Five couples from our group made the trip to New Orleans for the Catholic Engaged Encounter National Convention. We had a great time together! Friday evening the convention kicked off with a talk by
Paul Ceasar and Darryl Ducote, from the liturgical group, the Dameans. We did a group rosary and had an awards ceremony. It was neat to see so many people from all over the world at the convention! We met friends from Singapore, Mexico and Canada! The next morning was mass and then a neat talk by
Tommy C, known for his char-grilled oysters. I love how the family of employees has breakfast together each morning. That's pretty neat! My favorite speaker was
Fr. Alello who talked about upping our prayer life. We broke out in smaller groups for the next few speakers. The Andersons and us listened to
Mike Gragin who gave a neat, hands-on presentation on using a groups strengths to better the program. Here is his handout to identify your strengths. After lunch, we heard
Fr. Palermo talk about keeping God at the center of our marriage. We had a District 3 meeting. We met friends from our region. Then, we had some hurricanes (and shots) to keep the conversation flowing! Later, we had a vow renewal and then a wedding reception. That was awesome!
On Sunday there were closing remarks. We learned the next National Convention will be in 2018 in Nebraska! We closed with a mass. We are so blessed to have such a committed ministry!
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| We just re-newed our vows- feeling all the love! |
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| Posing for pics! |
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| The Oehmans, Perezes, Andersons, Venturas and Bravos |
Let's not forget about our August weekend! We had 17 couples share a gorgeous weekend preparing for their marriages. The Yazdiyas came to shadow the weekend and will start writing their talks. The following weekend we had our monthly gathering and enrichment. We did a pizza party and had a great turn out. Our new friends the Hoggatts came and even signed up to do BTS for a future weekend. Yay!
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| The August Dream Team! Venturas (Mike was running errands), Bravos, Fr. Tom, Yazdiyas and Pendletons! |
