"What exactly do people want in their personal life?" - We asked this question of men and women of all ages, and received unexpected but encouraging responses. The vast majority, namely 67% of the respondents, considered family life the most important thing. What do they mean by that? They describe it as being close to their spouse and having a good relationship with their children. Material things also played an important role. However, experience shows that achieving that kind of marriage is not easy at all, and happiness in marriage doesn't just happen. As a result people get discouraged and stop looking for solutions to their problems.

In order to find answers to the questions that trouble married people, Salvation Church of Poltava brought together eleven families for a marriage retreat on May 17-19 at the hotel Krotenkovsky. Let's start with the landscape: in this beautiful setting everything is surrounded by plants in bloom. In the morning birds of all kinds start singing, and the evening ends with the maestro - the nightingale. We enjoyed warm spring weather throughout the weekend of the marriage retreat, confirming its name - "Weekend in Paradise." The idea for ​​this event was the work of the ministers of Grace Church in Rivne. The pastor, Lubomir Turchak, helped organize the program and together with his wife conducted three seminars: "The Blessing of Love", "Friendship in Marriage" and "Spiritual Unity in Marriage." We enjoyed two full days of learning and reflection, giving many couples the chance to talk together, holding hands while walking the green paths. As often as not they were talking about what they heard in the workshops. Both evenings ended with a question and answer time where many frank questions were asked and equally frank answers were given (mostly by the Turchaks). During this dialogue we discussed all aspects of family life: intimate romantic relationships, ministry for the family as a whole, finances, parenting, and how to achieve transparency in relationships. With Lubomir's help everyone was able to find answers to their questions in the Bible. All the couples were strengthened by the truth and effectiveness of the teachings in the Bible, and were also inspired to act on God's principles for building a marriage. They understood that the prerequisite for God's blessing is humble submission to His Word.

To repeat everything that was said would require an entire book, not just an article. If you want to know what it was like, ask anyone who was there. And here's the good news - in October there will be a sequel!

Roman Zhuk