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 The end-of-the-year holidays can be the most challenging time for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer, questioning, and asexual people, and their relatives and friends. It’s a season of parties, fun, and family, and yet many LGBTIQ people and their allies, in and out of the church often feel isolated.But with SDA Kinship, none of us is alone; we have family and friends in this community. Through the year members have shared beautiful stories of the unconditional love and encouragement they receive from their families of origin, families of faith, and Kinship groups face-to-face and online.
This season, you can share the community you’ve experienced this year. We hear positive stories of welcoming families, churches, and old and new friends alongside news from members worldwide who still don’t have safe places to be themselves, relax with others who respect their identity, or learn with others in an open and supportive environment. Your contributions to Kinship—your time, funds, skills, and advocacy—can help to make a life-changing difference in their lives.
With your support this year, we’ll continue our very successful Building Safe Places program, a project in Europe and the United States dedicated to helping pastors, teachers, administrators, family life coordinators, youth leaders, counselors, and families provide better support to the lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people in their congregations, schools, and communities.
Kinship has also been working very hard at updating its strategic plan this year. With so much changing in our community and among our members, we’ve enlisted the help of an organizational consultant; and donors have already stepped up to pay for her work with us for 2016. Thanks to these donors, Kinship’s current member services can continue while we plan to move Kinship forward into a more successful future.
Every project Kinship does—publications, retreats, trainings, our websites—costs the organization something. Some members offer time, energy, talents, skills, heart, and soul; and we all do it because we love the community and each other.
As we near the end of 2015 and look forward to a bright and fabulous 2016, please remember Kinship and give.
Will you help to keep this community thriving for your friends, for new family members, and for those who will join us this coming year? On the website is a donation form that you can use to share a one-time or recurring gift with your Kinship family this season.
As the year winds down, it’s worth reflecting on all of the things we can be grateful for. As an organization, Kinship works well because of you. Each of you who meets with your region’s members, organizes parades and gatherings, engages Kinship members online, speaks up for our community in your families, churches, and in the media, and gives financial support means that Kinship can keep providing safety and encouragement to LGBTIQA current and former Seventh-day Adventists around the world again this coming year.
Your gifts this season will strengthen all branches of the Kinship family. Let’s grow our community together! With your contributions, our family will stay strong for many years to come.
In Kinship,
Yolanda Elliott
President, Seventh-day Adventist Kinship International
Remember to follow SDA Kinship on Twitter and Facebook!
Seventh-day Adventist Kinship International
PO Box 244, Orinda, California USA 94563
Visit us on the web at sdakinship.org
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