The Christian faith professes God as Trinity. Our annual Pentecost Retreat is a chance for people to come and journey into deeper living relationship with the third Person, the Holy Spirit. This year the retreat was offered in-person in both Sydney and Canberra, with familiar and also fresh faces joining us!  One of the real miracles of the Spirit that emerged during our days together was our unity: a bond of community that was tangible amongst relative strangers. At our Sydney retreat, this unity was most evident in our nightly worship sessions, full of dancing, joy, and fervent praise as one body.  In Canberra, the Spirit was very present as our intimate group of attendees grew closer through our prayer and sharing as the retreat went on. Through practical exercises, participants explored the living presence of the Spirit and the gifts that come with this. As one participant mentioned to me, “I went to heaven for a week.”       

Kathryn Kingsley

And from Kate Atkins...

The Pentecost Retreat was once again a fruitful weekend. The underlying principle of growing in the gifts is for the sake of bringing God’s heart to his people. This was the experience for us all as we grew in our confidence and allowed ourselves to step out in trust. All of the participants in Canberra were women. It created  an opportunity for the expression of how women minister and bring forth the spiritual gifts within the gift of their femininity.  The prayer experience of listening to the Lord’s  heart for others in the small group was very encouraging. People who were not confident in their ability to pray for others grew in confidence as each person was able to affirm that they were experiencing God’s heart and support through the others praying with them.           

Meanwhile, the Melbourne sisters were involved in two wonderful outreaches in local parishes: a five-week Life in the Spirit Seminar at St Benedict’s parish, Burwood, and a three-night Pentecost Parish Mission at St Christopher’s, Syndal. Through these events we got to see first-hand many different lives changed as people encountered more deeply the mysterious Third Person of the Trinity. For us sisters, it was a wonderful opportunity of working together in local ministry, experiencing our different gifts complement each other. We also loved journeying with those within each parish who had the chance to discover and use their gifts of hospitality, music and of sharing their personal stories of spiritual transformation publicly. And finally, we LOVED being able to work with and by the Holy Spirit, who healed and transformed and empowered people right before our eyes. We can’t wait to see these outreaches continue to bear fruit into the future!    

Rosie Drum