A Sanctuary For Many

We recently held our annual fundraising dinner and I began the evening by saying that I wanted to communicate the heart of Sanctuary Inn. The heart of Sanctuary Inn is that we want to be a place where weary servants of our Lord can come for a time of rest and refreshment.

When I heard someone make reference to Mark 6:31 where Jesus took his disciples aside to “a lonely place to rest awhile” it made me think more about our guests and all that cause them to be weary.

In the Mark 6 passage we have a glimpse of the life and ministry of Christ on this earth. Recorded in this chapter alone we read about the rejection of Jesus by those in his hometown of Nazareth, the sending out of the disciples to preach and heal, the recap of the death of John the Baptist – the cousin of our Lord – the feeding of the 5,000, the disciples caught in a great storm on the Sea of Galilee and then it ends with Jesus and his disciples being inundated with swarms of people who wanted to be healed.

What do we have here? We have strained relationships, active ministry (the daily battle against the forces of darkness), the trauma of the death of a loved one, the strain of constant teaching and healing, the emotional stress of dealing with weather and climate issues and more teaching and healing (physical and spiritual exhaustion).

None of these things are unusual for those serving in a cross-cultural context. Team dynamics, teaching and preaching responsibilities, family concerns (immediate and extended) and weather play into the lives of the men and women who are serving around the world and the soul left untended can become weary and discouraged.

We are excited when we have missionary guests who have been able to “come aside and rest awhile” at Sanctuary Inn. While guests are with us we encourage them to rest, to unplug (as much as they can) and to not worry about any kind of schedule in particular.

Our goal is to make the “place” missionary guests can come – and when we hear from them that they have been able to experience God’s refreshment and some physical rest, we are very excited. Here are some comments from guests that have meant a lot to us:

“Thank you for a much needed stay in your beautiful sanctuary”

“Thank you so much for a wonderful and refreshing time at Sanctuary Inn! We always feel so welcomed and loved here.”

“Thank you for receiving us and providing a restful space. Also, thank you for the conversations we had and especially the conversations with our children.”

“Thank you for sharing this blessed piece of God’s world…”

“Thank you that we could stay a few days in the center of God’s beautiful creation; thank you for your labor of love enabling people like us to get away from the hustle and bustle…”

These comments encourage us that God is using this place as a place where His global workers can come aside for a time and experience a time of refreshment and restoration. Thank you to each of you who are making the ministry of Sanctuary Inn possible for these servants of God.

– Steve Price for the Sanctuary Inn Team