HOW IS YOUR DIALOGUE?

At first this seems like a rather personal question. We have been asked this question many times and the answer varies from "Awesome" to "Boy I wish you hadn't asked us that!". The truth is, we are glad when someone asks us because they care about us and know the power dialogue has in a marriage. Many people think that the couples who attend Sharing Circles are the "perfect ones". They must be the couples who dialogue every day and go to every WWME convention and have perfect marriages right? WRONG!

A Sharing Circle is simply a monthly opportunity to spend time with other couples who are also trying to live the dream. They too are struggling on a daily basis to fit in dialogue in between soccer games, dance recitals, BBQs, vacation, work travel, ill family members, etc.

This is why, even when we haven't dialogued since the last Sharing Circle, we go anyway. Marriage is a process and no one ever arrives at perfection! A Sharing Circle is our monthly opportunity to get refreshed and rejuvenated and reinforce our commitment to God, each other and our community.

 

Why not make today the day you recommit to dialoguing?  We have even made friendly bets with fellow WWME couples to see who can dialogue for the most consecutive days!  Here are some tips and guidelines for dialoguing including how to describe feelings, a list of feeling words, and a giant list of questions you could use.

 

FAMILY BOWLING EVENT

Our last bowling event in January was a big success so we are doing it again!  Join us for an afternoon of family fun on Sunday, August 14, 2011 from 12:00p-2:00p (gather at 11:30am) at Brunswick Zone Bowling Alley, 1400 Route 36, in Hazlet, NJ.

The price is $14.00 per person (six people per lane) and includes 2 hours of bowling, bowling shoe rental, 1 pizza pie and 1 pitcher of soda per lane.   Facilities also include snack bar, arcade, bar and pro shop.  There will also be a 50/50 raffle. Please feel free to invite anyone you know including friends, family, neighbors, etc.!  RSVP to Tricia and Dan Zichello at 732-566-7177 or Tzichello@gmail.com by August 1st.  Proceeds will benefit WWME.

Applebee's WWME Fundraiser!

Join us on May 26th at Applebees!  The closest participating Applebees to Monmouth/Ocean is in Manalapan.  We will be having dinner there at 8pm on May 26th if anyone wants to join us. 

 Please let us know if you will be there to support Marriage Encounter!  Contact Tricia and Dan at Tzichello@gmail.com.  Remember, you must print the flyer and bring it with you to get the credit for the donation!

LIVING IN LOVE - MARRIED COUPLE RETREAT

Retreat for married couples, Session 1 of 2, Saturday, 8:00 am to 9:00 pm and Sunday, 7:30 am to 3:30 pm, held at St. Veronica Parish in Howell, New Jersey.    Living in Love consists of a series of lively presentations followed by questions for reflection and discussion that allow couples to explore the topics in complete privacy.  There is no group discussion or counseling.  Couples will attend 7:30 am Mass together on Sunday morning.  All workshop materials and meals are provided, including a romantic candlelight dinner on Saturday evening.  Please register online from this secure site.  Registration fee is $125 per couple. Click here for more info.

DATE NIGHT IDEAS!

All-You-Can-Eat Filet Mignon Dinner and Comedy ShowDate:05/13/11
Venue: Sacred Heart Church , 531 Washington Avenue, South Amboy, NJ 08879
Cost/Time: $35.00/per person / 6:30 PM - 10:00 PM / BYOB
Old Bridge/Sayreville Rotary third annual benefit with cold antipasta, sliced beef tenderloin served on thin french baguette, penne in tomato basil sauce, french fries, ice cream cake, soda, coffee and tea; proceeds to support disabled veterans from the Afghanistan and Iraq wars
Event Contacts:
Glenn 732-921-1468, Jeff 732-921-1466

Elvis and Sinatra ShowSt. Bernadette's
20 Villanova Road
Parlin, NJ 08859
Knights of Columbus are sponsoring an Elvis & Sinatra Show on Saturday, May 21, in Lourdes center at 6:30 pm - 10:30 pm. Tickets are $30 and include a buffet dinner, beer, wine, soda, coffee, tea and cake. Call George at 732 525 9373 or Ed at 732 727 0685 for tickets.
Please let Columbia and Roy Emilio know if you will be attending either of these events as they expect to attend both. 732-290-0667

THE LANGUAGES OF LOVE

Sunday, April 17th from 1:30pm - 5pm in Bay Head, NJ.   A workshop for Catholic married couples adapted from Dr. Gary Chapman's book, The Five Love Languages.  $10 per couple There is still time to register! Please click here for more information.

SAVE THE DATE: WWME APPLEBEES FUNDRAISER

"Dear friends,
We have secured the date for the AppleBee's Dining to Donate fundraiser event. It will be on Thursday May 26th, 2011. Additional details will be sent in the near future, but for the time being, please mark your calendars and reserve the date. We look forward to a successful fundraiser.
Love,
Cesar & Neri Brea
Financial couple"

WWW.GOODSEARCH.COM

What if Worldwide Marriage Encounter - Central NJ earned a donation every time you searched the Internet? Or how about if a percentage of every purchase you made online went to support our cause? Well, now it can! 

GoodSearch.com is a new Yahoo-powered search engine that donates half its advertising revenue, about a penny per search, to the charities its users designate. Use it just as you would any search engine (like Google or Yahoo), get quality search results from Yahoo, and watch the donations add up! 

GoodShop.com is a new online shopping mall which donates up to 30 percent of each purchase to your favorite cause! Hundreds of great stores including Amazon, Target, Gap, Best Buy, eBay, Macy's and Barnes & Noble have teamed up with GoodShop and every time you place an order, you'll be supporting your favorite cause. 

And if you download the GoodSearch – Worldwide Marriage Encounter - Central NJ toolbar, our cause will earn money every time you shop and search online - even if you forget to go to GoodShop or GoodSearch first! Add the Worldwide Marriage Encounter - Central NJ toolbar at http://www.goodsearch.com/toolbar/worldwide-marriage-encounter-central-nj

Ask a Priest to Make a WWME Weekend!

We borrowed this post from www.wwme.org.  Many people forget that priests are a vital part of a Marriage Encounter Weekend.  Have you asked your priest to make a weekend? Don't forget that he deserves one too!

Why should priests and religious attend a Weekend?

The primary benefit for priests and religious who attend a weekend, is a better understanding of Family Life Ministries within their parishes/churches. Furthermore, there is a very high correlation of couples who attend a Weekend, and later become actively involved in their parish communities. This is primarily due to a better understanding for their Sacrament of Holy Matrimony.
Those attending a Marriage Encounter weekend learn not only about the sacrament of Matrimony, but also learn of the sacrament of Holy Orders. Collectively the Sacraments at the Service of Communion... or union (Catechism of the Catholic Church, ch. 3, Pt. 2). The weekend in all reality is focused on the integral relationship of both sacraments, their similarities, and their collective benefit to the Church and our Catholic community.

Compound these intrinsic benefits with statistical success... the divorce rate in the United States today is 52%. The divorce rate among couples who have attended a Marriage Encounter Weekend is less than 2% nationwide.

We have a dream that all Priests and other religious in our diocese experience a Weekend. These individuals subsequently recognize that couples and clergy who attend a weekend have a deeper understanding and appreciation of themselves, their spouse (or community if religious), and their relationship with God. Our goal is to have more Priests and religious attend the weekend, to appreciate their ministry, and perhaps find new ways to help assist married couples in their parishes.

PULPIT TALKS

One of the most effective ways to get the message out about WWME is through Pulpit Talks.  These are usually 3-5 minute talks presented by an encountered couple just before the final blessing at a mass.  Then the couple stands at the entrance to the church with our flyers and tri-folds to answer questions of any parishioners who may come up to them after Mass.

How can you help spread the word about Marriage Encounter?  

• Talk to your pastor and ask if he would be willing to have pulpit talks at your parish.  Then let your deanery reps know and they will contact the couple who organizes the Pulpit Talks
• Be a "Pulpiteer".  You and your spouse can be the couple that presents a Pulpit Talk.  There are outlines to follow and you can practice by having another more experienced couple review your talk.  Any encountered  couple can do this!
• Hand out tri-folds.  If you aren't ready to speak in front of the whole parish, help the Pulpiteers by handing out flyers after mass and answering the questions of people who come by.

All you really need to do is be the loving couple you are and your couple light will shine through.  

"Do not ask the Lord to guide your footsteps. if you are not willing to move your feet."

COMING SOON: APPLEBEES DINING TO DONATE!

A MESSAGE FROM OUR FINANCIAL COUPLE

Dear WWME Friends,

As financial couple for Central NJ one of our goals is to raise funds so that we can better afford bringing the blessing of the weekend to more couples. Here is one of these events to raise funds. AppleBee's has a program where they donate 10% of money spent on the restaurant to a charity organization like WWME. How it works is that we (Cesar&Neri) will provide them a list of restaurants where we want to participate and a date, then they send us a flyer by email, we distribute the flyer to everyone (encountered or not, all friends, families, co-workers), and folks just need to print the flyer and bring it when they go eat on the specified date, and AppleBee's then will send us a check for the amount raised.

Attached is a list of AppleBee's restaurants in Central NJ. To get started, please reply to us at cesarandneri@verizon.net letting us know if you are interested in participating and which restaurant is the closest Applebee's to you. If the closest Applebee's is not listed here, just let us know the approximate address so we can add them as well (they are all listed at the AppleBee’s website). We will then pick a date several months out to give us adequate time to give this wide publicity, and then we start sharing the flyer with friends, families, co-workers. The only thing not allowed is to have folks giving out flyers outside the restaurant the day of the event.

We willl take care of setting it up, and will inform everyone of the date. Thank you, and we hope you are encouraged to participate in this fund raising event for our wwme. Please let us know 1) if interested and 2) the restaurant near you.
With love,
Cesar & Neri Brea

cesarandneri@verizon.net

MARRIAGE... LAUGHTER EVER AFTER

Rosemarie Poverman , a Licensed Clinical Social Worker, will inspire you with her high energy , light hearted humor –based message.  

Do you need some tools to help you with stress management, problem solving & communication ?  Rosemarie takes a wonderfully useful and funny approach to it all, teaching HUMOR SKILLS as self empowerment skills.  You will leave with a renewed sense of energy & creativity in your relationship.

For additional questions or more information : Mary Mykityshyn 732 739-0924 or redcoach@comcast.net.  Light desserts will be served.

WORLD MARRIAGE DAY LUNCHEON 2011

We had a wonderful time at the World Marriage Day luncheon in Point Pleasant.  There were so many encountered couples there, we barely fit in the picture!  For a slideshow, click on the picture to the right.

Another Reason To Wear Your Marriage Encounter Jewelry!

I got on the elevator today in the parking garage already thinking about the work I needed to accomplish today.  A woman I knew from another department got on the elevator and commented about my Marriage Encounter pin.   I had worn it for Valentine's Day.  I explained about the symbolism of the heart, two wedding rings and cross and told her a little about Marriage Encounter.   By the end of the elevator ride, I promised to send her the website and an application.  

I was so excited when she called me the next day to say that she and her husband were planning to attend our next weekend in April  And it was all because I happened to be wearing my WWME pin that morning!  You never know when the opportunity for inviting may pop up!

GIFTS FROM THE HEART

Interested in purchasing WWME items like jewelry and prayer couple candles?  Visit www.wwmegifts.com. While you are there, check out Gifts From The Heart promotional items as well.  If you have any questions, you may email us at gifts@wwmegifts.com or call them at 615-876-2102.