Suzanne Gorhau
Suzanne is a Presbyterian pastor, spiritual director, and retreat leader. She’s the pastor of Carson and Oakland Sharon Presbyterian Churches in Carson and Oakland, Iowa. During a sabbatical several years ago, besides learning the value of rest, she started playing with art supplies. She learned it’s possible for “non-artists” to pray through art. She is passionate about helping people connect with God.
Suzanne has been going on retreats since early in her pastoral career 20 years ago. The desire to “come away with God” probably started when she attended Calvin Crest Camp as a junior high student, and spent afternoon “Quiet Time” at the outdoor chapel by herself playing her flute. Recently, she’s scheduled a couple days away every month to read, nap, play with art supplies, and connect with God. She’s also discovered it’s best to leave her smartphone in the car when she’s there.
Suzanne is on the board of Marion Medical Mission, an organization that puts shallow wells in rural villages in Malawi, Tanzania, and Zambia, Africa. She’s traveled to Africa five times for short-term mission trips, starting in 2001.
Her dream is to buy a tiny house. She enjoys good coffee. She wants to walk the Wabash Trace Trail. She loves good photography. She is currently decluttering her house and her life. She has written 750 words every day for six years.
She is married to Frank and has two granddaughters, Abby and Maddy, with whom she loves to do arts and crafts. Her soul is fed by solitude.
Kathy Noble
Kathy has desired for years to go on retreats and started seeing that desire fulfilled beginning in 2015. Since then, she has attended and helped facilitate several retreats.
Kathy is the happy wife to Steve as well as a proud mother and grandmother. She is an ordained minister with the Assemblies of God and pastors Macedonia Assembly of God Church in rural southwest Iowa. She loves being an active part of her local rural community where she is a mentor to Promise Scholars in the Riverside School District.
Kathy lives on a small rural acreage where she loves to take walks, watch birds, breathe in nature, and garden. She is an avid reader. She journals and keeps commonplace books and has recently turned the use of her day planner into a contemplative practice — much to her creative delight.
Kathy is a book reviewer for Paraclete Press publishers. She is intrigued by creative ideas and seeing connections. She is currently investigating the concept of sacred space.
A five-year cancer survivor, Kathy has found that God has met her as she walks the cancer journey with Him and to her surprise, He has turned her life joyfully upside-down.
Kathy hopes to return to swimming which has been a joy of hers since she was a little girl. And lastly she loves all of her sweet cats.