Hello, I'm Rob Mellons. This is my wife Sherry, my son Josiah. We're the host family here
at Bethesda Renewal Center. Thank you for coming to visit our website. We invite you
to look around and check out the facilities we have, what we have to offer. As host family,
we live here full-time. We look after the grounds, the maintenance, the vacuuming, the laundry,
that kind of thing. But more than that, we're here to pray for people, with people, and they need
to make this place a home. Sherry adds her personal touches to make it very homey and
welcome. As host family, we enjoy preparing the place for our visitors and making it a place
that they feel welcome and comfortable and safe to come and rest and restore and renew their hearts
with God. Well, a host family is also responsible just for praying over the place, for praying for
the people who are coming to Bethesda for retreats, and just dedicating the whole facility to God.
We've seen people experience God on the trails, the beauty of God's creation in nature. We've
seen groups, some groups, that don't even go outside. They're here fasting and praying and
singing and worshiping the Lord here in the main meeting room. Some groups enjoy the grounds and
use the chapel. And as I've introduced my friends to the place, every time they've come here, at
least I've noticed, they just go out, they leave the place with an innocent peace, their chillax,
they're just happy enough. I've seen people arrive very weary and I've seen them leave with a peace
and hope in their heart to walk ahead. Bethesda is a great place for you to come for personal or
group retreat. We're just 15-20 minutes west of the city of Ottawa. We have a beautiful, warm living
room, a big fireplace and a 46-inch monitor on the wall you can plug your computers in for
power points. The couches are cozy. As you go into the kitchen, you'll find you have your own
fridge space. There's a couple of stoves so you can feed the, feed the troops and in the
intimate dining room, you can fellowship together over as you break through. As you go upstairs,
you'll find four bedrooms that are shared and a beautiful loft where there's a number of beds
for people to stay overnight. But we're so close to Ottawa that you can also come out and just
enjoy being part of activities through the day and get home within 15-20 minutes. As you go
outside, you'll find the trails. There's many, there's 80 acres and many kilometers of room trails
through the fields and through the forest mixed maple and cedar forests. There's a beautiful pond
where the young people have been enjoying skating recently. In the spring, we make maple syrup and
you can have the opportunity to be involved in that. In the summer, there's garden plots available
for people to participate in, in tilling God's good earth. And in the fall, the trails are just
gorgeous to walk on with maple leaves and full colors of the hand, the bugs being in less array.
And in the winter, we have snowshoeing and cross-country skiing available. Just enjoying the
beauty of God's creation. What I'd like to say to the people viewing this video is that Bethesda
is here. And we welcome you here and we'd like you to come and make this a place like a home for
you for the time that you come for a little retreat or a time just to walk in the woods
that you would have a quiet time away to be with the Lord. You're always welcome to come
out here and have a walk on the trails, just have some silent time with God, play some hockey if you
want, and just spend some time with us.
