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Contact Details

Auckland Team:

Kelly  027 686 4416

Lynda 027 489 8003  

 

C/-  7/47 Shelly Beach Rd, St Marys Bay, 

Auckland 1011

 

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The Beginning Experience New Zealand is part of the world wide organisation, all working with the common goal of supporting those men, women and children suffering from grief due to divorce, separation and widowhood.

The Beginning Experience (R) Vision is

A hurting people, healed, transformed and free again to love themselves, others and God.

The Beginning Experience (R) Mission is

The purpose of the Beginning Experience ministry is to facilitate the grief resolution process for people who have suffered a loss through death, divorce or separation, thereby enabling them to again love themselves, others and God.

We accomplish the purpose by offering quality, copyrighted, grief resolution programmes presented by trained peer facilitators.  These programmes are designed to move grieving people through a transformational process to a new beginning in  their lives.

We believe that through resolving the grief of a significant loss:

  • Individuals participate in the death and resurrection of Christ as he lives in the world today;
  • that those working through this experience can effectively walk with others for whom the experience is new and hard;
  • and that the invitation to recover offers an opportunity for life transformation, and for freeing individuals to love self, others and God in new and deeper ways.

Adopted by the International Board of Directors, July 3, 2003

This weekend program helps grieving persons focus on their experience and emerge from the darkness of grief into the light of a new beginning. The program helps deal with the natural grief process and offers an opportunity for turning the pain of loss into an experience of positive growth. Founded by a Catholic nun and her lay friend, the programme is rooted in the Christian tradition, the ministry's open, inclusive spirit serves everyone.

In 1973, Sister Josephine Stewart, a family counsellor at the Catholic Renewal Center in Fort Worth, Texas and a divorced friend, Jo Lamia, attended a Marriage Encounter weekend with the intention of developing a program for engaged couples. In the course of the weekend, Ms. Lamia adapted the Marriage Encounter process to face issues and concerns in her own life that had never been addressed. At the close of the weekend, Sister Josephine saw a profound change occur in her friend.

They are impressed with our support

I had divorced and Beginning Experience sounded like a way to regain my self-image. I found just what I needed - the hope that I could recover and start my life again.
It had been two years since my husband's death. I saw a notice in my church bulletin and decided to try it. I needed healing and this was where I found it.
Three years after my husband's death, I thought I was coping pretty well. I was so wrong. Beginning Experience changed me into a much happier person.
As a widow of 7 years, I was skeptical about going to Beginning Experience. I felt no one would understand my pain. The weekend literally saved my life. I found the peace I so longed for.