Amy and Tim Lemke attended their first Worldwide Marriage Encounter weekend in February 2017. Tim said he was “one of those guys who was hesitant to go.” “But by the end of the weekend, I was really into it, and I got a lot out of it,” he said. “And glad I was one of those husbands that was dragged along for the ride.”
The Lemkes are now part of the Twin Cities and Northern Minnesota Worldwide Marriage Encounter Ecclesial Team. Both recently joined “Practicing Catholic” radio show host Patrick Conley for an episode airing at 9 p.m. Sept. 19 to describe their experience with the program.
Tim and Amy Lemke
Amy said the experience offers benefits to couples struggling in their marriage as well as those just looking to improve it.
That first weekend, Tim said, he thought the experience would involve “being lectured to.” “But there’s a lot of time that you spend together with your spouse that I didn’t really expect,” he said. “And something I got out of the weekend was the communication tools that they teach you throughout the weekend — (that) really forces you to listen and describe your own feelings with your spouse in a way that I’ve never done before.”
Amy admits to being hesitant that first time, too, but that she and Tim were excited to attend. “We knew we wanted to bring faith more to our relationship,” she said. “And it was the same thing that Tim said — the time together, and communication tools in a marriage and then, obviously, bringing faith into it — there’s no going back.”
While only a couple days long, she called the experience “life-changing.” She and her husband walked away with big smiles after the weekend, she said.
The weekend begins Friday evening with prayers and “just connecting with the first talk on Friday night,” Amy said. Saturday and Sunday include Mass and a series of talks. After each talk, couples reconnect, she said.
“You’re really just enhancing the communication to better the relationship,” Amy said.
Amy described the gift of dialoguing received through Marriage Encounter within her relationship almost like “being more on a rock” — that steadiness of sharing feelings and going forward in any project, she said, even a house project or buying a car.
Tim said the benefits to his marriage include improved communication in measures of both amount and quality — and the sense of community built with other couples. “After you attend a weekend, there’s communities all over the Twin Cities of married couples that have been ‘encountered’ and continue to get together, typically once a month or so,” he said. “And you get to know those couples very well and a lot of great friendships have come from that, also.”
To learn more about the purpose of Marriage Encounter and to hear the full interview, listen to this episode of the “Practicing Catholic” radio show. It also airs at 1 p.m. Sept 18 and 2 p.m. Sept. 19 on Relevant Radio 1330 AM.
The ministry also has a website, with information and registration for upcoming sessions at wwme.org. Amy said an “Engaged Encounter” is available for people preparing to be married.
Produced by Relevant Radio and the Archdiocese of St. Paul and Minneapolis, the latest show also includes interviews with Msgr. Jason Gray from the Diocese of Peoria, who describes the canonization process for sainthood, and Will Jude from Reiser Relief, who gives a firsthand report of the devastating impact of a recent earthquake and tropical storm in Haiti, and what the faithful can do to help.
Listen to all of the interviews after they have aired at:
soundcloud.com/PracticingCatholic
tinyurl.com/PracticingCatholic (Spotify)
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