A ministry that offers comfort, hope and encouragement to mothers who have suffered the loss of a child is coming to the Flathead Valley in September for a “Journey of the Heart” conference.

Umbrella Ministries will offer its first-ever Montana conference Sept. 5-7 at the Best Western Plus Flathead Lake Inn near Somers. The nondenominational ministry provides a place for mothers to work through the grieving process and talk about their children through care and share groups that strive to turn their losses into a ministry of helping others, according to Umbrella Ministries Co-founder Donna Luke of Whitefish.

Workshops and speakers share insights on grief and offer input on how mothers can cope with their loss.

“At the conference, the moms are able to give and receive comfort from one another and it is a time of sharing, caring, bonding and the making of lasting friendships,” Luke said.

One of the guest speakers is Jennie Lusko, the wife of Fresh Life Church Pastor Levi Lusko. The Luskos’ 5-year-old daughter Lenya, died shortly before Christmas 2012 of a severe asthma attack.

Conference leaders help mothers of all ages remember and celebrate their children through a candlelight program and a balloon release.

“It is such a blessing to watch moms leave Sunday with a smile and full of hope after coming in Friday night with no hope,” Luke said.

Umbrella Ministries was founded in 1996. 

Since then more than 3,000 mothers have attended annual conferences. Each year two conferences are held — one on the East Coast and the other on the West Coast. The Montana conference is a new addition to the ministry.

Luke said she met Umbrella Ministries Founder Daisy Catchings-Shader when she was living in California and helped produce a journal Catchings-Shader had written to her only child, who died suddenly of a heart attack.

“I’d bought a book-binding machine and I said I’d love to put her journal in book format,” Luke said. “We started sharing the book and kept getting responses.”

Catchings-Shader at that point already was an inspirational and motivational speaker, and the idea for Umbrella Ministries came together as the two women jotted notes on a napkin while sharing a meal.

Umbrella Ministries has no paid staff. The ministry is perpetuated, Luke said, as mothers go back home and often start support groups and put on conferences in their communities.

To enable the nonprofit ministry to present the Montana conference, the Best Western Plus Flathead Lake Inn has given Umbrella Ministries special room rates. “They’ve been incredible,” Luke said.

Flathead Valley knitters are making prayer shawls for each of the participants.

Umbrella Ministries has received thousands of cards and letters over the past 18 years from mothers who have participated in “Journey of the Heart” conferences.

One woman wrote that the “light bulb went on when I heard a mother say out loud that she no longer wanted to live after the loss of her son.

“I gasped, because she said what I have been thinking for the past 13 months and hearing it made me realize that I was looking at her as if she was my mirror ... later I had a wonderful conversation with this mother at the end of the conference. Thank God and thank all of you, neither of us felt that desperate or self-destructive any longer,” she wrote.

For more information about the upcoming retreat, contact Luke at (406) 212-5891 or register online at www.umbrellaministries.org.

Features editor Lynnette Hintze may be reached at 758-4421 or by email at lhintze@dailyinterlake.com.