United Family International held its XIV Annual Convention on February 27 and 28 at the Centro de Encuentros Santa María de Chipinque, in Monterrey. The convention was attended by site directors, collaborators, priests legionaries of Christ & consecrated members of Regnum Christi from different cities in Mexico, such as Saltillo, Chihuahua, Monclova, Monterrey, Irapuato, Oaxaca, Tuxtla Gutiérrez, Delicias, Cd. Obregón, Piedras Negras, Hermosillo, Cancún and Mérida, as well as from abroad: El Salvador, Costa Rica and Brownsville, Tx.
The United Family International team prepared a welcome dinner for the participants on the previous Wednesday. Galo Gonzalez, LC, local director of San Pedro, N.L. The first speaker was Marcia Gomez, who is a consultant and trainer for the Gottman Institute's Certification Program, a specialist in Couples Therapy of the Gottman Method, sharing what the research reflects to protect love in marriage.
After lunch, Veronica Reynoso led a forum on successful practices, guiding a lectio divina The report helped to shed light on the path followed in the apostolate, and at the same time served to support the branches in their future work projection.
Afterwards, Absalón Treviño, from the marketing team at the international office, presented the vision for 2025 in the digital area. He mentioned the importance of having a successful presence in social networks and the support that the venues will be receiving from the office for the design of their events and the management of social networks.
Afterwards, Dr. Armando Duarte gave a talk on how to avoid techno-addiction, based on his book on the same subject. And to close the day, Fr. Galo González LC, spoke about the importance of accompanying young couples, and in a previous instance, the importance of personal decision making in young people was addressed, given by Fr. Choices.
The day ended with a dinner and very enjoyable integration activities for the attendees.
Alberto Leal, LC, territorial delegate of the Northern Zone, and followed the first block of the day with speakers invited to share their experience on topics of love, sexuality and affectivity. Luz Teresa Miranda, a consecrated member of Regnum Christi, gave a talk on “You can also learn to love”, followed by María Judith Turriaga with her talk “Creativity and science at the service of affective-sexual education: 12 sciences involved in love”. She was followed by Noita D'escrivan sharing the approach to affective-sexual education in the network of schools, and how the group of experts fromI teach real love. He shared the talk he gives to young people: Love vs. Sex: keys to deal with adolescents.
After lunch, the international director, Diana Villarreal de Fernandez shared interesting data about the needs of the families and the need for all the headquarters to join efforts to complement each other and form a solid apostolate at the international level, her talk was entitled: “Your headquarters builds a great united family”. Finally, Samia Karime led an exercise entitled “Building the Way” where everyone was involved in renewing the mission and vision of the apostolate.
