Women of Grace® Event Details
"Get Spirit Savvy!!" Young Women of Grace Retreat Day, Lafayette, Louisiana
Get Spirit Savvy!!
Young Women of Grace Retreat Day
Lafayette, Louisiana
Our Lady of Fatima Catholic Church
Presenters include:
Mary Dillenback
Susan P. Brinkmann, OCDS
Kathleen Beckman
Johnnette Williams
Father Chris Decker
A fun-filled day for girls
Interactive Hands-On Activities
Inspiring Speakers
Great Music
Mass
All speakers are safe-environment certified.
It is recommended, but not required, that girls have completed the Young Women of Grace: Embrace Your Femininity study.
Event Date/Time(s)
Event Information
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Event Speakers
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Kathleen Beckman
For twenty-five years, and in thirteen countries, Kathleen Beckman has served in the Church’s ministry of evangelization through Catholic radio and television, writing and speaking. Sophia Institute Press has published her last four books including the bestseller, “A Family Guide to Spiritual Warfare: Strategies for Deliverance and Healing”. At the invitation of clergy, Kathleen has served in the Church’s ministry of exorcism and deliverance for sixteen years. She was on faculty for the Pope Leo XIII Institute for six years, completed the Association of International Exorcists Course at the Pontifical Regina Apostolorum University in 2017, serves as the diocesan administrator of exorcism and deliverance ministry. A member of the exorcist’s team, she accompanies persons seeking liberation from evil spirits. In 2013, with encouragement of the Vatican’s Dicastery for the Clergy, she co-founded the Foundation of Prayer for Priests, an apostolate of intercession and sacrifice for the holiness and protection of priests. All are invited to spiritually adopt priests at www.foundationforpriests.org.
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Johnnette Benkovic Williams
Johnnette Benkovic Williams is Founder and President of Women of Grace®, a Catholic apostolate for women featuring a number of outreaches including conferences, media, study groups and more.
After years of being a non-practicing Catholic, Johnnette experienced a deep conversion back to her Catholic faith in 1981. Her conversion sparked a new vocation: sharing the Gospel message through the utilization of media. She has been an inspiring and consistent presence on EWTN Catholic radio and EWTN Catholic television for over 30 years. -
Father Chris Decker
Fr. Chris Decker is not just a technology evangelist he is one of the new evangelization pioneers. He is 37 years old has been a priest in the Diocese of Baton Rouge for twelve years. He began this mission of evangelization though new media well before the Church was popularizing it. In 1999, as a young seminarian, he cut his teeth at the diocesan owned Catholic Life Television as a creative consultant developing graphic art, motion graphics, designing websites, and even producing and hosting programming. One of his early successes was a show for youth called “FishNet” that ran on CatholicLife Television for several years. As a seminarian he and two of his fellow classmates, Joshua LeBlanc and Fr. Ryan Humphries, developed an online community for seminarians called CyberCatholics.com around the year 2000 before blogging was “a thing”. On this proto-blog, Fr. Decker wrote and drew a comic strip about a seminarian who visited famous bible passages and had adventures within the Scriptures. Some German Catholic readers found his work, began to translate it for their audience, and nicknamed his blog "part of the Catholic underground". Fr. Decker registered that name which later became the trademark of one of his most identi?able new media creations, the Catholic Underground podcast. It launched in 2006 during his diaconate internship and is still in production today at catholicunderground.com, on the radio, and nationwide on af?liates of CatholicTV and The Catholic Faith Network. In 2011, he and his podcasting co-hosts took all of this a step further by developing and hosting and a Catholic new media conference in Houston, TX called CatholiCon. He is also the Director of Mission for Catholic Community Radio, in Baton Rouge & New Orleans, LA. Fr. Decker sits on the board of directors for this apostolate that he also helped launch. Here he develops new programming and helps to reach beyond the radio waves into new forms of evangelization on the digital continent. Ordained a priest in 2007, he is presently the pastor of St Joseph Church in Grosse Tête, Louisiana; Immaculate Heart Church in Maringouin; and St Frances Xavier Cabrini Church in Livonia. In the summer of 2018, he walked the Camino de Santiago in Spain and prayed at many pilgrimage sites throughout Europe while on a four month spiritual sabbatical. He can be found online frequently sharing the Gospel of Jesus Christ on Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, and Instagram at the handle @digitalcatholic. He loves what he does, loves to teach others, and loves being a priest. -
Mary Dillenback
Mary Dillenback is co-developer of the Young Women of Grace Facilitator/Teacher Guide. She taught at the elementary school level for 26 years. During that time she developed curriculum, was a Lead Teacher for the National New Standard Project portfolio system and designed and conducted training for teachers. Her classroom teaching experience included Gifted and Talented, regular and inclusionary classroom settings. Mary serves as a facilitator for the Women of Grace Foundational Study and Regional Coordinator for New York State. She is a member of the Women of Grace Leadership Team and has helped train facilitators in several states. Mary co-chairs the Facilitator Growth and Development Task Force and serves as Regional Coordinator Liaison. She is a Third Order Carmelite, and lives on the St. Lawrence River in Fishers Landing, New York. She is married, has two sons and five grandsons.
