The Kirkwood Community was responsible for set-up for the December 2019 Marriage Encounter Weekend.
What a lot of help we had from our community as well as nearby community members who served as greeters and prayer couples! We celebrated 12 encountered couples, and two couples who have joined our community. Many thanks to Theresa & John Ebeling, who worked behind-the-scenes to guide us newbies through the process of set-up.
We are Anne & Paul Loida and we have been the coordinating couple for the Kirkwood Community since August. After many years of leadership by the Ebelings, our community has now begun use of a holy bowl to determine yearly leadership. Last year, Ray & Lisa Rodriguez led our community while we stayed “on deck” learning and assisting them. This year we have been assisted by Tom & Mary Hastings. I believe we have another couple on deck to assist Mary & Tom for the next term. What has helped continuity for our community has been a Kirkwood Community Google account that assists us in maintaining a Google Drive with our contact list and communications.
Paul & I were encountered in February 2007, so as a gift to ourselves for our upcoming 30th anniversary as well as a commitment to our community we have signed up for next month’s February 7-9 weekend. We have attended St. Peter Parish in Kirkwood since 1996. We have three sons – mostly grown, and we are recent empty-nesters. We credit Marriage Encounter with allowing us to smoothly adjust to our new empty nest.
The Kirkwood Community generally meets the first or second Friday of each month. “Put God first and your marriage second, on the second Friday of the month” is our theme for this year. From the Ebeling’s strong years of leadership we have a “come when you can” mentality for our community members. Our members come from as far as House Springs (Riekes) and Quincy (Bolls). Of course, most of us reside in or near Kirkwood. We’re meeting on Friday, January 10, this month at the Rodriguez house with the Bisches as presenters. We will be putting together a Date Night basket for our St. Peter Parish Auction with wines, a restaurant gift certificate, some info about ME with a coupon, and of course dialogue questions. We will not meet in February but hope to see some of our community members at the February 15 dance at St. Elizabeth of Hungary.
Submitted by Bill & Kathy Thurnau Gateway Encounter