Mountain View Conference Women Learn to Share Jesus at Retreat

Story by Liz Bailey

Women from across the Mountain View Conference (MVC) territory recently made their way to Valley Vista Adventist Center in Huttonsville, W.Va., to attend the 31st annual Women’s Retreat. This year’s speaker Elizabeth Talbot, speaker and director of Jesus 101 Biblical Institute, taught the women that Jesus was and is their “Goel”— Kinsman Redeemer—in the themed event, “Jesus, In Times Like These.”

The women enjoyed the usual blessings of the weekend, including physical and spiritual food, fellowship with old and new friends, and fun activities, but what they really came for was another, even higher, reason: to develop a closer walk with Jesus and to learn how to share Him with others. With a record of 33 first-time attendees—and at least 10 who were not Adventist—a total of 100 women gathered at the retreat.

Amber West, administrative assistant at the MVC office in Parkersburg, W.Va., says the retreat was and is like an evangelistic effort in her life. “When I went to the Mountain View Conference Women’s Retreat in 2020, I was apprehensive about attending because I wasn’t a Christian and I had left the church as a teenager,” she says. “By the end of the retreat, I spoke with God through prayer, something I hadn’t done in years. That moment changed my heart and life forever. The yearly women’s retreat offers an escape from the day-to-day life to focus on what matters most.”