Back by popular demand….we have Matt & Belinda back for a second year with all new material.  So if you attended our Retreat last year, there’s no reason why we shouldn’t see you again!

Matt and Belinda run life and relationship workshops all over the country in a variety of contexts. They have been married for eighteen years and have two children, Jasper and Scarlett. 

Over 300,000 teenagers and young adults throughout New Zealand and Australia have been encouraged and equipped by Matt’s inspirational speaking. His style is entertaining, educational and personable.

With more than a decade of experience as a counsellor, Belinda brings a wealth of knowledge and experience in helping couples through a wide range of areas including trust and forgiveness issues; struggles around rejection, jealousy, infidelity and shame; depression, anxiety and addictions; past trauma; sexual struggles and more.
 

Justin is the Anglican Bishop of Wellington. However, he and Jenny are not your classic bishop and bishop’s wife. Justin hails from Lower Hutt, has dreadlocks, and enjoys walking around with bare feet.

He and Jenny founded Urban Vision, set up Ngatiawa River Monastery, have a life focus on serving those on the edges of society, and live in community. Over the past twenty years they have worked with both young people and adults, and in doing this have pioneered many different, very effective projects.

Jenny and Justin have three adult children who are passionate about Jesus and are all involved in youth or community work. Justin and Jenny have a beautiful ability to communicate the tools needed to thrive in marriage despite the pressures of ministry.  You don’t want to miss out on hearing their pearls of wisdom!
 

Kerran and Neville have been married thirty years and they have always lived by two very simple rules…

The first is that God brought them together so they need to honour the specialness of that and work hard at making their marriage work.

The second is that effective communication is the key to a successful marriage and they decided they would always talk, always ask questions and never ever go to sleep if an issue was not resolved.

They discovered that communication, like marriage, is a continual journey and it is a three-way conversation which includes God. They don’t see themselves as experts, they just see themselves as a couple that are willing to share what they have learnt and to be open about the good and the bad along the way. 

They have three adult children, one son-in-law and a daughter-in-law, who are all followers of Christ.
 

Matt and Angela Swank have been married for 12 years. Having arrived in New Zealand in 2010, they have officially spent more of their married life in New Zealand than anywhere else. Matt has been in ministry for over 20 years and Ang has been a school counsellor for over 15 years. They have a son Reuben and daughter Jael, along with a giant Great Dane Rapha who thinks he is a lap dog.

One of their great passions is studying the Life of Christ, and disciple making. Their life verse is 1 John 2:6 "Whoever claims to live in Him must walk as Jesus did". They believe this applies to all aspects of life even in their marriage.

They enjoy sharing their story and how God brought them together. They truly believe marriage is a gift from God, and that God can bring healing to any marriage even those that feel discouraged. They have both been trained as ‘Prepare and Enrich’ facilitators and enjoy encouraging others wherever they might be on this life journey.
 

Damon and Rachel have been married for eighteen years and they still like being married to each other!

Much of their married life has been dedicated to their three children and youth ministry. For them, one of the biggest privileges in ministry has been counselling and marrying couples that were once their students.

They think marriage is an essential building block to family and society. They are passionate about seeing love bind and last so they are Prepare-Enrich trained and will be at this Retreat to help others invest in their marriages.
 

Hope and Eugene are a married couple that are passionate about leading worship in a meaningful, uplifted and Christ-centred way.

They have been leading worship at various conferences and churches for the last four years and love creating space for God to speak.

They do their utmost to be attentive to God and go where he leads.

Outside of ministry they're both professional musicians having recently completed their BappA in commercial music.