BREAKOUTS (Click Here to Jump to Free Time Activites)

All breakouts have limited seating on a first-come, first-served basis and must be signed up for when you register.

Can My Faith Handle Reality

Trusting God in Hard Times (That Seem To Go On Forever). How do we get a strong enough faith to endure hardship?

SHERRI HVIZDAK has been working in youth ministry and women’s ministry for over 25 years in the local church at both Legacy and Redeemer Albany and with Capital District Youth for Christ. She will be married 30 years this summer to a crazy guy (Tim) and has three full-grown women of God. This family of five has gone through a lot, and Sherri loves to share how they survived it all with God‘s faithful love, grace and strength. Sherri is also a pianist, piano teacher, and a director of children's musicals and adult choirs.

High Ropes:  Running to God, Our Refuge

If you want to spend some quality time outside with an amazing team of ladies and experience the thrill and challenge of high ropes, this is the workshop for you! We'll begin with a short time of devotion and prayer looking at Psalm 73 and study how God gives us courage in calamity. Then, we'll put on our harnesses and helmets and cheer each other on as we conquer the heights of the CtK ropes course.   NOTE:  This breakout is offered Saturday only and runs from 10:45 am - Noon.  A waiver must be signed at check-in on Friday.  Ropes activities will be determined based on the number of people signing up for this breakout.  Please wear pants or long shorts as you will need to wear a harness as well as closed toe shoes.

DANIEL (Danny) HYDE is a born and bred Englishman with a passion for the Lord! Serving alongside his wife Kaitlyn, Danny is one half of the Diocese of Albany’s Youth Ministry team: serving youth and young adults across 19 NY counties. Prior to full time ministry work, Danny’s background was in Elementary Education, and he has lived stateside for almost 10 years. Joining Beaver Cross Ministries in 2008, this year will mark 16 years of being involved in youth ministry with no plans to hang up his basketball shorts anytime soon. Being the father of 2 small children, Danny’s time is spent praising the Lord, drinking coffee, attempting to keep his children safe, and drinking more coffee!

HALEY SIVE grew up worshipping God through the liturgy and Holy Communion in the Anglican tradition in Upstate New York. Now, as a member of Downtown Cornerstone Church, an Acts29 missional church in downtown Seattle, she serves as Deacon of Design and Visual Arts. Her 9-to-5 is managing a busy local Seattle bakery. Asking God to work through her to spread the Gospel, she cries out to Him for help often as she balances work, family, night school, and friends. 

Old Fashioned Hymn Sing

Bring your voice (and instruments if you want) to Corinne and Deb's Celebration Hymnal hymn sing!  Take your pick and we'll give it our best, singing psalms and making music to praise the Lord our God.  Hymnals provided.  NOTE This workshop will only be offered Saturday morning.

Deb Baldwin is a retired Spanish/ESL teacher who has been making music outside and inside of church since 3^rd grade.  She has been on numerous mission trips and has traveled on 4 continents with high school students. Deb has worked for Inter-varsity Christian Fellowship and Evangelical Hispanic Outreach in New Jersey.  She resides in Delmar, NY with her husband, Dr. Henry Baldwin.  These days she enjoys traveling with her husband, reading, hiking and sharing folk praise music. She is so blessed to be on the organizing and music teams for the Women’s Retreat again this year.

 CORINNE DUBOIS is a skilled singer, musician and piano tuner.  She has been the worship leader of our women's retreat for three years and a member since the beginning.  Following in her father’s footsteps, her work as a piano tuner/technician (C.M. DuBois Piano Service) has brought her to all kinds of places and allowed her to meet many wonderful people. She was raised in, currently worships at and is Music Director for Calvary Episcopal Church in Burnt Hills. From childhood, worship and music have played a key role in her faith journey and her family. She gives thanks to God constantly for her wonderful friends and family!

Trusting God in Your Impossible Situation

This session offers hope to women facing a seemingly impossible situation. Whatever the situation—a chronic illness, a child who isn’t walking with the Lord, financial difficulties, or a difficult marriage—God promises to act on his daughters’ behalf (Isaiah 64:4). Weaving personal story and biblical truth, Hope will share a testimony of how God acted on her behalf. This will be followed by time for participants to journal about their own impossible situation and write a personal prayer of trust. Please bring a journal and pen.

HOPE JOHNSON is a freelance editor, writer, and nanny with a passion for sharing stories of God's faithfulness in dark and difficult times. Her work has been published in Just Between Us, Red Tent Living, and Heart of Flesh Literary Journal, among others, and she contributed several devotions to the 90-day devotionals With God, I Always Have Hope and With God, I Will Not Fear. Her blog, hopeunyielding.com, shares how God met her in the depression, loneliness, and singleness that have tested her faith throughout the past decade, and her podcast, Hope Unyielding, invites believers to share accounts of God's faithfulness in their own difficulties. When Hope isn't writing, she loves having deep conversations with friends, traveling to the Belarusian countryside, or cuddling up with her cat Mishka while reading Russian literature.

Waiting Well Before God

We live in an instantaneous world, where speed and efficiency are benchmarks we judge things on, and goals that we strive for. The notion of waiting seems to be very counter cultural. Patience no longer is a virtue that is readily embraced. Therefore, most Christians don't value endurance, because it shouldn't be necessary in the first place, and it also doesn't speak of the instant results the world around us promotes. How do we overcome the strong pull of instant gratification as we serve an unhurried God who is not bound by limits of time and who knows what's best for us. This Workshop seeks to offer three keys to waiting well before God; We wait before God with Purpose, Confidence, and Joy, knowing that He is our focal point of attention, our hope, and our strength.

CANDACE (Candy) POLLYDORE currently serves as the Associate Teaching Director for Community Bible Study for the Capital District North - New York Class. She is passionate about studying and teaching the word of God, and supporting women to grow in their relationship with God. She is married to her husband Cecil for 32 years and has three adult daughters. Candy also enjoys writing short stories, and poems.

What's In A Welcome 

Friday Breakout #1: Refugees - An overview of how refugees come to be settled in the United States, what their first 90 day might look like and how we can welcome and support them as followers of Jesus. NOTE:  This workshop will only be offered Friday afternoon.

Saturday Breakout #2: Immigration Pathways to the United States - We will walk briefly through the various ways people can immigrate to the United States, including obstacles and what a Jesus centered response can be/look like. NOTE:  This workshop will only be offered Saturday morning.

Click HERE to see how to support this ministry.

JOHONNA UBER is a DOJ Accredited Representative (DHS only) at U.S. Committee for Refugees and Immigrants (USCRI) and Associate Pastor at Spindle City Vineyard.  In 2005 Johonna, moved from Maine to study Jewish Studies at SUNY Albany and has been here ever since! She enjoys experimental baking, listening to audio books and seeing God in unexpected places. 

 Free Time Activities

Guided Prayer Walk (offered Saturday morning from 10:45 - noon)

Join Madelynn Siegman for a prayer walk to discover purpose, strength, and peace through reflecting on the attributes of God.  Deepen trust in Him while exploring more about who He is and, in turn, who we are, all while being immersed in His amazing creation.  Meet Madee in the Common Area of St. Michael's Chapel at 10:45 a.m.  Pre-registration not needed.  Just show up!

MADELYNN SIEGMAN, originally from Edmond, Oklahoma, found her passion for ministry as a summer camp counselor at Beaver Cross in 2022. Now, she works full-time at the Christ the King Center in Greenwich, New York, where she is involved in the Healing Ministry, the Audio and Video Team, and more recently, the Albany Blooms Thriving Parish Initiative. She also serves as the youth minister at St. Paul's in Greenwich, NY.