The happy chatter of ladies greeting one another, laughing, sharing, learning, encouraging, and being encouraged filled the quiet hillside retreat of Anapausis Center in St. Augustine, Trinidad, Jan. 17-19, during the first ever women’s enrichment weekend in the Caribbean islands.

The theme was “Understanding You, Understanding Me, Building Meaningful Relationships.” In attendance were 14 beautiful women from Trinidad and Tobago, two lovely ladies from St. Lucia, Beverly Kubik, LeeAnn Luker, and Mary Smith from the U.S.

The weekend began with a wonderful “Trini” meal on Friday evening (and the delicious local food continued for the remainder of the weekend). After dinner, there was a welcome message and light-hearted activity enabling us to learn more about one another. Sabbath services were held the following morning, with the men joining us for the service before going off to their own group luncheon and meeting. Sabbath afternoon, everyone enjoyed some rest and fellowship. The remainder of the afternoon and evening were dedicated to learning more about ourselves and each other using the Hartman Personality Profile and Character Profile. These sessions were led by LeeAnn Luker and Beverly Kubik respectively, and they did an amazing job. Everyone benefited greatly from learning about themselves. It was also interesting to learn about each other. We all had a great time as we broke up into our profile groups to plan a hypothetical family day activity. It was entertaining and enlightening to see what each group developed.

On Sunday, we all enjoyed an excellent presentation from our two St. Lucian sisters, Beverley Barthelmy and Cecilia Dorleon. They gave us a bit of background on their island, and shared UCG St. Lucia’s gospel proclamation and community outreach efforts. They are very active in both endeavors, and we were all inspired to do more. They also gave a bit of background on agriculture in St. Lucia, and the plight of the farmer and farming industry. Cecilia is a farmer, so this topic is near and dear to her heart. As she said, in the beginning, God created a beautiful garden and gave it to man. We have not been very good stewards of the land.

Our last event was a question and answer session with Mrs. Luker and Mrs. Kubik. Then we had a beautiful special music performance by two local ladies, followed by our goodbye song, “God Be With You.”

We want to thank the home office and Women’s Services for their support, and for the untiring efforts of our two guest speakers, Beverly Kubik and LeeAnn Luker. It was a most enjoyable and most inspiring to our Caribbean sisters. The only complaint—the weekend was just too short!