Description:
In this episode of Catholic Education Matters, host Troy Van Vliet sits down with Marnie Wynans, a devoted Catholic wife, mother of five boys, grandmother of five, doula, and co-founder of the annual Catholic Women’s Retreat on Quadra Island. Marnie shares her deeply personal journey through infertility, miscarriage, and the challenges of building a family, explaining how these difficult experiences strengthened her faith, deepened her trust in God’s providence, and inspired her involvement in the pro-life movement. She discusses her vocation as a doula, accompanying mothers and families through pregnancy, childbirth, and postpartum life with compassion, practical support, and a servant’s heart rooted in her Catholic faith. Marnie also reflects on the power of prayer, the importance of authentic Catholic friendships, and how a desire to build community led her to establish a women’s retreat that has grown into a thriving annual gathering focused on spiritual renewal, fellowship, Eucharistic adoration, and deepening relationships with Christ. Throughout the conversation, Marnie shares how God can bring tremendous good out of life’s most difficult moments and encourages families to embrace faith, the dignity of life, motherhood, and the beauty of living in service to others.
If you are interested in our school, make sure to check out our website:
🌐 https://www.sjp2academy.com/
Follow us on social media:
📸 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sjp2academy/
📘 Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sjp2academy
🐦 X (formerly Twitter): https://x.com/SJPIIAcademy
Chapters:
00:00 Intro
02:17 Marnie’s Catholic Upbringing, Marriage & Family Life
04:12 Overcoming Infertility, Miscarriage & Trusting God’s Plan
10:19 Choosing Life: How Personal Loss Inspired Her Pro-Life Mission
14:28 The Calling of a Catholic Doula: Supporting Mothers Through Birth
18:38 Bringing Faith, Prayer & God’s Presence Into Childbirth
26:24 Building a Catholic Women’s Retreat & Creating a Sisterhood of Faith
30:04 Spiritual Renewal, Eucharistic Adoration & Making Retreats Accessible to All
37:17 Catholic Education Begins at Home: Schooling, Homeschooling & Faith Formation
39:38 Raising Five Children in the Catholic Faith Through Family Prayer
42:24 Building Strong Catholic Communities Through Education & Homeschool Partnerships
44:09 The Importance of Blending Homeschooling, Catholic Schools & Extracurricular Activities
46:10 Outro
Transcript:
[00:00:01] Intro: Welcome to Catholic Education Matters, the podcast that celebrates the beauty of Catholic education, highlighting excellence in academics, athletics, and the transformative power of faith. Join us as we share the stories of those making a lasting impact on Catholic education. Let’s begin.
[00:00:26] Troy Van Vliet: Good day, everyone and welcome to Catholic Education Matters. My name is Troy Van Vliet and I’m here today with Marnie Wynans.
[00:00:31] Good Dutch name, Marnie.
[00:00:32] Marnie Wynans: That’s the in laws. Yes.
[00:00:34] Troy Van Vliet: That’s the in laws. Alright. Yep. Hey. I’m gonna read…
[00:00:37] I’ve got a biography here, a short one, I’m gonna read it out just to give our audience here a little bit of background before we get into it. Great. All right. So first of all, Marnie is a devoted Catholic wife and mother of five boys. Congratulations.
[00:00:53] Whose life has been shaped by deep faith, perseverance and trust in God’s providence. Her journey has included infertility, miscarriage, you wouldn’t know that by five kids, homes homeschooling and raising a large family rooted in prayer and sacramental life. Through both Catholic school and homeschooling experiences, she has developed a thoughtful and balanced perspective on the formation of children in body, mind and soul. Marni serves faithfully within her parish community and offers her gifts generously wherever she is called. Her compassion and steady faith are especially evident in her vocation as a doula, where she accompanies mothers and families through the sacred moments of pregnancy and birth.
[00:01:40] Her work reflects a deep reverence for the dignity of life and the beauty of motherhood. She’s also a co founder of the beloved Catholic Women’s Retreat held annually on Quadra Island since 2018, an expression of her passion for fostering authentic Catholic community, spiritual renewal and accompaniment among women. Marni’s story is one of sacrifice, courage and joyful fidelity to Christ and his church. We believe her voice will be a blessing to our listeners and to families who need encouragement and hope.
[00:02:17] Marnie Wynans: Wow.
[00:02:18] Troy Van Vliet: There you go. You’re quite the person. We can end it right there. Amazing. Great to meet you, Marni.
[00:02:25] Nice to you. Thank you for making the trip over from the island. My pleasure. To come and join us here in Catholic Education Matters. Yeah.
[00:02:31] So where do we start? Tell us a little bit about your background, if you would. Let’s say you grew up on the island. Yes. And grew
[00:02:38] Marnie Wynans: up in Victoria.
[00:02:39] Troy Van Vliet: Let’s go from there.
[00:02:40] Marnie Wynans: Victoria. Yeah. Went to Catholic high school. Well, actually, went to St. Andrews all the way through.
[00:02:46] It was elementary school and high school. Right. So I was…
[00:02:48] Troy Van Vliet: Is it still that way? Is it all the way?
[00:02:50] Marnie Wynans: There is no more elementary school. No. So there is still the Catholic high school. It’s the only Catholic high school in the Victoria Diocese. So yeah, that was my growing up
[00:03:02] Troy Van Vliet: in Victoria. There are other elementary schools. Yes. All right. So there’s feeders that still
[00:03:05] Marnie Wynans: come in.
[00:03:06] Troy Van Vliet: Yes. Exactly. Got it.
[00:03:07] Marnie Wynans: And met my husband, while I was at our Diocesan Youth Conference. He brought his youth group down from Port Alberni and
[00:03:20] Troy Van Vliet: that’s kind
[00:03:22] Marnie Wynans: of how it all started. Me going to be married and live in Port Alberni. So we’re going on our thirty sixth anniversary.
[00:03:31] Troy Van Vliet: Congratulations. It was good for you.
[00:03:33] Marnie Wynans: So it’s been Port Alberni for thirty six years.
[00:03:36] Troy Van Vliet: Port Alberni for thirty six years. Well, been there. Haven’t spent a ton of time there, but beautiful part of the world. Like, oh my goodness.
[00:03:43] Marnie Wynans: Yeah, we love it.
[00:03:44] Troy Van Vliet: Every time you travel a little bit through British Columbia or the island or the interior and you just go, I can’t believe where we live. This is…
[00:03:52] Marnie Wynans: Sproat Lake is our gem and we’re blessed to live out there.
[00:03:55] Troy Van Vliet: So you live right on the lake, do you?
[00:03:59] Marnie Wynans: Across the street.
[00:03:59] Troy Van Vliet: Across the street? Good for you. We stayed at the… My wife and I and our kids, we went to Sproat Lake to stay at the
[00:04:05] Marnie Wynans: Kings Cabin.
[00:04:05] Troy Van Vliet: Nice. Just up
[00:04:07] Marnie Wynans: the street from me.
[00:04:07] Troy Van Vliet: Okay. So we’ve been great in your neighborhood. Exactly. All right.
[00:04:11] Marnie Wynans: So that’s home.
[00:04:12] Troy Van Vliet: Yes. And of course, it’s through the Kings family that Holly introduced us to you. So that’s great. So now you got married thirty six years ago and you went on to have five Eventually,
[00:04:25] Marnie Wynans: yes. Really had hoped to start a family right away and it just wasn’t happening. And going into probably around our third year of trying and realizing that we needed some help, so we started going to see an infertility specialist and that kind of, with assistance, got me pregnant, but then I wasn’t able to sustain the pregnancies. So… Oh.
[00:04:51] Yeah. So we lost three babies in the first three… Well, by the time we got going, it was six years before we were able to finally have our oldest son, Nathaniel. Oh, good year. He just turned 29.
[00:05:06] Wow. There you go. Yeah. Then Good for you. Everything seemed good.
[00:05:10] We went on to have three more kids and everything was doing great. Thought we would just slide right into number five. But in 2008, I lost two Oh. In the same year. Oh.
[00:05:22] So that was really confusing and hard because we thought that kind of side of things was over. Yeah. And then with a lot of prayer and miracles, we conceived our fifth. Oh, wow. And he just turned 16.
[00:05:34] Troy Van Vliet: And he just turned 16. My goodness.
[00:05:36] Marnie Wynans: So they came. It just took a lot. Yeah.
[00:05:40] Troy Van Vliet: My brother’s got five boys too. My dad comes from 10 boys. Oh my gosh. Yeah. Ten ten brothers.
[00:05:47] Marnie Wynans: God bless your
[00:05:47] Troy Van Vliet: mother. Yes. Nope. No. His mother.
[00:05:50] Yeah. Yeah. It’s his mother. Yeah. Yeah.
[00:05:52] Yeah. That’s, that’s a rarity that you have that many of the same gender all the way through.
[00:05:57] Marnie Wynans: Yeah, that was pretty
[00:05:58] Troy Van Vliet: great though. So can I ask, can we pry a little bit? What changed after your first son, Nathaniel, was born and then things were going great? Was it natural from there? Didn’t have to get any help of any kind?
[00:06:13] Marnie Wynans: No, everything was smooth sailing, great pregnancies, great births. Yeah. Yeah, just who knows?
[00:06:20] Troy Van Vliet: So what do you, what would you say to young couples that are struggling with this now? Because it’s actually, it’s gone up a lot.
[00:06:31] Marnie Wynans: Yeah, it’s hard. And I know them. I know many of them and I empathize so much, but it’s so hard. It’s almost… I don’t want to sound pious platitudes, you know, of just keep praying, you know, it’ll happen.
[00:06:49] We really didn’t know if it would. So we prayed a lot. We surrendered a lot. It actually was something that actually… Because God makes things good through anything, it was actually my faith that became what it is now because of those hard times.
[00:07:12] Really? So to look back, I know he was working on me through those. He took something that was so important to me and, you know, really brought me to my knees. So I just pray for those those couples. I I I I don’t wanna say it’ll happen eventually because we don’t know.
[00:07:30] Yeah. But when it does, it’s it’s a miracle and they’re all miracles. And we’ve learned a lot on the different saints that pray for us, Saint Gianna, Saint Gerard, you know, Mary, of course, but there are many saints out there that are that are praying for us. So, yeah, we just lean on all of them.
[00:07:52] Troy Van Vliet: Wow. Yeah. That’s incredible. I’ll ask you this, did you in those really tough times, you were and your husband, were you talking about adoption
[00:08:03] Marnie Wynans: or Yes, anything like we finally that was hard. It took a time because, you know, there’s a sense of when you choose your spouse, you think that you dream and what will our children look like and I want my children to be like my husband. And and so that was something we had to really learn to let go of because we realized that that’s not why we wanted to have children Yeah. You know, in the end. So we actually did go through the whole home study process.
[00:08:31] We had the meetings and everything and God just took that surrender and didn’t have to.
[00:08:43] Troy Van Vliet: So during that time that you were considering adoption, were also still kept trying and then it just happened.
[00:08:52] Marnie Wynans: Yeah. And it’s one of those stories where I found out I was pregnant, didn’t tell them because I couldn’t say if it was going to make it or not. But it was with Nathaniel. So I finally had to tell the social worker that they can take us off the list now. Yeah.
[00:09:08] Troy Van Vliet: Well, God bless you and your family and congratulations. I know he’s 29, but still I’m saying congratulations
[00:09:15] Marnie Wynans: today. You.
[00:09:16] Troy Van Vliet: It’s start of an incredible life. Good for you. My niece adopted and from a wonderful little boy out of The U. S. Actually, she lives here in Countess and then her and her husband, they had a natural baby soon thereafter.
[00:09:34] So they’ve got their little family and they’re doing great. So two boys. So the adoption side of things, actually really familiar with too. And my wife was adopted.
[00:09:44] Marnie Wynans: Great.
[00:09:45] Troy Van Vliet: And I’m I’m always very grateful because, you know, especially today with the number one cause of death in Canada being abortion, have somebody given up for adoption is rare now. Having a baby gift, yeah, it’s a true gift. It’s sad, but the incredible things when you say yes to life instead of saying no, the incredible things that happen. So first of met my wife and then we’ve got two girls.
[00:10:18] Marnie Wynans: Exactly.
[00:10:19] Troy Van Vliet: And I’ve told this story many times, but I’ll torture our listeners, our viewers here again, but my youngest daughter has down syndrome and we had her at BC Women’s and we were all but encouraged to have an abortion all the way past six months. We were, you know, it was never an option for Our faith and our beliefs, we were just like, no, what are you talking about? No. And stop even talking to us about it. And, but because we said yes to life, to this incredible little girl, that’s done so many things, she’s touched so many lives, not just our immediate family, extended family and friends.
[00:11:04] And out of that spawned my own desire to give my girls a new Catholic high school to go to. So St. John Paul II Academy wouldn’t exist had we not said yes to life and had my wife’s mom not said yes to life. Like it just goes on and on and on and there’s just so many people saying no to life and it’s just, it’s sad and I take every opportunity to say yes to life and incredible things will happen, you know? So anyway…
[00:11:37] Marnie Wynans: Actually, one of my miscarriages really pushed me to get really involved in the pro life movement. It was one of those… You know, like I I was always very pro life and grew up in a very pro life home. But because I was so passionate about it, I would get really emotional and didn’t wanna talk about it. And I would skip out of the debates at school because I didn’t wanna Oh, I yeah.
[00:11:58] Didn’t wanna hear about anybody else’s opinions. But after our second one that we lost, we named Michael, he was fully formed, fully developed, twelve weeks in my hand. And it was a moment of I have to speak out. Yeah. So next thing you know, I’m president of pro life in Port Alberni and running the crisis pregnancy line.
[00:12:22] Oh god.
[00:12:22] Troy Van Vliet: Bless you for doing that.
[00:12:24] Marnie Wynans: But again, he takes something horrible and turns something good into it. Absolutely. It was… Yeah.
[00:12:34] Troy Van Vliet: That’s so… Such a shift. I love stories like that. I had the privilege of speaking at the Martial Life last You did? I did.
[00:12:41] Marnie Wynans: Oh, I
[00:12:41] Troy Van Vliet: was there. Oh, really? Oh, okay. Well, you don’t remember me apparently.
[00:12:45] Marnie Wynans: was doing this. You
[00:12:46] Troy Van Vliet: weren’t paying attention, Marty.
[00:12:48] Marnie Wynans: That’s awesome.
[00:12:49] Troy Van Vliet: I was up there with my daughter, Annika. Yeah, we were talking, we gave a nice speech and I always have a hard time keeping my composure when I’m talking about these things because it’s so, it is emotional for me as well. And to have that school built and up and operating now, you know, we started back in 2017. Well, we’ve been working on it long before that, but it’s been a thirteen year journey. And, know, what it’s come to, like, it’s been so fruitful and to see how many lives it’s going be touching and not just today, but over the next one hundred years.
[00:13:26] There’s going to be, you know, tens Exactly. Of thousands of kids that You know, you can send out negative ripples into the world, you know, through sin. They say, you know, no matter what, when you sin, it causes this ripple effect and it goes and it goes and it goes and the same thing for good. And we see that with that school, you know, when I see kids in there and students in there and they’re getting educated and it’s very Catholic, we’re very devout of and faith at the to see that my heart’s full. Yeah, like a proud papa.
[00:14:02] Yeah, yeah. Well, just, yeah, you know, how many lives are going to be touched from it? It’s amazing. We’re sending out student, pardon me, servant leaders into the world that go from, that graduate from our school. You know, it’s like, okay, go and do good.
[00:14:19] Awesome. Be great contributors. So back to you though. You’re also a doula. Yeah.
[00:14:28] Three years ago.
[00:14:29] Marnie Wynans: Yeah. Going on three years this next month. And that was a passion of mine from probably after my second, actually, sure, after my second birth. Just so many things that I wished had happened that didn’t. And it just was always a little seed in the back of my head that one day I would love to do this.
[00:14:52] And every time I would hear somebody’s birth story, would always have, if I had been there, I could have helped or I would have told you to do this or whatever. So finally, after my children were old enough that I could leave them in the middle of the night and nobody would really notice if I wasn’t there, I was pushed into doing it to finally just take the leap because I made up excuses all the time of why I shouldn’t do it. So I finally didn’t have any more excuses and it’s been amazing.
[00:15:20] Troy Van Vliet: And we were talking before we started the podcast that in three years you’ve had like every month.
[00:15:27] Marnie Wynans: If there’s an average of three a month. Yeah, it could, it could be. I mean, we’re definitely up in the over 50. Yeah. So that’s pretty cool.
[00:15:36] Troy Van Vliet: Wow. That’s amazing. What advantages are there like of having you, somebody like you or a doula, like rather than just popping into the hospital saying, I’m here and you have a stranger.
[00:15:51] Marnie Wynans: So I tell the clients that I work with that I’m not their friend, I’m not their mom, there a specific role that includes both of those things because they invite us into their most intimate moment. And so there needs to be a level of trust. They need to like me and want me there. And… But it’s not something that continues forever, you know?
[00:16:15] Like we don’t… Yeah.
[00:16:16] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:16:16] Marnie Wynans: Like I love to get… You know, we’ll get pictures of the babies, you know, first birthdays and things like that. But there’s at some point…
[00:16:22] Troy Van Vliet: It’s like, you gotta cut the cord.
[00:16:24] Marnie Wynans: Yeah. So, you know, they’ll always be a part of
[00:16:26] Troy Van Vliet: –… Fully intended.
[00:16:27] Marnie Wynans: Of each… Will be part of their life, but it’s not something that we continue on in a relationship. Yeah. So we’re there for the for the… Through the pregnancy to support them.
[00:16:38] But really, it’s, you know, it’s interesting. Mary was a doula to Elizabeth. Ugh. And if you think about it, what was she doing when she went to Elizabeth and stayed there for three months in Elizabeth’s sixth month? Yeah.
[00:16:51] She stayed for the birth of John the Baptist and assisted her. And so I bring that into my work with Mary
[00:17:00] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:17:00] Marnie Wynans: And with Mary’s servant heart to just be there to accompany these women along this very often difficult but sacred time.
[00:17:10] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. So… Amazing. You have to share a story, something. Something that either went something…
[00:17:20] Give us something emotional. Give us something that that how you feel like you’ve really made a difference or…
[00:17:26] Marnie Wynans: So my favorites are when we have Christian couples that want us in the room. I say us because I have a partner who I work with and she’s also a beautiful Christian and we work… We take turns. So we work together with the women and then whosoever God chooses, we really do pray about who he wants us, which one of us to go with this couple. But this one that I was with was very specific.
[00:17:49] They had had a traumatic birth before this one. They had really high hopes for something really wonderful.
[00:17:55] Troy Van Vliet: Mhmm.
[00:17:55] Marnie Wynans: And as things started to kind of go a little sideways, we were able to just ask everybody to leave and we stopped and we prayed. And between the husband and this mother and I, we prayed together and we gave everything to God and we asked him to be with us in our decision making and with the doctors and with the nurses and it was beautiful. We were… All three of us were crying and ended up becoming… It was a beautiful moment.
[00:18:21] Yeah. Baby, she got everything she wanted with that baby. So so… And then we gave glory to God after. So those are my favorite ones when we can really ask God, you know, we can’t do that with everyone, but when we have permission to do that and we bring them into it, it’s really special.
[00:18:38] Troy Van Vliet: Is that something like in your practice that you would ask earlier early on? So…
[00:18:45] Marnie Wynans: Yeah. So the name… And it’s interesting because something with a name like Culture of Life, it doesn’t specifically call it Christian, but there is… If you’ve heard those terms before, it’s, you know, it can have an undertone. But we always do ask if they have any spiritual desires or wishes.
[00:19:03] And oftentimes, they’re looking for Christian doulas if we… You know, they find us through friends or recommendations. So we are able to sort of have that privilege. Is
[00:19:17] Troy Van Vliet: there a percentage, do you think, that are Christian that you get to work with? I
[00:19:23] Marnie Wynans: would say it’s It’s not. Probably a third. Yeah.
[00:19:29] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Well, that’s great. Well, that makes it that much more special when you can share in that regard.
[00:19:34] Marnie Wynans: Yeah. It’s very nice.
[00:19:35] Troy Van Vliet: My goodness. So your partner, longtime friend or…
[00:19:41] Marnie Wynans: No, God put us together really. Was just very serendipitous just through someone else we know. Actually it was through my women’s retreat speaking to her mother-in-law. She was at the retreat. She said, You should meet my daughter -in-law, she’s a Christian and she’s a doula and we went and we had a coffee and we were just like kindred spirits and we just held hands and prayed and said let’s do this together.
[00:20:05] Yeah, is. He’s definitely with us and he gives us… We always look back on the birth and we know that it was me that was meant to be there, her, just for our different gifts.
[00:20:15] Troy Van Vliet: Wow. Yeah. The journey to become a doula, I have no idea. Like what do you have to do
[00:20:25] Marnie Wynans: It’s for so interesting. I was thinking about that. I took a weekend course, but the learning came as soon as I got out of there and got my hands and my sleeves rolled up and got in there. I have learned more by doing than by sitting in a classroom.
[00:20:40] Troy Van Vliet: Right. Yeah. So, and what do you do?
[00:20:43] Marnie Wynans: Like what… So, yeah, just… We’re like the emotional support person. We’re not doing anything medical. We don’t give medical advice, but we provide just that confidence.
[00:20:59] We give them the education, we prepare and then when we do accompany them, we’re there to support the father, make sure that he’s well taken care of. Oftentimes it’s mostly him that I’m spending more time with because sometimes the woman is doing her thing and poor dad doesn’t really know what to do. So I will give him a job or I’ll go get him food or coffee. It’s really just a servant. It is an absolute servant to them.
[00:21:26] And then of course we’re recommending different positions or something to help them be more comfortable, working with the nurses if it’s in a hospital and yeah, right through to the beautiful moment and beyond. We have them for six weeks for all the postpartum support and feeding and all that stuff that comes after.
[00:21:45] Troy Van Vliet: So you get to do the whole all the way through. And well, another, I guess another question, how early do you start working with these?
[00:21:55] Marnie Wynans: Of them find us right away because they want that doula. They think, you know, like if we book up, they want to make sure they have a doula. We will get contacts right away. Like as soon as they find out
[00:22:06] Troy Van Vliet: in But six weeks,
[00:22:08] Marnie Wynans: we don’t necessarily start working with them until the third trimester. They will book us. We meet. They make sure they like us. Obviously, we have to be a good fit.
[00:22:17] And then and then once, yeah, into the second or the end of the second trimester into the third is when we start really educating, building relationship. Again, I don’t want to just walk into a delivery room without, you know, really knowing them and we do, we bond. We bond before we get there.
[00:22:39] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, I’m sure. And I’m sure they must have a level of comfort knowing that you’re a mother of five.
[00:22:46] Marnie Wynans: Yes, They do love that. And it is interesting because some of them, you know, they just say, I just… You you remind me of my mom or something, you know, and so there is that kind of… Like an emotional My experience and wisdom, they they lean on. They appreciate that.
[00:23:02] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Okay. You could do
[00:23:04] Marnie Wynans: this.
[00:23:04] Troy Van Vliet: And because
[00:23:05] Marnie Wynans: I didn’t have daughters, it’s kind of a nice treat for me because I get to be in delivery rooms with women
[00:23:11] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:23:11] Marnie Wynans: And that I wouldn’t have necessarily got to. So it’s really selfish on me. Okay.
[00:23:16] Troy Van Vliet: All right. That’s great. Back to your boys for a second, because I forgot to ask this and I didn’t want to… What are they all doing? Where are they all at?
[00:23:28] I got a 29 year old and I think I got a 16 year old and there’s three Yeah, in
[00:23:33] Marnie Wynans: they’re all doing amazing. So my oldest is a firefighter and she’s…
[00:23:37] Troy Van Vliet: All on the island?
[00:23:38] Marnie Wynans: Yeah. He’s in Nanaimo and he lives in the Cowichan Valley with his three kids and his wife. And yeah, so that’s amazing.
[00:23:47] Troy Van Vliet: So you’re a grandmother too.
[00:23:48] Marnie Wynans: I have five grandchildren.
[00:23:49] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, congratulations.
[00:23:51] Marnie Wynans: And my second lives in Victoria with his wife and two kids.
[00:23:54] Troy Van Vliet: And
[00:23:56] Marnie Wynans: there… They have the youngest, the three year old and a one year old. So, sorry. He’s not one yet. Oh.
[00:24:02] Troy Van Vliet: He’s not
[00:24:02] Marnie Wynans: one yet. Oh, he seems like he’s I know. He’s nine months. And that’s special. His name is Michael, which is really a beautiful tribute to our Michael.
[00:24:13] So that’s very special. Yeah. So… Yeah. So…
[00:24:18] And my son works in sheet metal trades there and supports his family in Victoria. And my third is going to Vancouver Island University and he’s taking recreation and leisure. I’m probably gonna get it wrong, but it’s it’s like a hospitality management city. Yep. Yeah.
[00:24:37] He would be able to tell you what it’s called. Okay. But it’s a four year degree that he’s just finishing his third year.
[00:24:42] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, good.
[00:24:43] Marnie Wynans: And then my last two live at home and my fourth is working hard and saving all his money so he can be a pilot and go to BCIT and take the aviation program. Yep. And my youngest is playing basketball and just thriving
[00:25:00] Troy Van Vliet: in high Yeah. Right. Yep. Good good stuff.
[00:25:04] Marnie Wynans: So it’s still very… It’s very… It’s it’s quite a crazy life because we’ve got, you know, grandma life Yes. That I get to go and be that. And then I’m still going and watching high school basketball.
[00:25:17] Basketball.
[00:25:17] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. So
[00:25:19] Marnie Wynans: with the grandchildren sometimes. So it’s really fun. Busy but fun.
[00:25:23] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, that’s exciting. I know we have friends that have 10 kids and same thing across the spectrum of course of all the different ages.
[00:25:32] Marnie Wynans: And
[00:25:33] Troy Van Vliet: yeah, some of them are married and then some are still in elementary school. Right. So it’s, it’s pretty exciting. So I love the idea of big families. Once again, we started a little bit late, my wife and I, so we ended up with two, but we’re grateful for that.
[00:25:46] Marnie Wynans: Absolutely.
[00:25:46] Troy Van Vliet: Couldn’t be happier. The only more blessed you could be is with more kids.
[00:25:50] Marnie Wynans: Yeah. And then grandkids.
[00:25:51] Troy Van Vliet: Everybody that I’m talking to, the kids at SGP2, our school, have lots of kids, have lots of kids. Don’t chip yourself on that.
[00:26:00] Marnie Wynans: Yeah, dreading the empty nest one day.
[00:26:03] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, but they all come back with kids in tow. Yeah, I’m sure you’re going to get to see lots of them.
[00:26:09] Marnie Wynans: Yeah, we do. And that’s the beauty of living on the island is we don’t have a weekend without seeing somebody usually.
[00:26:16] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, you’ll be busy. You’ll be busy for a long time. For a long time. Now, other great things that you’ve done, the women’s retreat.
[00:26:25] Marnie Wynans: My baby. Yes, Tell us about that. Okay, well, so in ’20… I was at 2017, I guess, met… What did we meet?
[00:26:35] Yeah, I met my very best friend. She had been praying for a good Catholic friend at the same time that I was praying for a good Catholic friend. It was a little lonely for both of us. She lives in Ucluelet and that’s just an hour from Port Alberni out on the West Coast. And we didn’t know how much we needed each other until we met at our diocesan family camp.
[00:26:57] And she invited me to go to the Rockridge women’s retreat that other Kim
[00:27:04] Troy Van Vliet: put in the interior
[00:27:05] Marnie Wynans: there. And I went to that
[00:27:07] Troy Van Vliet: with I didn’t there was a women’s retreat at
[00:27:09] Marnie Wynans: Yeah, did a women’s one. Yeah. And it was so amazing and we were all just so filled and we were on the ferry coming home and talking about how far it was to go from Port Alberni all the way to… Up to Rockridge. Mhmm.
[00:27:24] And we started to think, could we do this? Could we do one on the island? I want… And she used to be a wedding planner. So she was pretty
[00:27:34] Troy Van Vliet: eager to…
[00:27:35] Marnie Wynans: Yeah. She knows how to put on events. Yeah. I certainly am not, but was just… I feel like I’m almost the dreamer and she can be the one who does the harder work.
[00:27:48] Anyway, while on the ferry, luckily I had Heather Kim in my contacts because I’ve known her for years and sent her a text and said, so would you be willing to come out and do this on the island for us next fall?
[00:28:04] Troy Van Vliet: No. Who’s Heather Kim?
[00:28:05] Marnie Wynans: Heather Kim is the one third of the Abiding Together podcast that… Well, she used to live in Vancouver, but they’ve moved to The States now to work at Steubenville. So she was one of the presenters of the retreat, one of the organizers. Got it. And amazing woman.
[00:28:27] And she said, yes. And so all of a sudden we were looking for a place to have it and started out with, I think we had 90 women that ended up coming for
[00:28:37] Troy Van Vliet: the… The first one?
[00:28:38] Marnie Wynans: Yep. There was
[00:28:39] Troy Van Vliet: a huge
[00:28:40] Marnie Wynans: need. Yeah. And then we didn’t know we’d do it again, but everybody wanted us to do it again. So we said, okay. So we did one in 2019 and, that was with, Angel Rene who’s one of the founders of Catholic Christian Outreach.
[00:28:55] So we felt like we had started setting the bar pretty high for our speakers and they were filling up quickly and then we had COVID so we had to skip that one. Anyway, here we go. We’re going into our eighth year. And
[00:29:11] Troy Van Vliet: what’s your attendance like now?
[00:29:13] Marnie Wynans: We cap it at… Well, we did 120 this year was the first year we allowed 120. We really like to keep it intimate, which seems like still a lot of people, but I want to be able to know them by name. I want to be able to sit and chat with them. And so we did consider going larger, but the way that it works, especially where we are, we’re at Camp Homewood on Quadra Island.
[00:29:34] It’s just a perfect size for that. And in the last two years we’ve sold out in twenty four hours. Yeah, amazing. So we’re already looking into our tenth year. And actually the next thing that we’re doing now, because again, sort of in my phase of life that I have grown children and seem to have a little more time, we’re actually looking at reaching out and if people don’t or can’t come all the way over to Quadra Island, we are offering to…
[00:30:04] We can bring the retreat to them. So I would be, you know, happy to travel to Kelowna or something like that and and help them do what we do because we’ve got it pretty pretty down to a good little schedule and we know what we like and we know what works, and what the women love and…
[00:30:23] Troy Van Vliet: So what does it… What does the schedule look like? Is it over a couple of days?
[00:30:26] Marnie Wynans: It’s over. Yeah. We do Friday night all the way to… Basically, we end with mass, Sunday But the whole thing is just very… It’s very social.
[00:30:36] It’s not a silent retreat for sure. We get a bunch of women together and they just… They’re… What’s so cool and has happened over these last years is the same ones are coming and they’re bringing friends or they’re bringing their sisters or they’re… So there’s a lot of familiarity, but then there’s also new faces and they’re just so welcomed in and it becomes a real sisterhood.
[00:30:56] Troy Van Vliet: And new speakers.
[00:30:57] Marnie Wynans: There’s something different every Yeah, we’ve got great speakers and God, again, he has been there with us. He guides us. He gives us the speaker. He gives us the theme. We just pray and there’s always a…
[00:31:11] Somebody will suggest something to us and everybody will just pray about it and sure enough, we’ll just all get that great feeling of that yes. But it’s very lovely. We have a lot of downtime because it is a retreat, but it also is kind of a conference because we have speakers. We have a resident… One of our team members, she’s an artist and we do a spiritual like art through prayer, which is beautiful.
[00:31:35] So we’ll do, you know, a prayer based on scripture sometime or based on our theme and the women will paint and praying through it as they paint and they get to take home something really beautiful. So we do that and we always have a banquet on Saturday night with some sort of special theme or gift. Yeah, it’s just become something that women really look forward to every year and they’re already asking me when is registration for the next one.
[00:32:03] Troy Van Vliet: Yes. Yeah. So what time…
[00:32:05] Marnie Wynans: When do you do it? It’s
[00:32:06] Troy Van Vliet: done in November? Yeah.
[00:32:07] Marnie Wynans: We always do it in November. It’s a great time. We started in November and it’s just… It was always pre Advent. Things are settled in.
[00:32:15] People have… You know, kids are in school, things are settled down and and these women just are just dying for a weekend away just to regroup and pray and sleep if they want to. I had one young mom, she spent the whole weekend just sleeping the whole time. That’s all she wanted to do. And that was great, that was perfect for her.
[00:32:34] We have a twenty four hour adoration chapel. Yes, have benediction and Eucharistic adoration with praise and worship and yeah, it’s pretty special.
[00:32:45] Troy Van Vliet: Do you get, non Catholics coming?
[00:32:47] Marnie Wynans: Yes. Which is really cool. Yeah. And some beautiful, beautiful women who in this past year actually that we had, did some prophetic prayer and man, that was beautiful and so encouraging and inspiring and just… Again, there’s just…
[00:33:05] There’s no boundaries, there’s no there’s no lines. They are right down there kneeling in front of the blessed sacrament with us. And, yeah, it’s very lovely.
[00:33:14] Troy Van Vliet: Isn’t that beautiful? Yeah. That must be so fulfilling It for you
[00:33:17] Marnie Wynans: is. It’s really quite the… Yeah. A a a godsend. So this…
[00:33:22] So my friend and I who have started this have now finally opened it up to welcome a team because we were trying to do it by ourselves and just completely exhausted before it even started. So it’s been really beautiful to watch that grow Mhmm. And just see that sort of future and that continuity that one day might not be us that are doing it, but we’ll make sure that it still happens. Yeah.
[00:33:46] Troy Van Vliet: Well, you’ll leave a legacy then behind. And then what… You have to pay to go, I’m assuming. And how much is it?
[00:33:55] Marnie Wynans: That’s a good question. We’re always trying to keep costs down since with all the food crisis and everything like that. Like last year it was $300 for the weekend. It’s great though. I know.
[00:34:05] For a whole weekend with all the food. Yeah. We are working on fundraising though. We’re always looking for ways to help support women and we’re doing a dessert auction in… And a silent auction in June in Victoria to just raise money.
[00:34:20] We raised $2,500 last year to be able to sponsor the women who wouldn’t be able to come normally because that’s a lot.
[00:34:27] Troy Van Vliet: That’s important.
[00:34:27] Marnie Wynans: Yeah. You get your gas, you get your food, you know, in your family and then is there any leftover for you to go away for a weekend? Not usually. Yeah, we’re trying to subsidize as much as we can. So nobody can be…
[00:34:42] Troy Van Vliet: We found that’s a wonderful emotional thing to reach out to people for that they’ll give, people love to give for, especially when they know that’s exactly where it’s going and I’m helping somebody else.
[00:34:57] Marnie Wynans: And do you
[00:34:59] Troy Van Vliet: ever announce that at the actual event where you can say, you know, we’re going to have an opportunity here for, there’s people that can’t afford to come. Yes. There’s an opportunity for you to give for next year’s group.
[00:35:16] Marnie Wynans: We just started doing fundraising now. So yeah, it’s definitely in its infancy for that, but yes, it’s definitely being put out there too.
[00:35:25] Troy Van Vliet: Or if you’d like to sponsor somebody for next year
[00:35:27] Marnie Wynans: We or something like actually do have that on our registration form. We put a little button that if anybody wants to donate, they can donate a full sponsorship if they want or someone will just throw 50 or whatever. Anything helps.
[00:35:39] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, that’s great. Well, good for you. Thanks. We’re big on that at our school as well. Our philosophy from day one is, you know, we will never turn away a family for financial reasons.
[00:35:52] Marnie Wynans: Exactly. It shouldn’t be that.
[00:35:54] Troy Van Vliet: No. No. And we’ve had so many generous fundraising events for our bursaries, just for financial aid for our families. You know, some people need some help, you know, they don’t need everything and some people have nothing and they’re just like,
[00:36:08] Marnie Wynans: They just want to be there.
[00:36:09] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. Like, come anyway. We want you anyway. Like, let’s work it out. Let’s try and figure out a plan for you.
[00:36:15] Well, that’s our Catholic way.
[00:36:19] Marnie Wynans: Exactly.
[00:36:19] Troy Van Vliet: Exactly. We’re not leaving people behind. So…
[00:36:22] Marnie Wynans: And we always tell the women that come, like, if you’re here, it’s because God called you to be here. Like, even if you were sponsored, it’s because you were meant to be here and he’s got something to say to you this weekend. Yeah. And so, you know, not everybody was able to come. And so the fact that you’re here and you got through on the waiting list or whatever, you’re, you know, you’re here for a reason to watch and see what he does with you this weekend.
[00:36:45] And sure enough, they’ll have something to say after. Yeah.
[00:36:49] Troy Van Vliet: Might Yeah. Be fun to do in a Whistler one time. That would be expensive. Pemberton maybe?
[00:36:56] Marnie Wynans: Squamish? Hey. Anybody wants
[00:36:57] Troy Van Vliet: to. Call
[00:36:58] Marnie Wynans: me up.
[00:36:59] Troy Van Vliet: Mean, I think is you probably… You’d get a lot of people that would want to go there.
[00:37:03] Marnie Wynans: It’s a good idea.
[00:37:04] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. So I don’t know. Just a suggestion.
[00:37:07] Marnie Wynans: I’ll take it. Holy Spirit.
[00:37:08] Troy Van Vliet: Yes. Yeah. Exactly. Well… Yeah.
[00:37:10] Marnie, any other any… What… Any other thoughts that you have there? Any things that you wanna share? What have you…
[00:37:17] Marnie Wynans: Well, just on Catholic education Yeah. Because that was, you know, the name of the of the show. Mhmm. Just that, you know, we we did both. We had our children in our Catholic school Yes.
[00:37:30] And which we also helped start. Also Saint John Paul the second in Port Alberni.
[00:37:34] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, I found that out afterwards. Yeah. I couldn’t believe it.
[00:37:39] Marnie Wynans: Yeah. They just had… They’re just going on their twentieth year now. So that’s very cool. So we’ve done it all.
[00:37:45] So we’ve had kids in our Catholic school. We really felt called to homeschool. Yeah. So that was a a huge step and scary, but God was showing us in many different ways and putting different people in our past, telling us how to… I mean, that we really should give it a try.
[00:38:01] Yeah. And it worked, but not for each of them. Like we always sort of prayed and based on each child decided which… With that child decided which is better for them. And then we also have a public high school.
[00:38:13] So we’ve kind of been through all the different But thinking about the theme and just, you know, what is Catholic education to us really is in the home. We really, really truly believe that what happens in the home, the culture, the Catholic culture in the home Mhmm. Will feed them wherever they are. Yeah. Whether they’re in public school or a Catholic school or homeschooling.
[00:38:38] Yeah. You know, praying together as a family, mass. We’ve basically made our… Our life is our community, our church Mhmm. In service or just, you know, ministry.
[00:38:53] But that it’s it’s not up to the school itself to form the children. They are supplemental. It’s the home.
[00:39:01] Troy Van Vliet: It’s supposed be an extension of the home. Exactly. And
[00:39:04] Marnie Wynans: a lot of people I think get it the other way around.
[00:39:07] Troy Van Vliet: Expect that. Some students, that’s all they get. Exactly.
[00:39:10] Marnie Wynans: Because of
[00:39:10] Troy Van Vliet: the school. And for other students, that’s all they get is what they get at home. And then we’re releasing them into this crazy world we
[00:39:18] Marnie Wynans: live in. Public high school is really hard and scary for us because it was something that we didn’t have a choice unless schooled. I did home school one of mine, up to grade 11, but the other ones were really wanting to be in the public high school.
[00:39:30] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah.
[00:39:30] Marnie Wynans: And they came out thriving. Oh, that’s great. And I do attribute it to what happened when they’re home. Yeah. And, it just…
[00:39:38] Yeah. Not easy, not perfect, don’t get me wrong. Mhmm. But it really did, play a part. People ask us often, you know, how are you five for five?
[00:39:46] All five kids still practicing Catholics. Yeah. But what did you do? You know, and and my husband and I really, you know, just all we can say is that it’s what we did, you know, as a family, praying together before you go to bed, that’s become a thing where there’s prayer time. We don’t go to bed by our each, you know, we all pray, we’ll sit, we say our prayers together.
[00:40:07] And sometimes we end up having super long, deep theological conversations. And I think developing them that way so that when they… Even when they’re not in school and then they go graduate, then what? Right? Then they’re Catholics out in the world, they are living their faith that way.
[00:40:22] So… Yeah. So, yeah. So Catholic education is so important, but it
[00:40:28] Troy Van Vliet: In all forms.
[00:40:29] Marnie Wynans: In all forms, starting in our, you know, what are we the domestic church? Creating that culture of that Catholic culture in the home and then yeah, an extension, they can take it wherever they go.
[00:40:41] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, so in how you live your life, how they see you living your faith in everything that you do, how you are with others, you know, how you respect others, how you carry yourself in public.
[00:40:56] Marnie Wynans: When you go to hut, when they see your parents going to confession or I see my kids going to confession and it just makes my heart just explode. I’m so blown away. Walked into my…
[00:41:07] Troy Van Vliet: Are you doing?
[00:41:08] Marnie Wynans: It does, but then
[00:41:09] Troy Van Vliet: I just praise God. Isn’t that awesome?
[00:41:11] Marnie Wynans: But I walked into my son’s home the other day, my oldest, and they were praying the rosary together. And his six year old was leading all the prayers. And my… I could have died right there. I just felt like, that’s it.
[00:41:25] That’s it. That’s all I needed. My… I am good.
[00:41:29] Troy Van Vliet: I drive my daughter to school in the morning, my youngest, Anika, and we started staying the rosary on the way to school. Nice. And at first she was like, again? Yeah. Yeah, we did it.
[00:41:45] We did it yesterday. It’s perfect. This is perfect for us to do. And now when we get in the car, she gets set up and she’s the one she reads out all the mysteries and everything as we do it. And now it’s just our thing.
[00:41:55] You know, she doesn’t question anymore. It’s like, okay, well, good habits.
[00:41:58] Marnie Wynans: What a great way to start the day. Yeah.
[00:42:02] Troy Van Vliet: And sometimes we’re leaving really early because we get to have mass in our new chapel twice a week before school starts. So we get in there and, but those habits, they just, when you just consistently do it, consistently do it. And it’s just like, this is just what we do. And then good things start happening. Graces start coming from that.
[00:42:23] Marnie Wynans: That’s awesome.
[00:42:24] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. I love you. You know what? I think you’re the first person that’s been on the podcast that’s talked about, Catholic education in the home. Really?
[00:42:35] Yeah, Well, it’s so the theme of our show, course, is Catholic education. We talk about it formally. We talk about it homeschooling somewhat. And in fact, on that note, we’re working with Ascend. I don’t know if you’ve heard of Ascend.
[00:42:50] So Ascend comes into our school. So when they have, when they want the school setting, so there’s in some class, So, some in especially with the elementary grades, which we don’t have in our school, we’re a high school, we have many elementary feeder schools, but the homeschool families would like just a touch of that. Absolutely. In classroom learning. So we’re currently renting out some of our space too because we have extra space to ascend and it’s this incredible partnership.
[00:43:19] So, and even if the homeschoolers, even if they stay in homeschool during high school, if they don’t come, they can still, they can actually participate like in our extracurricular programs, they can participate in that. They could play on our sports teams and what have you. So they’re still getting some of that. And it’s actually the synergy is working really, really well
[00:43:40] Marnie Wynans: Wonderful. So
[00:43:40] Troy Van Vliet: So we hope to expand And
[00:43:42] Marnie Wynans: on that the idea. We did the same thing with when my one who did high school homeschool, he was able to participate in the sports teams and he’d go to the shop classes and he’d be home for his academics and he loved There
[00:43:55] Troy Van Vliet: you go. And it worked.
[00:43:56] Marnie Wynans: Yeah. It worked because he was very active and very athletic and wanted to be doing all those things anyway. So yeah, and they
[00:44:05] Troy Van Vliet: were really
[00:44:06] Marnie Wynans: So no, it’s a beautiful combination.
[00:44:09] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. And not all families have the ability of doing the homeschooling or whatever. Both mom and dad are working or you’re with career people or what have you. So they don’t all have that opportunity, but we can blend it, you know, so we can.
[00:44:23] Marnie Wynans: It’s great.
[00:44:23] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah. So that’s fantastic. Good stuff. Well, Marni, thank you so much. Especially you’re coming over from the island for this.
[00:44:31] This is absolutely a privilege. It’s treat. An honor
[00:44:34] Marnie Wynans: to have you.
[00:44:36] Troy Van Vliet: You have two websites, belovedvi.com.
[00:44:40] Marnie Wynans: Yes, that is our retreat website that people can check out if they’re interested in learning more about the retreat or they want to come to the one on Quadra Island or if they want to think about it for their own diocese. Amazing. Other one is cultureoflife.co
[00:44:55] Troy Van Vliet: cultureoflife.co.
[00:44:57] Marnie Wynans: And that’s our doula website that So they can check out
[00:45:00] Troy Van Vliet: if you live in the Port Alberni or how far do you go?
[00:45:03] Marnie Wynans: We’re kind of going between Nanaimo and Port Alberni Yeah, right we have
[00:45:09] Troy Van Vliet: That’s a fair drive still.
[00:45:10] Marnie Wynans: It’s an hour. But a lot of people will, you know, sort of in between that area. I’d love to travel more but it’s pretty, pretty hard to get there on time. I suppose, yeah. But it’s still good to…
[00:45:23] And also I do prenatal and breastfeeding education online too. So even if they’re not where I am, I’m happy to meet them in person.
[00:45:32] Troy Van Vliet: Have you ever been a doula on Zoom? Yes. Yes, you have. Recently, actually.
[00:45:39] Marnie Wynans: Not during the labor.
[00:45:40] Troy Van Vliet: Oh, okay. That’s what I
[00:45:41] Marnie Wynans: was For referring preparation. For birth prep. Okay. Yeah. We did talk about how that could possibly work.
[00:45:45] Just set me up in the corner on FaceTime, but I don’t think it would be this.
[00:45:49] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, it wouldn’t be the same, but in a pinch. You never know. Yeah, can give you a call. That’s fantastic. Well, Marni, thank you again for having
[00:45:58] Marnie Wynans: making me,
[00:46:00] Troy Van Vliet: the trip out here. So and, be sure to share this, when it comes out.
[00:46:06] Marnie Wynans: I can’t wait.
[00:46:07] Troy Van Vliet: Yeah, sure. Put it in your website. We’re happy
[00:46:08] Marnie Wynans: to put the
[00:46:09] Troy Van Vliet: link out there.
[00:46:09] Marnie Wynans: All right.
[00:46:10] Troy Van Vliet: Thank you everybody for joining us here today on Catholic Education Matters and, be sure to like subscribe, and also comments, please. Comments, we’ll be glad to get back to you, and it really helps with the algorithm. Thank you all. Have a good day. Thank you for listening to Catholic Education Matters.
[00:46:28] If you enjoyed this episode, please follow the podcast on your favorite listening platform, rate it, and also leave a review. Don’t forget to share this episode with your friends and family to help spread the word about the impact of Catholic education. Be sure to listen again.
