Doreen Penner

Speaking Topic: Revealing the Hidden Story of Your Heart

Doreen is a wife, Mom, entrepreneur, professional coach, speaker, and author.  She is a heart girl, always has been.  God called her to connect with the heart.  She’s had many years of experience listening at a deep level both as a counselor and as a coach.  Her passion is to help women do the “heartwork” that sets them free to live out the calling God placed in their lives. Doreen empowers Christian women leaders in business and ministry.  She speaks at women’s events, conferences, and retreats sharing insights she receives from the Lord.  Her words have been described as “chocolate mousse for the soul”.

Doreen holds a Masters Degree in counseling.  She teaches courses and workshops at local colleges and businesses.  She is the author of “Living Authentic Faith:  Vivid Impressions of the Heart” – a women’s daily devotional, and her soon to be released, “A Heart for the Harvest” Bible study book.  Doreen has been a featured guest on multiple Blogtalk Radio shows.  She resides in Manitoba, Canada.

Deborah Haddix

Speaking Topic: Dig Deeper: Engaging With the Word of God

Deborah Haddix is an author, speaker, and board certified advanced Christian life coach whose passion is to empower women to embrace God’s design for their life.  Deborah confesses that she struggled with journaling for many years unable to enjoy its benefits.  It was not until she became a grandmother that she discovered several ways to incorporate this valuable discipline into her new role.

In recent years, Deborah has embraced journaling as a spiritual practice as she has learned the joys of putting a creative spin on it.  The author of three journaling related books, her most recent,  Journaling for the Soul: Slow Down, Replenish, Exhale, is a journaling handbook packed full of methods, tips, and more for any journaler – novice to pro.  Two of her other titles, Praying with Purpose: Helping Equip Your Grandchildren to Stand Fast in the Faith and Soul Nourishment: Satisfying Our Deep Longing for God, share several creative journaling techniques within their pages.

Deborah also serves as a faculty member of the National Association of Christian Journal Writers, which is a community and resource center for Christian Journaling.

You can follow Deborah at deborahhaddix.com

Mari L. Mccarthy

Speaking Topic: Build a Life-Changing Journaling Power Practice

Mari L. McCarthy is the Founder and Chief Inspiration Officer of the Journaling Power community at Create Write Now, where she provides ideas, inspiration, and 20+ Self-Paced Journaling Courses for health conscious people who want to heal the issues in their tissues. She is the author of the best-selling self-help memoir, Journaling Power: How To Create the Happy, Healthy Life You Want to Live.

Mari’s mission is to introduce, inspire and encourage people in creating and keeping a daily pen to paper Journaling Practice that helps them heal, grow and transform their life from the inside out.

You can follow Mari at: createwritenow.com

Kathy Widenhouse

Speaking Topic: Journaling to Write Devotionals

Kathy Widenhouse is a freelance copywriter and content writer who specializes in writing for ministries, faith-based organizations, and nonprofits.  In addition, her 100+ articles have appeared in more than 40 periodicals and she has written 6 books.  Kathy spent 20 years as a flutist in “The President’s Own” United States Marine Band in Washington, D.C. before turning to writing full-time. Today, she invests time in helping entrepreneurs and ministries have great writing for their organizations.

You can follow Kathy at: nonprofitcopywriter.com

Susan Borgstrom

Speaking Topic: Creative Journaling in Nature

Susan Borgstrom has been coaching, counseling and ministering to women over 24 years. She helps Christian moms who struggle with work/life balance find peace, clarity & confidence. She equips them to own their identity, define their purpose, focus on creative, life-giving work and deepen their walk with God. Her mission is to inspire & equip Christian moms to be more fully present to God, their career and those they love without losing themselves in the process.

She has a Masters in Counseling from the Adler School of Professional Psychology, is an Associate Certified Coach with the International Coach Federation, & holds certifications in Art Therapy and Spiritual Formation. She is a Board Certified Christian Counselor with the American Association of Christian Counselors, and is also the Director of Awakening in Nature, a non-profit organization conducting personal growth retreats and workshops.

In addition to being blessed with a life-giving career, Susan has been married to her husband, Andrew, a serial entrepreneur, for 32 years. They have 2 wonderful daughters who are 20 and 22 years old. Outside of work, she loves to spend as much time outside as possible – especially biking, gardening and writing. Indoors, she enjoys reading, painting and creating mosaics.

You can follow Susan at: lifepathcoach.net & awakeninginnature.org

Kathy Butryn

Speaking Topic: How to Journal a Review of Your Day:  The Spiritual Discipline of Examine

With her signature warmth and practical application of God’s Word, Kathy is a mentor for your journey–inspiring and equipping you to pay attention to your everyday life.

Kathy frequently speaks at women’s events, conferences and retreats where she teaches women how to grow deeper in their devotional life and wisely manage their daily time and energy. She leads a mentoring-based ministry to women at the church she serves alongside her husband in pastoral ministry.

As a certified Life Coach and Adult Education and Learning Specialist in a global organization, Kathy understands well how the busyness of one day runs into the next, and before you know it, time has swiftly passed by without even noticing it.

Believing that how you live your days is how you live your life, Kathy determined to slow down at the end of each day to think about, and then journal, a review of her day. This simple practice has helped her pay attention to her daily life—and ultimately how she is living her life—as well as grow in discernment, wisdom and gratitude.

You can visit Kathy at her “home on the web” at kathybutryn.com

Colleen Hord M. ED.

Speaking Topic: Jesus, Mindfulness and Journaling

Colleen Hord, author, teacher, speaker, and coach and has a Master’s degree in Educational Leadership from the University of Portland. She’s held many roles in education during her career, including that of classroom teacher, instructional writing coach, administrator, and staff developer.

Colleen has written over twenty fiction and non-fiction books for children, as well as curriculum in a variety of subject areas. She teaches and presents workshops in areas of emotional intelligence, stress management, and the power of journaling. Colleen is also a certified instructor for Journal to the Self workshops.

Colleen is presently working on a book and curriculum on the mindfulness of Christ. In this work, she explains how Christ modeled mindfulness in his prayer life, in his purpose, and in his relationships.

You can follow Colleen via her Facebook page.

Rowena Curtis

Speaking Topic: Current Day Scribe; Taking Notes from the Master

Rowena Curtis, creator of the leather-bound Sojourner journal, began her business in spring of 2015. Sojourner sales quickly took off over Instagram, with orders coming in from France, London, Belgium, Australia, Serbia, Hong Kong, Singapore, Malaysia and the United States within the first few months. Since June of 2015, Rowena has been able to use a percentage of the funds raised from the Sojourner to help support mission workers both locally and in other countries around the world such as Ukraine, Albania and Turkey.

As an immigrant from the Philippines, Rowena arrived in the United States when she was 10 years old. She has experienced freedom and joy through keeping a journal and encourages others to pursue “documenting life as it happens.” Journal your daily thoughts, struggles, travels, moments and memories with a personal, handy (and really cute) handmade book: The Sojourner!

You can follow Rowena at: sojournerusa.net

Annetta Benjamin, MA, LPC, NCC

Speaking Topic: Five Hurts and Five Helpers Daily Journal

Annetta Benjamin was born and raised in Northern Virginia growing up in the cities of Fort Belvoir and Lorton. She attended Hayfield Secondary High School and continued on to obtain her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology and a Master’s degree in Pastoral Counseling both from Marymount University in Arlington, Virginia.

After completing her graduate degree, Ms. Benjamin went on to obtain her Clinical License as a Professional Counselor (LPC) and Certification as a National Counselor (NCC). She specializes in counseling children, adolescents, and young adults with behavior, academic, self-esteem, coping, communication, bereavement, eating, and anger issues. She also counsels adults, couples, and the elderly with spiritual, bereavement, communication, family, relationship, depression, self-esteem, body image, and anxiety concerns. Ms. Benjamin has been in private practice for seven years and has been able to develop into a group practice by adding seven therapist to her practice at Benjamin Counseling Center, LLC.

In addition, to being an individual and family Therapist, Ms. Benjamin is also a Clinical Supervisor for Resident In Counseling (RIC) therapists, who are Counselors, in the process of obtaining their state license as a professional counselor. Along with RICs, she currently supervises and manages undergraduate and graduate student interns, many of which have come from Marymount University. In the spring of 2014, she also taught a Child and Adolescent Psychopathology course for juniors and seniors at Marymount, as an adjunct Professor.

Regarding her personal and family life, Ms. Benjamin is grateful to be a mother of one to a young boy named Jayden. He is 9 years old and loves the sport of basketball, just like his mother. Jayden currently plays basketball on an AAU team in Prince William County, VA.

Ms. Benjamin, has been an avid journal writer since 2004. She first began documenting daily summaries with God in her senior year of college, which found to be calming and therapeutic. Since then she has become an advocate for journaling encouraging family, friends, and especially her clients to journal to help decompress and improve their thoughts. After years of journaling, Ms. Benjamin developed the concept of 5 Hurts 5 Helpers Daily Journaling Notebook, which she has implemented in her counseling practice.

You can follow Annetta at: benjamincounseling.com

Kathy Bornarth

Speaking Topic: How to Use Journaling With Your Counseling or Coaching Clients

Kathy is the founder and president of The National Association of Christian Journal Writers, Owner of Journaling4Faith and The Hope Counseling Center.

Since keeping her first journal as a teen, she’s experienced the fun and the benefits of recording my thoughts and feelings. As an adult, she’s come to recognize that journaling is more than an enjoyable past time, but offers spiritual and physical benefits as well.

You can follow Kathy at: nacjw.com