March 19-21, 2027

Weekend SCHEDULE

Join Sally for a powerful weekend designed exclusively for women in the military—active duty, guard, reserve, and veterans. The retreat will be held at Camp Manitowa in Benton, Illinois. This unforgettable retreat offers connection, discovery, laughter, and well-deserved relaxation. It’s a chance to recharge, reflect, and celebrate the strength and sisterhood of military women in a supportive and inspiring space.

Friday:
4:00-5:00pm - Arrive and get settled in your yurt or cabin
5:30pm – Gather for a rundown of the weekend events,
ice breaker, meet our facilitators, & set intentions for the weekend
6:00pm – Dinner - the food will be amazing

Bonfire fun after dinner

Saturday:
7:00 – Coffee & light breakfast available and option to walk or jog around the lake or hike camp trails

Note: you are welcome to make coffee/tea in the office anytime
8:00-8:45am – Yoga for all levels

8:45-9:10am – Guided meditation with Sally

9:15am - Esmeralda (Esme) Aharon - It Stops with Us

10:45am - BRUNCH & Break

Afternoon Options:

12:00pm - Chaplain Alexis King - Moral Injury
1:30pm - Ropes Course (weather dependent) or arts & crafts
3:00pm - Values presentation with Eva Henry
4:00pm - Pleasant Hollow Winery excursion on the camp bus or stay at camp for arts and crafts
6:00pm - Dinner
7:00pm - Peer Support group to process moral injury around the campfire

Sunday Options:
7:00am - Coffee and light breakfast available in the kitchen + walk or run around the lake and chat with Esme and Alexis
8:00-9:00am - Yoga for all levels

9:00-9:30am – Guided meditation with Sally

9:30am - Facilitator break out sessions (could be sitting, hiking, kayaking!)

11:00am - BRUNCH, Circle of Sharing, & Goodbyes

During the entire camp, you can pick and choose what you will attend. Curate your weekend!
Take all the free time that you want!
Sleep late, have a friend grab you breakfast!

What to bring:

Bedding & pillows
Towels for shower
Headlamp or flashlight
Sunscreen
Throw or blanket for the bonfire/meals
Ear plugs
A variety of clothing/hats for weather changes
Hiking boots if you want to explore, shower shoes, comfy shoes for camp
Swimsuit if you want to cold plunge :)

Lodging:

Wonderful Yurts and heated cabins. You can request a small cabin or yurt all to yourself with an upcharge.

Our Facilitators:

Sally Drake, Retreat Creator

Sally is the owner and Race Director of MSE (Multi-Sport Experience) Racing and produces quality endurance events including triathlons and running races in the Greater St. Louis area and Illinois. She is also a USAT Level II Triathlon Coach, coaching triathletes of all levels from newbie to elite, with a passion for helping them achieve or exceed their goals. Along with producing races, Sally has created a collection of retreats designed for women. The retreats give women an opportunity to find themselves again, to try new adventures, and to build powerful connections.

Esmeralda Aharon

Esmeralda Aharon is a combat veteran, international bestselling author, educator, and builder of belonging whose leadership reflects resilience, faith, and social justice. Born in Brownsville, Texas, and raised as a migrant farmworker, she learned perseverance and compassion early, values that continue to shape her mission of empowering others to rise.

After the loss of her son, Esmeralda transformed grief into purpose, serving 26 years in the United States Air Force Chaplain Corps, providing interfaith spiritual care and intercultural leadership, fostering hope and unity among service members in high-stress environments. As a senior enlisted leader, she advised commanders on ethical decision-making, religious accommodation, and mission readiness, helping shape inclusive, values-based leadership across commands and beyond.

Her distinguished service earned multiple awards, including theSpirit of the Four Chaplains Award (2012), President’s Volunteer Service Award (2014), Senior Noncommissioned Officer of the Year (2016), and a nomination for the LATINA Style Distinguished Military Service Award (2017).

A sought-after speaker and retreat facilitator, Esmeralda has delivered keynotes and workshops for the HQ Air Mobility Command Chaplain’s Conferences, leadership retreats, veterans’ panels, and galas, sharing messages of hope, resilience, and belonging that inspire transformation.

Air Force Reserve Chaplain, Major Alexis King

Air Force Reserve Chaplain, Major Alexis King, first encountered the impact of Moral Injury and PTSD as the daughter of a Viet Nam combat veteran who served as an Army aviator. Her experiences in childhood helped fuel her passion for psycho-social, emotional, and mental health advocacy throughout her ministry career. She’s a Lutheran chaplain and mother to two 15 year-old twins who are her greatest joys along with serving her fellow Veterans.

In addition to her military service, Alexis is a civilian hospice chaplain. Before she became a pastor, Alexis was a prior-enlisted airman. After she graduated college, Alexis became a logistics line officer and after seminary became a chaplain.

Chaplain King’s more recent pursuits include earning healing practitioner certifications and completing an advanced national-level certification in trauma-informed moral injury care that allows her to lead moral injury groups in-person and online plus train others to do likewise. She also became an international bestselling author when she contributed to a well-acclaimed book called Amigas Rising, a compilation of stories that highlight the lives and struggles of women and how they lift others as they rise from the ashes. That book launched in 2025 and is available per request.

Chaplain King’s leadership reflects her desire for authentic connection to God, creation, and other human beings. Her personal spiritual care praxis involves grace-based reflection along with prayer, spiritual healing, and faith-based ritual practice and facilitation.

Chaplain King is also deeply devoted to pursuing justice and reconciliation in the community as a genuine way to embrace real freedom in thought, word, and deed. She believes her dedication to these pursuits began at a young age as a first-generation immigrant to the US.

Alexis was born in Germany, immigrating with her mother to the States as an infant. Here, she learned the value of freedom and its many possibilities early in life. These are key values that continue to shape her mission of empowering others to rise from the despair caused by moral injury and abuse alongside the promise of healing into a new life of hope and grace after trauma.

Chaplain King believes that one key component of this kind of healing from moral injury and abuse of all kinds means being devoted to the holistic care of military and veteran families, not just the service member or veteran. She realized the importance of this part of successful resilience after she experienced its absence while serving in a combat zone during the early days of Operation IRAQI FREEDOM.

When serving as a logistics officer on active duty during September 11th she had to cope with the impact of the attacks on our country in multiple ways, to include how to chart a course for what her future in uniform could like in the new world that emerged from the events of that day.

Alexis deployed to the Middle East in 2003 and returned home to support her dying mother. She started to wrestle with acute moral injury while trying to heal from her wartime experiences and handling her mother’s healthcare at the same time. Her moral wounds deepened over time when trying to cope with multi-faceted stress caused by embracing so much personal responsibility and military duties with little to no external community help and a dwindling interpersonal support system.

Taken together, Alexis sensed a call to her vocation as a pastor and chaplain in 2003, gearing to give others what she never had. She embraced God’s call to ministry by entering seminary in 2005. She joined the Air Force Chaplain Candidate program in 2007 and served local Lutheran congregations in children and youth ministries, visiting people in their homes and hospital and serving at a base every year until being ordained as a pastor and chaplain through the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America in 2015.

Chaplain King has continued serving for a total of 28 years in uniform. In that capacity, she facilitates interfaith spiritual care and provides ecumenical leadership to projects and programs that enhance airman and family wellness at Scott AFB in IL. One of her favorite parts of Air Force chaplaincy is overseeing and facilitating team support of total force spiritual fitness, advising leadership on ethical, moral and morale issues, supporting members with their Religious Accommodation Requests and fostering hope and resiliency among service members and their families dealing with high-stress and transitional environments.

Chaplain Alexis has facilitated moral injury training with active duty and total force components, chaplain corps team members, and her Veterans Affairs colleagues. She strives to support her Veteran sisters and brothers on their healing journey and advocates for more wellness resources to be provided to her community.