Retreat-Holidays
Make retreats a treat and holidays holy
Turkish Gulet Programme:
The Journey
Retreat leader:
Dr Stephanie Rybak
Director of Retreat-Holidays
The retreat
On this retreat-holiday, we shall be looking both back and forward at our lives, from birth to death and beyond, seeing how reflection on each stage can enrich our present journey. We shall be using Bible texts, of course, and also extracts from the writings of St John of the Cross, T S Eliot, Richard Rohr, Charles Foster and others.
The theme of the sea as a symbol of God will run through the week, with a different suggestion each day for ways of praying in the water.
Day 1: Travel and welcome - Introduction to the week
Day 2: The baby - being held
Day 3: The child - joy and simplicity
Day 4: The adult in the first half of life - striving to achieve
Day 5: The second half of life - let go and let God
Day 6: Old age
- moving from doing to beingDay 7: Life after death - God will wipe away all tears from their eyes
Day 8: Travel
The holiday
This is probably the most relaxing of all our holidays - it is certainly the retreat leader's favourite.
The swimming and the snorkelling are just wonderful and you can try out the kayak if you wish, but you don't have to do anything or go anywhere to see the scenery unfold before you.
The route
We plan to embark at Orhaniye, near Hisarönü, which is just over two hours from Dalaman airport by air-conditioned minibus (and yes, we do have a comfort-break on the way). However, the departure port may change, depending on where the boat has docked at the end of the previous week.
We shall be sailing along the Datça and Bozbürün peninsulas.The brief given to the captain, who has ultimate say over the route, is that we want to go to quiet, beautiful places where we can be aware of God's creation. We have worked together for six years now and have always been very happy with his choices.
We go ashore three or four times in the week, with one of the stops usually being in the captain's home town of Bozbürün.
We hope to visit the ancient archeological site of Knidos, but that is dependent on the weather - as St Paul found when sailing in these waters on his way to Rome (see Acts 27).
What do our clients say?
Here are extracts from letters/emails we have received following retreat-holidays on the gulet :
"I wanted to write and thank you VERY much for what was for me an amazing, memorable, extremely happy and interesting holiday on the Prenses Begüm. It was all great fun. I so loved swimming in the warm sea and the pattern of the days seemed perfect.
The prayer time in the morning was so beautifully thought out by you and I really appreciated all the hard work you must have put in to each day’ thought-provoking ‘hand-outs’. I have kept them to read again and love the photographs on them.
It was lovely for me meeting [name] – we had so much in common and I so enjoyed the group.
I hope your retreat-holidays do very well, and may God bless all that you do.
With love and so many thanks for such a wonderful retreat,"
"THANK YOU. You have given me, and so obviously the others, a most wonderful and imaginative week. The boat, the sea, the delicious meals, the amazing swimming, the very special company of such deep and mature Christian fellow retreatants, the brilliant choice of our Captain and his gentle crew; BUT ABOVE ALL, the way you created and led such a wonderfully blended Retreat-Holiday. The integration of those two words was woven into an experience of deep delight and wonder. I had known that the idea grabbed me from the moment I first saw your publicity. But your leading of it, and your enabling the thoughts for each day to overflow into all that we were and did was exceptional."
Turkish gulet: the Prenses Begüm
Turkish gulet: Dates, price and flights
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