PODCAST TRANSCRIPT | EPISODE 232: Should I Send My Child to College?
LIFE TO THE FULL w/ Nancy Campbell
EPISODE 232: Should I Send My Child to College?
Allison Hartman from Pensacola joins me today as we talk about the WINTER RETREAT IN THE SUN in January. Also, what is happening to many Christian young people when they attend college? It’s time to reevaluate.
Announcer: Welcome to the podcast, Life to The Full, with Nancy Campbell, founder and publisher of Above Rubies.
Nancy Campbell: Hello, ladies! It’s always so great to be with you! Today I’m interrupting my series, which is “What Does God Want us to do in the Land of Motherhood,” because I have Allison Hartman with me, all the way from Pensacola, Florida. Allison and her family come up every year to spend Thanksgiving with us, which is in a few days. So, we’re going to be looking forward to that, because now they actually have become part of the family.
In just a few weeks, Serene’s son, Cedar, will be marrying their beautiful daughter, Halle, on the 17th of December. That’s the next wedding coming up in our family. It’s going to be so wonderful! In fact, I guess I’m allowed to say now that we actually have two courtships going on with the Hartman family. Another one of Serene and Sam’s sons, Vision, is courting another one of Allison’s daughters, Eden. We’re really kind of getting together, aren’t we?
Every time Allison comes, we always do a podcast together, or a couple of podcasts. I’m sure, when we get talking, we’ll most probably end up doing a couple of podcasts.
First of all, Allison, I think you need to update us about the Above Rubies retreats in Pensacola. No! That’s where you live. But we have our retreats in Panama City, Florida. Every year, we have our annual Family Above Rubies Celebration, where loads and loads of families come. It’s the most unbelievable time. But now, it has gotten so big that we can’t even fit everybody in. So, Allison is now organizing another retreat! This is going to be called “Our Winter Retreat in the Sun.” Tell us about it.
Allison: It’s so exciting, so exciting! Each retreat we’ve done, every time we’re finished, those families go back to their homes, and they invite more people, which is wonderful! More families. But the problem with the location where we’re at, there are only so many families that can come, because of the building.
So, we decided, let’s just offer another retreat! There is so much rich stuff that goes on during these retreats, so instead of people having to travel all over the world to get your message, they can just come to one of the greatest retreats ever. We are doing our first winter retreat. It is going to be, oh goodness, I don’t have my calendar in front of me.
Nancy: The 4th to 11th of January.
Allison: Oh, good! I’m so glad you knew that! January 4th through the 11th of 2023. That will be at Laguna Beach Christian Retreat Center, where we do all the others. It will be really neat. There are a couple of positives of January. Yes, it’s a little bit colder. . .
Nancy: It’s still warmer for all the people who live in the wintertime!
Allison: That’s right! And the location, the venue, has their winter rates, so it’s much, much cheaper for families to come. You’ll get the same amazing fellowship, the same great teachings, but at a much cheaper rate than when we go in April and August. That will be great.
We do have maybe a few places left. I just talked to a lady this morning who said, “My husband finally said yes! And they still have one room left in our size!” So, don’t wait, because we decided to do this such last minute, they had already booked a lot of their housing for what they call “snowbirds.” They didn’t have a lot of housing available, but we went ahead and took everything they had. So, don’t wait.
I just was thinking, “What a perfect Christmas present to give your family!” If you’re like me, children don’t need any more toys or clothes, but what an amazing Christmas gift to say, “We’re going to Florida. We’re going to the beach, and that’s going to be our family’s Christmas.” We’d love to have you.
Nancy: Yes, there are two advantages, especially for those who live in those cold climates. You can get out of the snow, come to the sun, and get the cheaper rates.
Allison: And they have heated pools, so that’s nice.
Nancy: Absolutely. And, of course, you mentioned the children. Do you know, I think the parents get so blessed. But the children! They make friends. To see the children meeting one another again, year after year! And they’re growing up together, knowing children of kindred spirit families. It’s just such a powerful thing!
Allison: Are you still on the Signal, the group chat? Signal?
Nancy: Yes, but I don’t always get to read everything, because life’s so busy. But I think it’s amazing.
Allison: This retreat has turned into something that we never expected it to. I’ve said this before, that when I first put on the Family Retreat, the Ladies’ Retreat, we would all get together. We would say our good-byes and then we would see each other next year.
Well, that is not the way it is. It is a continual . . . As we speak, there is a family that I met at the Above Rubies Retreat now at my house, with their family, helping us build this wedding venue for our daughter’s wedding, and I’m not even there! They’re there, helping! There’s another family heading this way to spend Thanksgiving with us that we met at the retreat.
A young girl posted just yesterday, or the day before, and said, “I just love these Above Rubies Retreats.” She’s a single girl. She said, “I met a young man at the retreat,” and now it seems like they’re in love. They would have never met, but they both came to the retreat as singles in their early 20’s, and now they have formed a friendship and a relationship. She put out there, “I’m just so thankful for Above Rubies.” That’s just the neatest thing, seeing these continual relationships and marriages coming along. It’s incredible.
Nancy: That’s always been a powerful encouraging of families. It’s always been my secret little desire that young people will meet the one that God has for them at these retreats, because you get out there in the world, and even in the average church today, where do you find these really godly young men and women? Oh, these are such a wonderful place.
Colin and I, so many years ago, we met at a Christian family camp. So, we think that’s a great place to meet. We’re coming up this March, we will have been married 60 years. We look back to that wonderful moment when we met at a Christian retreat.
Allison: I just have to say, I think we all recognize that the world that we’re living in is not the way it was, even when I was growing up. Mothers, let me encourage you that you have to absolutely fight for your family. One of the parts of fighting for your family is doing intentional things with your family.
We can’t just sit in our houses and say, “Oh, there are no good people for my children to play with. There are no good young people for them to get to know. I don’t have any friends who are like-minded. I don’t go to a church that’s right.” That’s true. But this is a perfect situation to come and meet like-minded families, build friendships.
I would say that my circle of friends right now consists mainly of families that we’ve met through these Above Rubies retreats. It’s that powerful. It has changed our lives completely. Every one of my children’s friends, those that they’ve married, those that they’re about to marry, the ones that they spend time with, they’ve all been met through this retreat. So, you have to do things that might be out of your comfort zone but make things like that happen. Make it a priority.
Nancy: Go to the Above Rubies website, aboverubies.org, and go to Retreats, and you’ll be able to pick up the information to book in for this beautiful winter retreat in the sun. Or if you can’t get to that one, there’s the April retreat, and then, of course, in August, we have the reunion. It’s a little bit different, a little bit more low-key. All those who just want to get together. So, that’s all there. Check it out! We hope to see you!
Actually, we have a family from England coming to the January retreat.
Allison: Really?
Nancy: Didn’t you know? Yes, they’re coming all the way from England!
Allison: Wow!
Nancy: In fact, we stayed with them when we were in England, up north of England. They’re planning to come! Isn’t that wonderful?
Allison: They’re welcome to call me. Honestly, if you have any specific questions, and you want to get in, you’re welcome to call me. My number is 850-221-1222. I’d be happy to talk with you and try to get you registered.
Nancy: Wonderful! Oh, we hope that we can see many of you! And it’s international. You can come from anywhere in the world.
Now, let’s talk about something else. You were telling me last night, Allison, how, was it last week, you went out for dinner? THM dinner. You do lots of THM things, don’t you?
Allison: We do! We try to do one at least every month in our area. Either I host it, or we’ll meet at a restaurant. But we’re passionate to share that message with as many people as we can.
Nancy: It’s amazing how everything you do spreads! I know Nadia was down in your end of the world and went to one of your THM dinners. She came back and said, “OK, we’ve got to do it here!” Now we are going to do it. Nadia’s organizing it.
We did our second one last week, and what we have to do is bring a little Trim Healthy Mama dessert. What we have ended up doing is, while we’re waiting for our food, we’re all so hungry, we usually eat it while we’re waiting! That’s so fun.
Tell us about some of the conversations you had at this one last week.
Allison: Yeah. We went to some friend’s house and started talking about Halle and Cedar, and their upcoming marriage, just a little bit about how we decided to raise our older children. We started asking questions about their older children and asked if they were in a relationship.
This particular family has raised their children in the church. They have also sent them off to college, as a lot of families do. Between youth groups and being involved in the church, they really felt like they had done a good job. Well, their oldest son, they shared, was in a relationship they weren’t really happy with.
I, of course, asked, what’s the biggest issue? They shared that she, this girlfriend was actually calling herself bisexual, and an atheist. My heart just sunk. I couldn’t even believe what I was hearing based on the fact that this was a Christian boy dating. It just blew my mind.
I started asking a little bit more. “So, your child, you raised your son in the church. You taught him everything based on the Bible. And now he’s chosen to be with someone who doesn’t believe in God, who is saying they are bisexual.” I don’t even know if that’s a thing. I don’t really understand why you’d even say that.
But I said, “Well, what would you say is the biggest reason? Where can you pinpoint “losing your son” if you will?” They quickly answered and said, “We sent him off to college.” I thought, “Wow!”
And then there was another lady at the same dinner party that shared a very similar story, in that her son was just on fire for the Lord for his childhood and his young teenage life. He was the one that would invite others over, youth group, and share the gospel with them.
He is now an adult, and he is completely an atheist. He tells his mother, “Everything I knew up until college was a lie. Now that I’ve gone to college, I now know the truth. The truth is, there is no God.”
My husband and I went away from this dinner party thinking, “Wow! Are we the only ones seeing this? This link between, how do you raise a child for 18 years in a godly home, and lose him in a semester? How does that happen?” Daniel and I, do you want me to share about our situation, our story?
Nancy: Yes, tell us your story.
Allison: So, Daniel and I, when we got married, we were both college graduates. I have my bachelor’s in communication arts. That’s hard to imagine, right? He has his bachelor’s in engineering. He almost had his master’s.
Education was a big deal to him. He came from a single-family home. His mom was a single mom. She really stressed the importance of a college degree because of “what if” something happened, and you needed to rely on your education? So, that was a big deal to him.
He even went so far as to say, “I won’t pay for a penny of my girls’ weddings until they have a bachelor’s degree.” I went along with that. It made sense to me. That was something that important to me as well. That’s what we decided.
Well, when our first child, when Makenna was college age, we decided that she would head on to Pensacola Christian College, so she signed up. In fact, we even did the “buy three, get one free.” We had paid a certain amount so that her fourth year in college would be free. You can see the importance we put on college. Very big deal to us.
Well, of course, we got to know you guys really well, and we knew that you weren’t really pro-college. But just like any good friend, you can have things that you disagree with and still be good friends, right? I kind of always kept my opinion to myself about college.
Nancy: I beg your pardon? [laughter] How do you keep your opinion to yourself?
Allison: For the first time ever! That was one thing we would not talk about! [laughter] Every time you would bring it up, and you talked about the CHICKING COLLEGE book, I was just kind of, “Oh, well, that’s for them, not for us!” I really thought of college as a neutral thing. It was good for some, not good for others. But it really, it didn’t really matter.
Well, one Sunday afternoon, we were here after church, and we had a very powerful conversation. Makenna was about to go back to college for that second semester. She was already signed up for classes, and we talked with you, Vange, Serene, and Zadok. We were all sitting around, discussing college. I told Makenna, “Just keep an open mind. But we know we’re probably going to send you back to college, because that’s what we do. We’re not quitters. We don’t quit.”
After that meeting, Serene said something. She said, “If my mom and dad had ever put me in college, it would have put us in a box, and it would have limited us to where we could have never done great things like we did like with this Trim Healthy Mama.” Zadok even said some of the same things. You said some of the same things. All this worldview about college really, because we respected you, but we never really considered that for us. We left, and y’all took us to the airport.
I remember I said to you and Colin, “Hey, if you could help me out, I think Daniel’s going to be the biggest hurdle about not sending our children to college. He’s so adamant.” You guys said a few things, and I’m so thankful that I have a husband who’s teachable and willing to recognize truth and be willing to change his opinion.
So many Christians are so stubborn. They believe something, and just because you’re going to show them something else, they’re not going to change their minds. Really, that’s pride, right? But Daniel was so willing to listen, because he respected you guys. Our views on college completely changed that day. Not only did we let Makenna know that she was welcome to not go back to college, but she ended up not going back to college that semester.
Allison: When we decided that that was what was best for us, it was so neat to see amazing doors open up. Instead of her going through the rut of college and getting her degree, and then being limited to that degree, we encouraged her to run her own business. She started teaching infant swim rescue, making amazing money at it, and taking over parts of our business.
We really encouraged her to be self-employed and not worry about having to get a “degree” to be successful. I’m telling you, I am so passionate about it, even as a college graduate. I am to the point now where I’m seeing the fruit of college students. I’m seeing the fruit of non-college students, and you couldn’t pay me to send my children to college.
I have a friend who is a nurse practitioner. She went to Duke University, and she said, “I would not let my child go to college right now. I would find a career that you can do without a college degree. If you need a college degree, you need to find it online.”
I’ll tell you one other thing. When my husband was in college he was in California, and he said he met a professor, and that professor said to him, “My job,” this is so powerful, “my job is to strip the faith of young people while they are under my teaching.” And he was proud of it!
Nancy: Wow! And how many years ago was that?
Allison: Oh, that was, let’s see, my husband’s 53. So, that had to be 35 years ago.
Nancy: 35 years ago. And that has intensified. You may think, “Oh, goodness me! Who are these people who are against college?” Well, I wasn’t always against college. But we have to be open to see what is happening. College is not what it used to be! It has now become the place to brainwash our young people into progressivism, and even now, transgenderism, and everything that is against God, and against family.
We have to see the fruit. It is the fruit of what is happening. Now we are seeing a generation that has been turned away from God, turned away from family, turned away from everything, even that is in our Constitution. They are totally reprogramming the minds of our young people.
Even this last midterm election, many states, the voting came out that especially there was more voting of people 30 and under. It was these young people, especially. What were they voting for? For pro-abortion! That’s just one of the normal things there in college today, is pro-abortion. Then there’s everything else. There’s homosexuality. Now it’s transgenderism. They’re more concerned about reprogramming their whole brains against Christianity, and God, more than anything else!
That statement! To think that was said 35 years ago! Now it is so intensified. That is their plan. So, we as godly parents, we’re not against education. Oh, what does the Bible say? “That the soul be without knowledge, it is not good.” But, you see, all knowledge, all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge are found in Christ. They’re found in His Word. (Read Proverbs 19:2 and Colossians 2:3).
And yes, we must be seekers after knowledge, those who search for knowledge. But we’ve got to find it in the right places. What does it say? “All the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” It’s not just having knowledge because knowledge can be wrong. We’ve got to have God’s knowledge that has wisdom with it. We have got to steer our children in the direction where they’re going to get the right knowledge.
Sadly, in this day in which we’re living, it’s not in our colleges. OK, there are some where you do need a degree. I think, as you said, go online, where you’re not so much, well, you still will be exposed but not to the same extent as actually living in and being part of it.
Allison: You’re worried. It’s either for God, or it’s against Him. When you’re involving yourself in a state system, but even Christian schools, Christian colleges, if you’re not for Him, you’re against Him. Therefore, we align ourselves with, really, Satan’s system. You have to be so careful and keen to sometimes recognize it, because you think, like you said, knowledge is good, and learning is good.
Again, we’re definitely not discouraging that. But how much more knowledge and wisdom? In life, we know that things are either for Christ or they’re against Him. If we’re putting our children in a state system, then that would not be for Christ. Therefore, it would be against Him. We have to recognize it. That is what we’re aligning ourselves with, by encouraging our children to go to a state school, or even a Christian school. So many of these Christian schools are even so lukewarm. The gospel is so watered down. They’re creating neutral, lukewarm young people that can’t stand for anything!
Another thing is, we think we’re doing the right thing. We were talking last night about how so many of us just want to go with what culture is doing. It feels like this family I shared with you, their next son in line is planning to go to college. Here’s the problem. Where is this disconnect between, we raise a godly child, and then they go off? A semester into college, their faith is stripped.
Nancy: You were saying to me last night that one of these ladies said, she said, “When I sent my child to college, I noticed immediately, he just began to be stripped, stripped, stripped of every little iota of his faith.
Allison: Completely. He usurped every bit of her authority that she had poured into her child for all those years. Boom! Undone immediately. Within, it sounded liked, almost a semester or two. You have to ask yourself, as a parent, is the price worth it? Is this career that your child wants to achieve by getting a college degree, is it worth losing their soul over?
Nancy: Exactly. And, really, most of them never even use their degree!
Allison: Never!
Nancy: If you look at the statistics, hardly any use that degree! Tell me about Makenna. Is she happy that she didn’t go to college?
Allison: Absolutely. Again, not to brag on Makenna, but she ended up “as a college drop-out” according to the world, and is now doing private swim lessons, making $120 an hour! I don’t know many college graduates that are making $120 an hour, doing something that she loves, in her own home, with her family around, the aunts and uncles of her baby getting to watch her baby and be with her.
Whatever it is, there are so many avenues that we can encourage our children to pursue, to make a good living. You don’t need college for it. I am a college graduate saying this, that I would not, you couldn’t give me a certain amount of money to convince me that it’s worth it, to send my child. My own sixteen-year-old is making more money selling trees at a farmer’s market once a week than a lot of college graduates are.
We had a guy in my high school who graduated valedictorian, and I saw him years later, after he went to MIT. He was our waiter at Waffle House. OK? Valedictorian, went to MIT, Ivy League school, was a waiter at Waffle House. Nothing against the waiter at Waffle House, but can you imagine the amount of money that he spent on college?
But, guys, we’re not even worried about the money that you’re wasting on college. I’m worried about their souls that are being stripped. That you can’t get back. You cannot get that back. You can’t undo what those college professors are wanting to do. Not just our doing, but their wanting to do it.
This college professor that my husband met 30-something years ago, said, “My job is to strip young people. I love it! I love being able to strip down everything their parents taught them.” Again, this is before this gender confusion was even a thing. Can you imagine how bad it is now?
Nancy: Well, we know how bad it is. We see the fruit of it. I think of that Scripture in Psalm 1:1. We all know it. It says: “Blessed is the man that walketh not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor standeth in the way of sinners, not sitteth in the seat of the scornful.” Which is what your young daughter or son will do when they go to college. They will sit in the seat of the scornful. They will scorn everything of God that you put into their lives.
Allison: Some versions say “scoffers.” And that’s what I think of when I think of a liberal, godless college professor, scoffing, scoffing at the Word of God. We are not only allowing our children that we’ve loved, and raised, and given birth to, and poured our life into, we are paying for it. There are parents that are working second and third jobs so that they can pay for their children to be sitting at the seat of scoffers!
Nancy: I know. It’s unbelievable. Then I think of last night, we had here at our home a graduation for a young man, Jeremiah, who lives right part of us here on the Hilltop. Such a wonderful young man, 17 years of age. He was having his graduation of homeschooling.
His mother had been with her homeschool covering and working it all out. Was he ready to graduate? She was hoping that he would graduate by next summer. But when she put in all that he has been learning, and all that he has read, and all that he has done, they said, “Please, please, please, stop! We can’t fit it all in! He’s gone far beyond what is even necessary for graduation.”
Not only has this young man graduated beyond where he’s necessary, but he also is employed already fulltime. Trim Healthy Mama have now employed him to do all their filming. They have had professional companies, many of them they fired. Serene was saying last night, they wouldn’t give up Jeremiah for any of those companies. He is far better. He also has another business on the side! He's ready to take the world.
Allison: That’s right. That’s right.
Nancy: And he doesn’t need to go to college.
Allison: That’s right. I think another good alternative is internship. We’ve had several young people come and intern us in our photography business and shadow us. I have said to many of them, “What you’re getting from us, what you’re receiving, is far beyond a four-year education in photography, because you’re seeing how a business works.”
We’ve had a very successful photography business. We’ve photographed 60 public schools, we’re super-busy, very successful in our city. We don’t have a photography degree. My husband has an engineering degree! But the way we learned is by taking a lot of bad pictures!
But if you have a young person that has an interest in something, find someone who is an expert in that field, and say, “Could my child come and sit under you for several months?” That is where you’re going to gain so much wisdom and knowledge in a certain field.
I just cannot say it enough, that if you’re even on the fence about it, you really have to reconsider if you are desiring to raise a young person that is sold out for the Lord, college is not the place for them. I would almost, like I said, I would go so far as to say, don’t say to me, “Well, but a Christian school is just as good.”
No, my daughter went to a Christian school, and I won’t even mention the name of that school, but they are known for one of the highest rates of homosexuals in the country. You would be blown away when you heard the name of the school, because it’s so conservative! The girls have to wear skirts, there’s no touching, there’s separate elevators, but yet this influx of this homosexual movement is getting right in that school. You can’t say to me, “Well, it’s a Christian school.” No. Just like our churches today. Most churches are so weak and not really, really preaching the truth.
I know this is scary, because as parents, we want our children to do the best. We want them to be the best. We think that we’re doing a disservice to them by not letting them go for a higher education. But as a mother of some very successful young people, just last weekend my 18- and 20-year-old girls made a couple thousand dollars apiece just by doing photo shoots. There’s no way, with a college degree, they could have done that and more.
We’re limiting them by forcing them to, No. 1, waste four years of their lives. No. 2, waste thousands and thousands of dollars. But again, most importantly, they’re losing, they’re being programmed into this garbage that the world’s pushing.
Nancy: And I look at your daughters and often I just can’t believe it! There’s nothing they can’t do! They are so well-rounded in every aspect of life. I remember once, at one of the Above Rubies retreats, you had ordered all the food from this company. Because of problems with transport, it didn’t arrive. So, you say to your daughter, “OK, go to Sam’s and you’ll have to re-buy it again.”
Allison: Right. Buy groceries for ten meals for 800 people.
Nancy: What adult can do that? She goes and does it!
Allison: Yep. Just gave her a credit card, and she spent, I think, five, six thousand dollars on food, and came back. Here’s another interesting thing. Eden, our 20-year-old, just recently, we had a really sad situation where one of our employees was arrested for grand theft. Super sad, and we, because of that, have had to transition our accounting and take it back over, just for the mean time.
I had no one to take over our books because this lady did everything, all the bookkeeping. But because she has so much going on in her personal life, we decided we have to do this ourselves. I honestly knew nothing about my finances. I didn’t know what was doing what. Eden decided, we sent her to our CPA, and she is training her how to do accounting and bookkeeping.
So, as we’re talking right now, she’s sitting at your dining room table doing our accounting and trying to reconcile our books for the past nine months because nothing had been done. She went and met with our CPA the other day to see where she’s at. She said, “Allison, she’s doing an incredible job.”
I’ve never taught her bookkeeping! I’ve never taught her accounting. In fact, I probably don’t do a great job at homeschooling! But she’s doing the accounting for a huge, huge corporation that we have in our photography business and she’s doing a great job! She’s learning so much, hands-on. She would never learn this by just learning the concepts of accounting in college. It’s amazing how much my brain has switched on this subject.
Nancy: Oh, yes! Hope we haven’t blown your minds again! I’m always blowing your brains away!
Allison: I don’t see how. I think it’s great to blow your mind! We need to change. We live in desperate times. We’ve got to change our mindset.
Nancy: Yes, and really, who wants to hear the same old thing? We’ve got to challenge one another because, as Allison said, we are living in a day, we’re living in a world full of lies and deception, and we’ve got to pursue truth.
Let me close now with these words of Psalm 1, where it says: “He will not sit in the seat of the scornful.” But this is the higher education . . . “But his delight is in the law of the Lord, and in His law doth he meditate day and night. And he shall be like a tree, planted by the rivers of water that bringeth forth his fruit in his season. His leaf also shall not wither, and whatsoever he doeth shall prosper.”
That’s the promise of God. As we pursue God’s ways, His truth, and His Word, we’re going to prosper. This is where our children will prosper. They’re not going to prosper going down the way of the devil. And sadly, this is where our colleges are today. Sadly, because they shouldn’t be, but they’ve been taken over! Sadly, and we have to wake up, to see what’s happening.
We do love you all!
“Dear Father, we thank You that we can talk about the things that we are facing right now. Lord, this is a different world than what it was a few years ago. We pray that we will have open eyes to see. Lord, we don’t want to be deceived by the enemy. And Lord God, we know that usually when we’re deceived, we don’t even know we’re deceived. So, we pray that You will keep our minds, our hearts, close to You, that You will keep us in your living Word, because it is Your Word that exposes all deceptions and lies.
“Lord, I pray that You’ll bless every mother, young person listening today, Lord God. We will all be open, open, Lord, to hear Your Word, to hear You speaking, to be like the children of Issachar, who had understanding of the times, to know what Israel should do. Lord God, we, as parents, we must have understanding of the times, to know what we should do in this hour, to know how we should direct our children. We ask for Your wisdom and discernment. In the Name of Jesus, Amen.”
Allison: Amen.
Blessings from Nancy Campbell
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Transcribed by Darlene Norris * This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
FLORIDA RETREATS FOR 2023
January 4 – 11 WINTER RETREAT IN THE FLORIDA SUN
If you live in the cold in a northern state, take this opportunity to come down to the warmth and sunshine of Florida and receive wonderful blessings as a family at the same time!
AND MAKE THE MOST OF THE WINTER CHEAP RATES!
Above Rubies Gulf Coast January Family Retreat 2023
Registration fee: $200
Housing is VERY limited, assigned through Gulf Coast Above Rubies Organizers
Teaching, worship, prayer, small groups, great fellowship, family activities, volley ball and basketball competitions, fun games on the beach. The schedule and meal info will be released soon.
If you would like to join us for our first ever WINTER family retreat, make sure to register asap!! We only have about 25 housing units available for this retreat, and they will be first-come first-served to those that register and pay through the link below!
*If you are not satisfied with the housing that is available by the time we get to your name on the list, we will refund your registration at your request at that time. Otherwise, the $200 registration fee is non-refundable. The great news is that we will get the winter rates for campus housing, and the prices are incredibly affordable!!!!
Gather your friends, old and new, and join us for this exciting week of fellowship together! We can’t wait to be with you!
If you have any questions about this new retreat, please email us at .">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Registration link:
https://forms.gle/dJcXHQCbwJw1UTmw9
April 19 – 26 THE POPULAR ANNUAL RETREAT
Above Rubies Gulf Coast Spring Family Retreat 2023
Registration fee: $200 (non-refundable)
Meals $60/person ages 3+
Housing is assigned through Gulf Coast Above Rubies Organizers, but payment for your housing will go directly to Laguna.
This is our biggest retreat serving over 100 families during our week of fellowship, sessions with Nancy and Colin Campbell, breakout sessions with gifted speakers and teachers, family activities, and incredible worship! Come as a friend but leave as family! If you aren’t already registered, sign up now! We still have room!
If you have any questions about this family retreat, please email us at .">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Registration link:
https://forms.gle/iERkREjdmgkA6D1V7
August 9 – 16 THE REUNION
Above Rubies Gulf Coast Family Reunion 2023
Registration fee: $100 (non-refundable)
No meals are offered at the reunion, but potlucks tend to happen a few times!
Housing is assigned through Gulf Coast Above Rubies Organizers, but payment will go directly to Laguna.
Have you attended one of our family retreats before? If so, we’d like to invite you to a reunion on the beach! Join your favorite families for a week of fun and fellowship! Nancy and Colin will join us for a few sessions, and we will host a handful of family activities, but this week is much more laid back than the typical retreats.
If you have any questions about this family retreat, please email us at .">This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Registration link:
https://forms.gle/oMhpTs7a6GyEz8bg7