Troy and Kathleen Billings are national marriage speakers and co-founders of BAM – Building Amazing Marriages, a vibrant parish-based marriage ministry. They also are the co-authors of the worldwide top selling Catholic marriage book, Simply Love: Catholic Marriage Day by Day, published by Our Sunday Visitor.

They are former contributors to the For Your Marriage section of the USCCB Website. Troy is a multilingual corporate global business executive, and Kathleen is a former contributor to Catholic Mom and WINE (Women in the New Evangelization). She also is a contributing author to Amazing Grace for Mothers and Called by Name: 365 Daily Devotions for Catholic Women.

Troy and Kathleen met at the University of Notre Dame when paired together to perform a dance for a Christmas show. Later they revisited the idea of dancing in their monthly Two to Tango blog published by the USCCB.

But between actually dancing the Tango and becoming champions for marriage, Kathleen and Troy needed to regain their rhythm. Although close friends in college – Kathleen was even Troy’s sponsor when he converted to Catholicism in college – they slowly lost contact and married others. Little did they know they were living lives on parallel tracks. Shortly after both of those relationships ended, God brought Troy and Kathleen back into one another’s lives. They revived their friendship and were sacramentally united in marriage after they were both granted annulments.

Determined to start their marriage on the right foot, they committed to a weekly Holy Hour of Adoration of the Blessed Sacrament together, a practice they continue to this day.

“Adoration is our date night with Jesus, an hour together each week we look forward to,” Kathleen said. They claim Wednesday nights from 9 to 10 p.m. Even when Troy travels, he locates an adoration chapel so they can both be praying in front of Jesus at the same time. “You can find one in every pocket of the world,” Troy said. “For example, when I was in an adoration chapel in Costa Rica, I could see on my phone that Kathleen was in front of Jesus in an adoration chapel in our hometown in the Chicago area.”

When they were recruited by marriage champions Don and Lorrie Gramer in their former Diocese of Rockford, Ill., to lead other married couples in their parish, Troy and Kathleen agreed.

“We wanted to use what God allowed us to go through for the greater good,” Kathleen said.

They developed the Building Amazing Marriages (BAM) program to celebrate the beauty of sacramental marriage and provide practical ways to live it out.

The Billings recruited a core team of couples to help them host a monthly date night at St. Patrick’s in St. Charles, Ill., one of the largest churches in the diocese. They offered a romantic dinner, couple prayer and frequently brought in speakers to discuss various topics pertaining to marriage such as communication and finances. Sometimes they planned a fun activity – like the annual Valentine’s Dance where Troy and Kathleen revived their dance performance moves.

The Billings ran BAM nights at St. Patrick’s for 10 years, a ministry they describe as “vibrant and beautiful,” until 2020 cancelled events. The pandemic also inspired them to make some lifestyle changes that they had been actively bringing to prayer for several months preceding the pandemic. They longed for a warmer climate and acreage to build a garden and vineyard.

Friends were planning to open a Catholic retreat center in Sunset, South Carolina, and the Billings felt called to look nearby. God led them to a five-acre homestead in Greenville, South Carolina, where they have a large outbuilding they use for ministry, a barn, a chapel and plenty of space for their children to roam.

In addition to speaking nationally and leading marriage retreats, the Billings have organically grown a ministry at home that involves their family.

“We wanted to use our home for God’s glory and to bring people together,” Kathleen said. Greenville’s a strong conservative Christian area. They began inviting people over to pray the rosary and share a meal, and it quickly grew into a thriving ministry. Now on average roughly 200 people join the Billings monthly not only to pray, but to enjoy potluck dinner and fun themed nights. True to their love of dance, the Billings include a barn dance in the event calendar, as well as a Fourth of July celebration, a Nativity play for Christmas (complete with live goats and costumed children) and a St. Patrick’s Day celebration.

“We’d be remiss if we didn’t say how important praying the Rosary is to us,” Kathleen said. “We pray that regularly, as we see it as a weapon of defense against evil.”

They released their book, Simply Love: Catholic Marriage Day by Day, on Valentine’s Day 2023. It’s described as a daily devotional that “meets Catholic couples in the midst of their hectic lives, providing concise, practical, and tangible means to enrich and form their marriage each and every day.”

The book has won two renowned international Catholic media awards.

It almost didn’t make it to print, though. Seven years ago, Kathleen and Troy scheduled a date night of planning and goal setting for the new year. They began their evening in the adoration chapel. It was during this time of prayer that Kathleen felt God calling her to write a daily devotional for Catholic couples. Several months later, they presented the idea to the world’s largest English-speaking Catholic publisher, Our Sunday Visitor. OSV offered the Billings a contract.

They wrote the entire book over the next year, but the night before the draft was ready to be submitted, their computer crashed. Despite the copy being saved in two places. It was gone – irretrievably. Troy enlisted the help of a computer forensic scientist friend who discovered a malicious virus had attacked their project both on the hard drive and in the cloud.

Troy and Kathleen had to recreate their content from scratch. And that was not the only spiritual opposition to Simply Love’s publication. Kathleen suffered a miscarriage, the family had two serious car accidents and Troy’s international travel accelerated. For nine months while writing the book he traveled weekly between Chicago and Costa Rica.

In their book they use relatable anecdotes from their own life to inspire others. They hope couples will use the book to come together daily to enhance their marriage. Each entry starts with a quote from scripture or a saint and includes a short reflection and a prayer.

“Prayer is a powerful aspect of the book,” Troy said. “Couples are often not accustomed to praying together.” These beautiful prayers from the heart are specific for the topic of the day, Kathleen added. Whether it’s finances, communication or in-laws, “we wanted to open the door to help couples pray together naturally from the heart.”

Despite Troy’s busy travel schedule, the couple speaks nationally for marriage events on average once a month, and Kathleen often presents to women’s groups. They’ll be guest speakers for the Good News Marriage Cruise in February 2026. For their full speaking schedule and to learn more about their ministries, you can visit their website, https://troyandkathleenbillings.com/ .