Altoona/Johnstown Faith Day with The Curve!

Hey Everyone,

We had the great pleasure of attending mass on a baseball field! The new bishop of the Altoona/Johnstown Diocese, Bishop Mark Bartchak celebrated mass on the field at the Blair County Ballpark Sunday July 10th. Read more at www.ajdiocese.org.  The mass was accompanied by Faith Day where we were able to setup a booth and spread the word about Worldwide Marriage Encounter along with other ministries.

 

 We even got to meet Bishop Mark and discuss how WWME can work with the diocese.

Prior to the Faith Day festivities, we had our team meeting hosted by Rick and Evie at their wonderful homestead.

Thanks to Rick and Evie for hosting a great day and for taking the lead in spreading the message of WWME in Altoona Johnstown!

The 4 Pillars of WWME

Hey everyone!

Did you know that each of the levels of WWME that we talked about in our last post are divided into 4 pillars. They are (in no particular order):

The Team Pillar, The Weekend Pillar, The Community Pillar, and The Structure Pillar. So what do all of these Pillars do?

The Team Pillar is basically the presenting team. The primary job of the presenting team is to present the weekends of course.
The presenting team writes the weekend talks using their personal experiences in hopes that through their sharing, they can help you have the best marriage possible. 
They are not trained counselors or therapists. They are regular people just like you that have real life joys and sorrows. 


The couples on our area presenting team are: 


Bob and Cyndy McGill, Greg and Lorraine Fischer, Rick and Evie Wess, Fred and Sally Thomas, Fr Don Trexler, Bill and Heather Kreke (thats us!) and the two new additions to the presenting team are Terry and Beth Gillis, and Jamie and Karen Guentner. 


WWME would not exist if it was not for all of the hard work that all of the people that volunteer their time for it. So to all of the past and present members of the presenting team, thank you for your love and dedication. 


Next time we'll be talking about our weekend pillar and all of the wonderful people who's "jobs" fall under that pillar. 

Love!

Bill n Heather


Onward to Glory

Did you know?

Hello All,

As promised (a while ago) here is the first f a series of Did You Know? blogs. These blogs are to provide you guys with a little more information about WWME.

Did you know that WWME is so much more than just the weekends and community gatherings that go on around here? It is a world wide organization that is made up of multiple levels? The levels of WWME are not a hierarchy like a business, they are all interdependent upon each other to function.

Local Area Level: That's us! We are made up of the areas covered by the Pittsburgh and Greensburg Dioceses as well as an outreach to the Altoona/Johnstown Diocese. The local level includes all of those involved in community and the couples who presented your weekend. We (Bill n Heather Kreke) are the local area leaders and we communicate with the presenting team, couples in our area, as well as with other area leaders, and to our section leaders.

Section Level: Our section is made up of PA, Western NY, South and Central Jersey, Delaware, and Maryland. Bill and I attend quarterly section meetings to share ideas and concerns with other areas. Our section leaders are Mark and Joyce Kulyk from Erie, PA.

The North American Secretariat: This is the U.S. and Canada put together. Mark and Joyce Kulyk also communicate with all of the other section leaders at quarterly national meetings.

The World Council: The World Council is made up of all of the Ecclesial teams from around the world, including Asia, Europe, Latin America, North America, Pacific, and Pan Africa. They are led by the International Ecclesial Team: Tony & Cathy Witczak and Fr. Emile Frische, MHM.

Prayers please for WWME in Africa

Dear Lovers,

Please see the note below from the Pan African Secretariat leaders regarding the upcoming weekend in the Democratic Republic of Congo. As you can see, the local area struggles to fund their weekends and with the lack of priests; but they are not giving up.  Please keep them in your prayers for a successful Weekend.

Dear Family,

Greetings from Africa! Congo (DRC) is planning a WE for July 22-24, 2011, (below, in French). It is the richest country in Africa and the country where the population is the poorest.

The cost of the WE in kinshasa is about the yearly salary of an ordinary worker. And they have been struggling with the lack of priests. They are not giving up; can we keep them in our prayers please?

With love

Michael, Francoise and Fr Joseph

PanAf Team

Love!

Bill n Heather

Permission...

Hi Everyone and Happy Wednesday!

We read a number of other blogs about healthy, happy marriage. In a recent post on The Generous Husband, Paul shares an observation that most people tend to wait for "permission" to do anything that is out of the ordinary.

Paul writes "Since we live in a culture where good marriages are scarce and great marriages are truly rare, it seems logical that some are waiting for permission to have a great marriage. Maybe it’s not as much permission as confirmation that it’s possible, or that they can do it."

On a WWME weekend, we are asked to live a radical lifestyle, one that would be considered strange to many others who see marriage as a restriction on their freedom or worse. Do you ever feel pressured to give into "spouse bashing" amongst your friends or coworkers? Do you ever feel pressure not to be the best marriage you can be?

Well, here's your permission.

You are now permitted to live an "impossible" marriage!

Love!

Bill n Heather

When it rains, it pours...

On this one beautiful sunny day after many many rainy dreary days, I am reminded of Steven Covey's The 7 Habits of Highly Effective People where he writes about the first, most foundational habit: Be Proactive. Being proactive is like carrying your own good weather with you wherever you go; think of it as "I don't let bad weather become my excuse for my bad mood".

What got me thinking today was that proactivity is hard work. With such a beautiful day, its easy to be in a good mood. On the flip side, Heather and I have also found that when the "weather" is particularly bad, its also easy to get sour quickly.

"Weather" can be anything around you; work, in-laws, the kids, school, you get the idea. When it rains, it pours... such a common cliche. There's truth in those words-but there's an out-ONLY IF WE LET IT!

When we're in a bad mood, things only seem worse than they really are. Trust these words! When negative feelings start to pour over you, embrace them for what they are-a natural response to a tough situation-and keep moving, the sun will come back!

Onward to Glory!

Bill loves Heather Kreke

WWME Flash Mob

Hello All!

WWME Flash Mobs seem to be getting more and more popular! We have been challenged by the WWME North American Weekend Pillar and our Section Leaders to draw even more attention to WWME by holding a WWME Flash Mob in the month of July!

What do you guys think? If you have ideas for locations, (Think somewhere with LOTS of people!) dates or what to do comment below!


Copy the links and paste them into your address bar to check out the WWME Flash Mobs

Singapore:

http://youtu.be/tdCOnlh9lUc

Florida:

http://youtu.be/UR7dicczNTg

By the way...Don't know what the North American Weekend Pillar is or who our Section Leaders are? We are going to be explaining those things in the next couple blog posts :)

Onward To Glory!

Love,
Heather and Bill