marriage encounter seminar

jude surprised me one day with a news that we are going to attend a marriage encounter seminar as announced in our parish. it was a good news for me and was so happy that i even made it as a stat in my facebook since the initiative was coming from jude. :) i really wanted ever since that we attend a marriage seminar as like other married couples we also have issues on our married life that i thought would be best answered with the help of a counselor who will give an unbiased, objective, even bible-based words of wisdom. let's accept it, in this modern times traditions and norms dictate how married couples should go about their married life and the basic tenets are usually ignored or forgotten. though jude and i are far from having issues which can break our marriage we both thought that it would be nice if we will get reminded of our wedding vows and responsibilities as well as husband and wife. uhm, nope, it's not a chance to be away from the kids as we brought them with us, along with our househelp. :D

so there we were in heart of jesus and mary retreat house in tagaytay last 13-14 august 2011. funny that jude and i were not in good terms when we arrived in the lecture room on the first day of the seminar--saturday--and i felt uneasy with him embracing me as it was required while we introduced ourselves to the group (we found out later on that there's a lot of hugging and kissing involved in this seminar). it was because he was dawdling earlier that morning even if he knew the call time which caused us to be late for the seminar--and being late and making a grand entrance is one of my pet peeves!

the seminar was a series of lectures that is based on the teachings of the catholic church on marriage, sharing by couple-presenters, and exchange of love letters between the husbands and wives. the love letters were related to the lecture/topic and were written at the end to give the husbands and wives the chance to express to one another their feelings, and to seek for confirmation and understanding of their thoughts on different issues. this exercise  which i believe was the core of the seminar was  made to instill to the participants the healthy and lovingly form of communication. there were nine couples who participated out of more than a hundred couples invited to attend that weekend activity. it was already after the seminar that i learned that most were non-paying and only us and the other couple who volunteered to attend paid the two thousand pesos registration fee. no regrets... we took it as a good investment and since it also covered our board and lodging, we think the money was really worth spent.

overall we were happy with the outcome of the seminar. though i found some of the activities quite cheesy (sign of old age? hehe.) like the prom night where the wives where greeted by their husbands with a red rose and were asked to dance to the music of gary valenciano and raymond lauchengco. i was also so eager for the activities to end as the kids were waiting for us in one of the rooms in the basement were they were cooped so as not to bother us during the seminar. it was already 11 p.m. when jude and i sneaked out of the prom and i almost broke to tears when i saw the kids' eyes swollen from non-stop crying. hay, i really can't still leave them even for one night... :(

the seminar was continued the next day, sunday, and a mass was also held right after it. i thought we can still tour the kids around tagaytay after lunch which i promised iñigo but the whole activity already ended at 4 p.m. with a graduation ceremony, complete with videoke fest. the kids were already sent in and my problem this time was iñigo tugging me every now and then as he was already bored and wanted to leave the venue.

jude and i were also surprised that we were chosen as the coordinators for the next marriage encounter seminar which is slated on february 2012. i really had no plans of getting active in the community (heart of jesus and mary prayer community) that organized the marriage encounter seminar as i had experiences of joining a religious community before and its activities really demanded a lot of time. but God really has plans for our family and who are we to go against Him, right?