Cleveland Ohio—After two years of scheduling, canceling and rescheduling (twice) due to COVID-19, the ladies of UCG Cleveland, Ohio finally succeeded in hosting their “Secret Garden” Women’s Enrichment Weekend from March 18-20, 2022.

The weekend began Friday evening with a welcome and intro titled “Why a Garden?” by BJ Thomas, in which we learned why this theme was chosen, how our spiritual growth ties in with a garden theme and that God’s plan for mankind began in a garden and will culminate with a beautiful garden setting. The introduction was followed by “get acquainted” activities presented by Kendall Waterhouse. Afterwards, we enjoyed a beautifully decorated buffet of finger foods and a mimosa/juice bar. The renewing of existing friendships and the beginning of new ones was off to a great start.

On Sabbath morning, we began services blessed with the talents of several ladies who stepped up to provide special music: Mandie Cobb sang “Grow” (written by Mark Graham), Merri Ellen Walters sang “The Holy City” and the choir performed “I Will Anchor My Soul in Christ.” We were inspired!

We dug right into our gardening and growth theme with a sermon by Mark Graham titled “God’s Plan in the Garden” which included a PowerPoint presentation. Mr. Graham had previously e-mailed attendees, inviting them to send him pictures of their gardens. The ladies had responded abundantly, and the images were incorporated into the sermon.

After a break for lunch, the presentations began. These were given from every perspective—from ladies who had been attending for many years to those who were just recently baptized and from an older teen girl. Analogies were made between physical gardening and weeding and their spiritual counterpart. Lisa Skapura’s “Tools to Grow Your Garden” and “God is the Ultimate Gardener” provided us with useful spiritual gardening assets. We heard about the value of a positive outlook with Sarah Derstine’s “Who Told You That?” and were encouraged to help the growth of the next generation. We listened to tips on working our way through the problems that inevitably pop up in life, as presented by Kelly Thomas Mango’s “Manure Happens.” Olivia Thomas Mango gave an impromptu speech, “Winging It,” in which she talked about lessons we can draw from watching nature and birds. Finally, Susan Miller talked about being deeply rooted and led us in thought-provoking questions to discuss.

Saturday evening continued with a dessert reception provided by the ladies of the North Canton congregation. They outdid themselves! They provided so many delicious treats that we invited the hotel staff to come and share the desserts. I’m sure they were left with a very positive impression!

After the reception we had several options for activities, including fellowship time. Those who felt creative could decoupage a personalized flowerpot. There was another optional activity the ladies loved—shopping. Handmade quilts were raffled, a silent auction featured dozens of themed baskets and a craft shop allowed a variety of donated handmade items to be purchased. All of this shopping was for a great cause—proceeds were divided between a local women’s shelter ($1,200) and the LifeNets fund for Ukraine ($2,000).

One of the most unexpected, but appreciated, blessings of the weekend took shape a few days before the event. Our local church audio visual tech, Joe Horton, offered to do all that was necessary to provide Zoom streaming of the program from the hotel. All the ladies who had registered previously but were unable to attend were contacted with Zoom information.

On Sunday morning we had four presentations. Lisa Laureano’s title was “Weed It and Reap!” and she spoke about wisdom in the midst of trials. Paula Hribar provided a light-hearted, hilarious slideshow presentation titled, “Being a Laughing Kookaburra.” It had us all in stitches! Debbie Kuhns presented “I Wanna Be Like You,” a presentation in which she talked about planting seeds in the next generation. As a reinforcement to her theme, we each planted a flower in a child’s shoe as a reminder to pass on God’s truth to our children. Then Josie Howaniak ended the morning with a presentation titled “Seeds,” in which she shared her journey to conversion and lessons learned. She shared some movie clips from “The Chosen” and a music video titled “Seeds” by Kathy Mattea.

The weekend sadly came to a close around noon on Sunday. Our final event was a tug at the heartstrings. In addition to setting up a backdrop for formal photo ops and taking a group photo, our local deacon (and photographer) Mark Skapura had roamed the room throughout the weekend unobtrusively taking candid photos. These images were worked into a slideshow set to the recording of Mark Graham’s original song “Grow.” The sighs, laughter and cries of delight were overwhelming.

We left on a high note. We felt well-fed physically. But even more importantly, we were well-fed spiritually as we challenge ourselves to use what we learned and … grow.