're getting hugged as you come up. That's right.

Ann 33:17

And when people drive down, they often tell us they feel like they're coming into a sanctuary, right? Just the the a descent into a sanctuary.

Wende 33:27

That does. That's what we felt like, yes.

John 33:30

Okay, Wendy, I think we covered everything.

Wende 33:32

I loved our conversation, and now we get the tour.

John 33:35

Yeah, it was great.

Wende 33:38

Thank you.

Ann 33:39

Thanks for having us.

Wende 33:41

Thank you.