July—Our Month for Childhood Cancer Family Retreats 

This week we’re attending a weeklong retreat for families living through childhood cancer on St. Simons Island, Georgia. Blue Skies Ministries (BSM) is the nonprofit organization putting us up at the beautiful Sea Palms Resort. It’s been an amazing week so far! This getaway is set up much like Lighthouse Family Retreat (LFR), which we had the pleasure of vacationing with last summer. I’ll write about our fun trip to Georgia later, after we’ve fully enjoyed it and returned back home. In the meantime, though, you can read on about the incredible experience we had with LFR in Emerald Isle, North Carolina last July.

What is Lighthouse Family Retreat?

I first heard about LFR from an amazing Facebook group I’m part of. It’s for moms in Utah whose children are currently fighting or have battled childhood cancer. Several of the moms in this group had gone on an LFR trip with their families, and they all loved it. 

(Sidenote: Facebook groups are where it’s at, y’all. Who’s with me on this? If it weren’t for the connections and resources I gain from specialized FB groups, I would have ditched this social media platform long ago. I’m looking at you, 2020. 😉😂)

“Lighthouse Family Retreat is a faith-based non-profit that exists to strengthen every family living through childhood cancer. We host restorative retreats and develop helpful resources so that families and their support systems can find hope in God and help in their fight.”

https://www.lighthousefamilyretreat.org

Trip Planning

As soon as applications were open for the summer 2021 LFR trips, I applied. I hoped and prayed that we’d be selected. We were coming up on the 18-month mark of Link’s treatment. We were so grateful that he was in remission and the maintenance phase of treatment. We fully believed (and, luckily, were right) that the worst was behind us and that he had less than a year of treatment left. However, we were also exhausted. A year and a half of cancer treatments, hospitalizations, and medications—during a global pandemic, no less—will do that to ya. The idea of a paid family beach vacation to connect with others who’d walked the same difficult path we had was thrilling. 

We were SO happy when we got the emails and phone calls that confirmed our application had been accepted! We’d be going to Emerald Isle, North Carolina from July 12th to July 17th. We immediately started researching and getting excited about the trip. Okay, that’s a lie. I’d been pouring over Pinterest and travel blogs for months already just thinking about the possibility of going. That’s what I do. (Hi. My name is Becca, and I’m a Pinterest addict. 😉) Once our trip was official, though, I really started planning.

For a multitude of reasons, Josh and I decided that we wanted to take an epic cross-country road trip to North Carolina and back. Josh had plenty of vacation days at work, so we came up with an incredible 17-day itinerary. We started driving on July 6th and didn’t get back home until July 22nd. In addition to Emerald Isle, NC; we also spent time in Denver, CO; Salina, KS; St. Louis, MO; Gatlinburg, TN; Beaufort, NC; Charlotte, NC; Nashville, TN; and Kansas City, MO. It was truly a vacation we’ll never forget. (Let me know in the comments if you’d like to read more about our other stops on the road trip in a different post!)

My Facebook Post about LFR

After we got home from our trip last summer, I summed up our Lighthouse Family Retreat experience in a Facebook post. Here it is:

“I don’t even know where to start with this post, which is why we’ve been home for almost a whole week now and I still haven’t written it. To put it simply, our week at the Lighthouse Family Retreat was one of the best weeks of our lives. This non-profit organization, which “strengthen[s] families living through childhood cancer by offering restorative retreats and helpful resources”, is simply the best.

From the moment we arrived till the second we left, volunteers catered to our every request—spoken and unspoken. We have literally never felt so loved and cared for by so many (former) strangers. I tear up every time I think of these amazing people and the incredible gift they gave us. 

We were assigned six volunteers (4 adults & 2 kids) to be our “Family Partners”. They greeted us enthusiastically when we arrived and helped us unload our car before bringing us dinner that first night. Throughout the rest of the week, they cleaned our condo, did our laundry (yes, even our “Mormon underwear”/”Jesus jammies”/[insert funny garment nickname here]), tended and played with our kids while Josh and I went to adult activities, etc. Lincoln has never had so many people jump at the chance to help him walk seemingly nonstop. Logan has never immediately taken to so many new people (or “friends”, as he calls every single new person he meets). I quickly lost count of how many times I told Josh I was going to go do something, and one of the volunteers jumped in and said, “No, sit down.  I’ve got it .” Every single volunteer we encountered seemed to radiate Christ’s love. They truly were His hands and feet for the week—so selfless, so giving.

Each morning Josh and I were able to meet and talk with 23 other parents (including the 4 leading the discussions) who have gone/are going through their child having cancer. All of our stories brought us closer together. There’s something about being in a room where every single other person just “gets it”. I felt so seen, heard, and validated. It was so refreshing to hear again and again that I’m not the only mom who knows what it’s like to hear that your kid has cancer, who has spent countless days in the hospital with their sick child, who is utterly exhausted after every single clinic day, who has such a hard time getting motivated to do housework, who struggles with PTSD triggers, etc. These talk sessions were both therapeutic and, believe it or not, filled with tears AND laughter.

Josh and I also got to go on a date night with the other parents while all of the Family Partners watched our kids and threw them an “un-birthday” party. We had a delicious surf and turf dinner, enjoyed conversation, and were able to reconnect with one another. After dinner, Josh and I got time to ourselves before heading back to the condo. This is either sweet or pathetic, but we were so excited that we got to go grocery shopping TOGETHER for the first time in a very, very long time. We also got yummy ice cream and drove to more beautiful places on Emerald Isle. When we got back to the condo, our boys were already in their PJs and splendidly worn out.

I haven’t even talked about the phenomenal beach! It was clean and private, the sand was soft, and the ocean was just as warm as it was in Thailand, if not warmer. It’s safe to say that Logan’s introduction to the ocean was a huge success. If he could have been at the beach/in the ocean 24/7, he would have. Lincoln liked it, too—especially playing with the sand, but Logan is the one having a hard time re-adjusting to living in a land-locked state. 😂

We made a lot of sacrifices this summer in order to be able to safely attend this retreat. Every person (5 and older) who went, including the volunteers, had to get a Covid test a few days before arriving. Josh and I didn’t want any chance of us not being able to go after we’d planned everything, so we were, if possible, even more cautious in the weeks leading up to our vacation. We missed family events, wore masks indoors and outdoors, etc., etc. I’m so happy to say that it was all worth it in the end.

We will definitely be supporting LFR and possibly becoming volunteers for them for years to come. If you’re ever looking for a nonprofit to donate to, I highly encourage you to consider this one. I can’t say enough good things about it.”

Final Thoughts on LFR

Our week at LFR was beyond restorative. After 18 months of cancer treatments for our son, this retreat was just what we needed to step away from the daily stresses of medications, clinic appointments, sickness, side effects, Covid isolation, etc. We made priceless memories, developed stronger relationships, received blessings, and were spoiled.

This organization and all of its volunteers are phenomenal. We have never felt more loved and cared for from people we’d never met before. Now we’ve made lifelong friends. The family partners assigned to us showed us such selfless, Christlike love all week long. My husband and I were able to focus on each other and our family and have a “normal” family vacation since there were so many helping hands ready to step in and assist us with our very active, medically complex twins. 

Our boys were on cloud nine as they made new friends and came out of their shells. Seeing the smiles on their faces and their excitement as they saw and tried new things—like playing in the ocean for the first time—is something we’ll always treasure.

If you are a family living through childhood cancer, I highly recommend applying to go on an LFR trip. If you know a family living through childhood cancer, please send them this info! If you’ve ever considered going on a domestic service trip, seriously think about volunteering with Lighthouse Family Retreat. If you’re ever looking for a worthy charity to donate to, keep LFR in mind. You won’t regret any of these decisions.

Do you know of any other non-profits that offer retreats for families living through childhood cancer? I’d love to compile a list for future families!