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| News - Convention Memories of our First National Convention James & Shaharriet Houchins
"Hooray"! All the months of anticipation ended on 7-7-05. We kissed Grandma and 8 of our nine children, called the ninth and prayed for safe travel. We left home and arrived eagerly at the airport like a bride & groom heading to get married. Our flight from Alaska left at 1:56 a.m. and after a 5 1/2 hour layover in Seattle, a plane change in Phoenix we arrived in Baltimore at 11:05 p.m. At the baggage claim we were greeted by Flavio Mendez, 1/2 of our Community Housing Host Couple holding a sign with our names and we were hard to miss in our matching ME T-shirts. After arriving at The Mendez home we met his wife Ailsa and daughter Lea and were given an entire bottom floor room complete with our own refrigerator and shower/toilet. A Welcome sign including Spanish adorned the wall. As we conversed an instant ME bond began to form and as always in ME we felt welcomed and at home. Only ME couples can enter the home of complete strangers and feel this love and comfort. Our feeling was like a baby wrapped tightly in a blanket held close to his Mother. The next morning the bonds of Marriage Encounter began to take form. We began by being picked up and treated to breakfast with our dear friends and former Snake River Encounter circle members Kevin & Barb Acker. After getting lost in Baltimore there was laughter and remembrance of ME Conventions and Camping trips from the past. Our feeling was like the MasterCard lost dog commercial with the ending line " Coming home ~ Priceless". We arrived at Towson University and in the parking lot we met a couple from our original MEWE location Austin, Texas in Section 10. It was like returning to our ME roots when we saw and hugged Raul & Dora Gonzales members of our very first circle. After Registration and Welcome dinner we began to see familiar faces that we bonded so deeply with in May on our DEEPER Weekend. Hugs from Paul & Wendy Stauffer, MD., Scott & Holly Oakes and children, MI, and Robert & Yvonne De Leon and children from TX. began the parade of states, ME style. We arrived in the Convention arena and chose seats for our Section 13 family and as time passed they began arriving. Some seen from far away, like dear friends Jack & Karen Baker in neon orange and fluorescent yellow safety eMatrimony vests. Couple by couple more of our family arrived; Rob & Heidi Martin and children, John & LaVonne Doherty and grandchildren, Ray & Marisa Mackin, Rory & Dawn Myers and children, Carrol & Kathleen Mitchell, Ken & Cheryl Nagel, Dan & Charlotte Ackerman, Tom & Kathy Dauer, and Lynn & Linda Shupe all filed in. As the convention opened we yelled with excitement like Lance Armstrong winning his 4th Tour de France when Section 13 Execs. Steve & Kathy Somnitz and sons, and Fr. John Rashford carried our section banner across the National stage. As all the excitement was going on more and more ME love surrounded us during the breaks. We began to run into and hug more members of our deeper family; Doug & Wendy Jorgensen, ME, Ralph & Julie Bostick, IL, Tom & Becky Dollman, AL, Sharon & John Cervino, PA, and Marc & Patty Nestorick, from CO. As we hugged and conversed we saw our Deeper Team "Surrogate Parents" Gene & Mary Leduc, CA, and Fr. Tom Griffith, MA. We felt exhilarated like a cool shower on a hot muggy day. Our exhilarated was like when our dear friends and National Ecclesial Team Bob & Joy Hernandez, and Fr. Chuck Kosanke hugged us as we rode the bus to Convention. The Convention air smelled like the best perfume and we felt giddy like two teenagers in love. The colorfully coordinated Section t-shirts shined like the lights of our Alaska Northern Lights. The love and romance was so thick we could imagine a big ME S’more. Wall to wall, bleacher to bleacher, full of couples and kids and priests sharing in dialogue made us feel liberated like animals released from capture into their natural habitat. Every presentation focused on the theme "In God We Trust" left us feeling accepted like a much-anticipated adopted child. Hearing or reading the presentations as well as the Masses in Spanish and Korean reminded us of the ME diverse culture but universal love. The testimony by the World Council Leadership Team was most touching. They shared how they had been together from ages 5 and 6 and that their love had been solidified in marriage for more than 32 years. This testament of "trusting in God" was at the heart of our convention theme. Trusting, God provided for them a love groomed from childhood. On the day they married, the priest that now serves in leadership with them celebrated 10 years as a priest. Dual anniversaries/dual leadership, that is truly "In God We Trust". Our Korean Lovers shared deeply of how our ME Movement changed them as a couple and that change spilled over to their children. The husband went from a stern, show no emotion Korean background to become a husband and father who opened up like the rose about his feelings. The change in him was so apparent his daughter’s teacher called the wife to ask "what has happened in your house"? That is a resounding "In God We Trust"! The Mass was the highlight for us. ME convention Masses are like celebrating a wedding at "High Mass". All these sacramental signs hand in hand, arm in arm receiving Jesus. Our priests, deacons, archbishops, and cardinals from all over the USA con-celebrating the Mass and in such a large number they filled the national stage turned altar. Upon the entrance hymn priests started waving "I Love You" signs and couples were shouting "We Love You" as if it were rippled and no one could stop. Our ME Movement was alive and truly a beacon. Our beacon of light inside the building we imagined was so illuminating that all the couples in Baltimore could see. We could even imagine them being pulled off the streets like a magnet to find out how they could feel and be a part of what we have. In conclusion, our first National ME Convention experience will remain with us always. We made new friends and found new common bonds. Even at the end of the Convention we had a Deeper Weekend Reunion party at the home of one of the couples parents. We helped one celebrate a Birthday and another a 23rd Wedding Anniversary complete with ME made cakes. The ME children will forever be influenced by what they witnessed from their parents, grandparents and ME family. The ripple effect will be felt for generations to come. Who knows, some of those same children one day will represent our future as ME couples or priests because after all we pray "In God We Trust"! James & Shaharriet Houchins Click here for a printable version (PDF, 81KB)
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