About Us
We are a small group of Christian friends who share a passion for growing in our love for God and His Son Jesus Christ and seeing the fruit of the Holy Spirit increasing in our lives. We have all felt God’s leading to be encouraging others in this journey, to be persevering through the dry times and rejoicing in seasons of plenty. We worship and serve together at a non-denominational Christian community church. As a team, we have enjoyed an amazing eight years facilitating single-day retreats and seeing God working in the lives of many Christians across North West NSW and further afield.
While we are very willing to chat and pray with you, we are not trained counsellors. We are not experienced in dealing with mental illness, chronic disease, addictions or serious depression. There are other Christian organisations in Australia who are more experienced in dealing with these issues who already run regular healing services and retreats.
Richard and Kate are both trained spiritual directors, but there is generally not time for formal spiritual direction sessions during retreat days. If you are interested in spiritual direction, we would be happy to talk with you about pursuing this at a different time.
Richard and Kate Penrose
We are beef cattle farmers and we live and work on our beautiful property (which is named Retreat). The farm is about half an hour from Gunnedah in North Western NSW. We have three children, about 200 cows and 5 chickens! For the past 16 years we have been incredibly blessed to share time at Retreat with many Christian brothers and sisters who serve God in full-time ministry either here in Australia or overseas on the mission field. The Retreat Homestead has hosted many families and small groups for holidays, longer missionary stays and small youth camps. We are both actively involved in our local church, in areas of leading, preaching and music ministry. We are keen supporters of overseas Christian workers and various humanitarian organisations. We are both qualified spiritual directors, having graduated from Barnabas Ministries’ Listen into Life course in 2024. Kate has also completed the Graduate Diploma of Spiritual Direction through Tabor College in Adelaide.
David and Kerry Wirth
We live and work in the lovely country town of Gunnedah. We have three adult children, and enjoy being grandparents to our three precious grandchildren. We have been involved in many areas of pastoral care and ministry over the last couple of decades, mostly in a volunteer capacity as part of church life. We love to see God at work in His people. We spent three years studying together at SMBC between 2009 and 2011. After returning to Gunnedah, David spent a short time as a church leader in a small rural parish and was also a Generate Chaplain at a village public school in that parish for three years. Kerry currently works part time teaching mathematics at a local secondary school. It is a great privilege to be able to come alongside people and share in their journey with Christ, being involved with running and attending retreats has allowed us to do this more often.
Location
Retreat is half an hour from Gunnedah in North West NSW. Gunnedah is a 45 minutes drive from Tamworth (the closest airport to Retreat). When coming to a retreat, make sure you have everything you need as the shops are not close by!
Gunnedah