Rachel's Vineyard Office Opens

Wednesday, 06 January 2010 15:20

LAKE CHARLES – Rachel’s Vineyard is a new ministry now being offered through the Office of Pro Life of the Diocese of Lake Charles, according to Kathy Owen, director of Pro Life. The program consists of weekend retreats to help men and women, whose lives have been affected by the pain of abortion, reconcile their painful post-abortive emotions. To learn more, e-mail This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it .org call  337-439-7426, Ext. 317 or go to the www.rachelsvineyard.org. Voice mails are retrieved by trained Rachel’s Vineyard team members, so please leave a message if you would like a return phone call. The next weekend retreat in the Diocese of Lake Charles is July 30-August 1, 2010 at the Saint Charles Center. Rachel's Vineyard is a safe place to renew, rebuild and redeem hearts broken by abortion. Weekend retreats offer a supportive, confidential and non-judgmental environment where women and men can express, release and reconcile painful post-abortive emotions to begin the process of restoration, renewal and healing. A Rachel's Vineyard weekend is a chance to get away from all the daily pressures of work and family and focus on this painful time in your life through a supportive and non-judgmental process. The time away provides an opportunity to deeply enter the grieving process and identify all the ways your abortion may have affected you. The program is an opportunity to examine your abortion experience, identify the ways that the loss has impacted you in the past and present, and helps to acknowledge any unresolved feelings that many individuals struggle with after abortion. Because of the emotional numbness and secrecy that often surrounds an abortion experience, conflicting emotions both during and after the event may remain unresolved. These buried feelings can surface later and may be symptoms of post abortion trauma. Rachel's Vineyard can help you find your inner voice. It can help you experience God's love and compassion on a profound level. It creates a place where men and women can share, often for the first time, their deepest feelings about abortion. You are allowed to dismantle troubling secrets in an environment of emotional and spiritual safety. Rachel's Vineyard is therapy for the soul. Participants, who have been trapped in anger toward themselves or others, experience forgiveness. Peace is found. Lives are restored. A sense of hope and meaning for the future is finally re-discovered. Married couples, mothers, fathers, grandparents and siblings of aborted children, as well as persons who have been involved in the abortion industry have come to Rachel's Vineyard in search of peace and inner healing. The weekend is a lot of work, but those who are willing to journey through their grief will experience the power of resurrection in their own lives. They will find meaning in what has happened and allow God to transform the experience into something that gives hope, liberation and peace. Rachel's Vineyard weekends for healing after abortion are offered throughout the year in locations across the United States and Canada, with additional sites in Portugal, Australia and New Zealand. Rachel’s Vineyard is a ministry of Priests for Life.