FAMILY & FRIENDS

LOOKING BACK INTO 2020

Carolyn and I hope this finds you enjoying the Christmas and New Year’s holidays despite the virus. We pray you could connect in person or through digital media with your special family members.   We also hope you all created some positive and beneficial memories as you traveled the unpredictable paths of 2020.

We’ve looked back at our Kinship Family & Friends (F&F) activities with gratitude for Kinship’s support and many folks’ personal contributions. The Kinship website F&F section contains excellent resources for all family members exploring the LGBTQ+ world. It lists several valuable websites for further exploration, and several articles written by us on specific topics. 

We briefly explore our desires and goals for F&F, highlighting the reasonable belief that over 50% of all world families have a LGBTQ+ family member. It doesn’t have to be a son or daughter; it easily can be a grandchild, niece or nephew, maybe a cousin or even a brother or sister. So F&F desires to be a safe place for LGBTQ+ moms and dads, brothers and sisters, grandparents, aunts and uncles, and also the many loving and supporting friends and allies. 

Also last year we wrote and discussed Connecting, Being tenacious, Exploring and understanding feelings, The process and impact of coming out, and other meaningful topics. Also, the Family & Friends Monthly Round Table Zoom discussions started in the spring on the 3^rd Sunday each month.   Those roundtable discussions are open to all interested families, friends, allies, and Kinship members.  Although we facilitate them, many excellent and meaningful points of discussion from attendees have occurred during each discussion.   

Although we realize folks’ daily schedules are often predetermined, it’s been exciting and refreshing to have many folks from around the world take part and share their valuable stories and information.   It’s common to see and hear people from across the USA, Europe, Africa, Central and South America, and New Zealand.  

As we look back, we see the virus may have bruised personal connections, but it enhances our digital time together. Kinship Family & Friends appreciated everyone’s support.    

LOOKING FORWARD INTO 2021

Good bye 2020, welcome 2021! Kinship F&F eagerly looks forward and is preparing to support improving and enriching our Kinship website, especially our own portion. We are planning to make it easier to locate articles, information, books, movies, and websites for everyone’s use. We plan on writing more articles with specific foci to assist families working their way through specific situations.   

We also desire to write, locate, and identify additional appropriate materials to share with our local pastors, teachers, church leaders, and friends. This information will look beyond faith issues.   Excellent in-depth studies regarding sexuality, sexual emotions and feelings, neurological development of brains, history of personal DNAs, and other knowledge-enlarging subjects publish often, and we desire to find them for our F&F usage. 

Of course we eagerly look forward to more monthly F&F Round Table Discussions connecting with more families and friends around the world. Last year we had between 15 and 25 folks at each discussion. This year we hope those folks will invite one or more friends to join each discussion, so we have 50 and more friends around each table.   

That will help us connect with many more families around the world and enrich their personal areas.   We invite everyone reading this article to connect with us. We are available by email, personal phone calls, and of course, at the Round Table.  

Please don’t feel shy. We carefully protect everyone connecting with us. Every connection in 2020 was successful, and many families discovered a welcoming and safe place to share their feelings, concerns, and successes.

We are sure Jesus smiles every time a family and its LGBTQ+ member connect with each other, accept each other, and love and support each other.

Remember: Jesus never looked the other way—and neither should we!