By Marie Powers

ATLANTA – Three local couples have formed an unusual triumvirate. Ken and Lynn Evans serve as the national executive team, Paul and Judy Gannon are Unit II coordinators, and Michael and Charla Haley are the diocesan coordinating team for the Atlanta Catholic Engaged Encounter (CEE).

An outgrowth of Marriage Encounter, CEE prepares engaged couples for a lifetime of loving and faithful commitment. The recent discernment of the Evanses, parishioners at St. John Neumann Parish in Lilburn, together with Father Gary Jacobsen of Portland, Ore., as the national executive team, marks the first time that the Atlanta Archdiocese is the seat of the national, regional and diocesan leadership of CEE.

Ken and Lynn Evans first became involved with CEE when they were asked to help start the Engaged Encounter ministry for the newly formed Metuchen, N.J. diocese. When they moved to Atlanta in 1984, the Evanses continued to work with the CEE community, serving as diocesan coordinators from 1986 through 1988, then as unit coordinators from 1991 through March of this year.

Paul and Judy Gannon became Unit II coordinators while serving as the local coordinating team. The Peachtree City couple, members of Holy Trinity Parish, is responsible for coordinating CEE activities in a five-state region that includes Tennessee, North and South Carolina, the Archdiocese of Birmingham and the Archdiocese of Atlanta.

The Haleys, also members of St. John Neumann, are the youngest members of the CEE leadership and the only couple who first experienced CEE while engaged. “After that weekend in May 1985, we were sure of two things,” Haley recalls. “We were each marrying the right person, and we had found the perfect ministry to get involved in after we were married.”

The Haleys share responsibility with Father John Kieran, pastor of St. Peter’s in LaGrange. He has worked with CEE in metro Atlanta for 12 years – four of those in a leadership capacity.

In 1979, four years after the CEE program received national recognition, the Atlanta archdiocese began its program with four couples. Last year, 504 couples attended a CEE weekend in Atlanta. On average, 27 couples attend each Atlanta CEE weekend, which now has a 10-week waiting list. The cost is $160, but a couple is never turned away because of finances.

“Engaged Encounter allows the couple to spend an entire weekend reflecting on their relationship without the distraction of other family members, jobs or wedding preparations,” Gannon says.

All three couples build time into their schedules to take part in several CEE weekends each year. “The presentations are witnessing experiences that prompt the engaged couples to examine their relationship, their upbringing and their commitment to the sacrament of marriage,” Mrs. Gannon explains.

“Engaged Encounter makes couples aware of events that could intervene in their marriage, and allows them to discuss where they will be when the dust settles,” Gannon says.

Each weekend is presented by a “junior” couple married fewer than 10 years, a “senior” couple married more than 10 years, and a priest. Additional couples are involved in putting each weekend together and priests are needed as presenters and substitutes in home parishes.

“If we had one wish for Atlanta, it would be that many couples who have experienced the weekend as engaged couples would decide to get involved with this ministry,” Mrs. Haley says.

For more information about CEE, contact Michael and Charla Haley at (404) 469-3390 or Father John Kieran at (706) 884-0445.