“It’s People Who Get It.” How One Weekend Makes All The Difference
If you only had one free night in a year, how would you spend it? Something about the Commission 127 Marriage Retreat is clearly special to Mike and Leslie Rebholz.
They were determined to be there. Indeed, Leslie admitted that “the last time [they] had a night away was the marriage retreat last year.” Mike and Leslie agreed that what made the weekend so impactful for them was the special community of couples who truly understand the unique joys and challenges of foster and adoptive parenting.
Leslie and Mike practically moved mountains to attend the marriage retreat for another consecutive year because they recognized their need to experience nourishment from a community that understands their journey as foster parents. As they described, it takes a huge effort just to secure childcare in order for the couple to have a night away together. Because not just any babysitter is equipped to care for kids from hard places, they had to fly in Mike’s sister to provide childcare for the weekend. He explained that they “were allowed a scholarship to come to the marriage retreat which is part of how [they] were able to afford” to arrange what it took to attend the retreat.
Mike added that he and Leslie are part of another organization “that actually has a marriage ministry, and [they] can go to their conference at no charge.” However, he said, “we choose to come to the Commission 127 Marriage Retreat because of the focus on foster care and adoption.” The retreat is not only a weekend dedicated to strengthening marriages and fostering renewed love between couples; it is a purposeful respite designed to give them rest so they can return stronger to their families. “There is a common bond that is felt among the people that are there,” Mike said. “What we do in foster care and adoption adds a complexity in our marriage.”
Having attended for the past several years, they knew how much they needed the purposeful time away, both for their marriage and for their whole family. Indeed, attendees of the retreat understand that they must nurture a strong bond as husbands and wives in order to ultimately love and care for vulnerable kids. “There’s just a different reality when your day in and day out is fighting for kids and their ability to be healthy,” Mike said. There is a “unique dynamic of stressors” for foster and adoptive parents, and “If we’re not strong, if our marriage isn’t healthy, then all those things will divide us.” In their quest to love their kids longer and stronger, they have long prioritized fortifying their own marriage alongside other foster-adoptive parents who are striving to do the same.
When Leslie and Mike moved to Florida several years ago, they sought and longed for a community that understood them and their family. “When we found Commission 127, that was a huge answer to prayer because we didn’t have foster-adoptive community,” Leslie said. The reality of a foster-adoptive family is starkly different from the experience of every other kind of family; there are unique needs and stressors amidst the joys of loving kids from hard places. Leslie explained, “Our reality is dealing with trauma and other things that other families cannot relate to.”
An essential component of true rest is the ability to be known. This is why couples at the marriage retreat experience such a refreshing and unique time of togetherness and rejuvenation; they are among a community that “gets it.” “Being plugged in to Commission 127 is a lifeline for us,” Lelie said, “It’s people who get it. They get kids from hard places.”
Just as vulnerable kids need to be in families, foster and adoptive parents need to be in caring communities that understand their experience. It is in these communities that their marriages can best be nurtured and strengthened, enabling them to succeed in caring longer and stronger for the vulnerable kids in their homes. With the support of generous donors like the the TW Miller Foundation, C127 is able to offer the Marriage Retreat each year. We give our endless thanks to all who attended the retreat and all who made it possible to hold it again this year!