Hentiesbaai Healing Retreat

Hentiesbaai Healing Retreat
Jeanette Lubbe facilitated a Healing Retreat session with employees of Spar, that were affected by the fire incident at Spar Hentiesbaai.
Jeanette shares the experience of some of the participants below:
“This business, building is no more, but even more than that the place where many people chatted, enquired about Spars products, assisted the elderly, tourists and many coming through its doors, is lost forever.
It happened suddenly on March 25th, when crowds, employees and those living in Henties where drawn to a fire only to discover it was Spar going up in flames. Someone remembers Johan saying no front door of a business should look like this.”

There was an extreme sense of anxiousness after the fire incident; it was encouraging to hear the spar employers say nobody will loose their employment, they will sort it out.
The owner of Spar arranged for all the staff to attend a Healing Retreat: 41 staff members attended the Retreat that took place over 3 days.
During the Retreat the participant’s journeyed through their experience, remembering sounds, smells, seeing the fire fighters in action and then all was quiet and they returned home to realize tomorrow they had nowhere to go to buy supplies, to earn a salary to care for their families.
“The Healing Retreat not only focused on the emotional impact from the fire incident, but it also
addressed other challenges and negative experiences of the participants.
The sessions focused on the emotions, thoughts and feelings following the destruction of the fire,
identifying and understanding other experiences of the past and the emotional attachments to those
experience and lastly the importance of learning how to cope and take responsibility for oneself.
Some of the participants discovered new traumas as the Retreat continued and shared the memories
of what had caused their trauma. The participants also learned about the importance of being honest
with yourself, to accept a past situation, forgive and move forward and the importance of a personal
relationship with God.
One of the participants shared :
“ I learnt to again show kindness to others who are less fortunate, even though I am unsure of tomorrow.
In groups of 10 we spent time in Scripture discovering that our Creator God is with us each day and we can trust Him to use each situation to change us, see life as an opportunity to grow and help others. One
important lesson was also a breathing exercise to help us engage with our emotions , relax and face reality.
In a week or two we will spend time together with each group separately to see how they are coping.”

By Jeanette Lubbe