Celebrating SDA Kinship Families & Friends - October 2023

Approaching 50 years ago, several faithful SDA rainbow members decided to gather and connect for support and friendship. As the word spread among those loving folks, the first Kinship Kampmeeting was held in Arizona with support from caring pastors, friends, and Kinship members. 

Today, SDA Kinship reaches around the world to many cultures, languages, and geographies. A successful, meaningful European Kinship Meeting was just held and our North American Kampmeeting will soon occur in Southern California. Gathering together with understanding and caring members, families, and friends is a strong reflection of the Jesus spirit implanted in all of us willing to love and support. 

October is our Kinship Awareness Month to recognize, enhance, and support the Kinship mission. 

In recent years, families with rainbow members have connected and shared with each other. So, in addition to recognizing and supporting all our wonderful Kinship rainbow members, Carolyn and I want to also recognize and support all of our families and friends members who have joined over the past few years. 

Many people haven’t realized that every rainbow person comes from a family. When a faithful SDA rainbow member is rejected or belittled, that also causes rejection and emotional discomfort in their family members. Incorrect knowledge and decisions cause health and emotional issues throughout the family. It is further complicated when a faithful SDA employee, pastoral or otherwise, is forced to hide or reject their rainbow family member whom they love and desire to support. 

Over the past five years, our families and friends membership has more than doubled with new members joining weekly. We have new connections around the world. It has been very meaningful watching families connect through the monthly Families & Friends Round Table Zoom discussions—often followed up with families connecting personally and supporting each other. Information shared through monthly articles and updated professional reports has also assisted family members to more fully understand the real physiological sources of varied sexualities. It is not a choice. 

We all desire and deserve acceptance, support, and a loving environment—not a rejecting, non-supporting human judgmental faith environment. Together, loving and caring families, friends, and rainbow members can create that safe, supportive, and modern environment which includes all humans without judgements and rejections. 

Thank you, SDA Kinship, for existing and lovingly supporting all of our members. Let’s double and quadruple Kinship membership, awareness, and impact. 

Remember, “Jesus never looked the other way—and neither should we!”
 
— John and Carolyn Wilt, Families & Friends Coordinators

 

Families and Friends

Helping Our Faith to Understand and Love 

As we watch our top faith leaders react and respond to genuine modern human situations, we see exposed many weaknesses, misunderstandings, and argumentative behaviors. Strong words; but we feel many of the top leaders understand and desire supporting modern loving decisions but are too “weak” to oppose narrow old-fashioned beliefs, which clearly reflect “misunderstandings” in the education and interpretations of biblical translations. “Argumentative” behaviors occur when one or more high-level leaders independently create one-sided committees with targeted purposes without listening and considering valuable and accurate modern information.

Over the past decades, these activities have occurred with many subjects and situations. For us, SDA Kinship, many decisions have been issued and committees have been formed to reject our family “rainbow” members and their families, too. Fortunately, our local church and our friends accepted our gay son, and we never encountered some of the mean and hurtful behaviors that are occurring today.

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Families and Friends

CARROL GRADY
Sleep well, looking forward to meeting again 


Recently, our Adventist faith and SDA Kinship community lost a brave and loving member. Carrol Grady and her husband were lifelong missionaries and worldwide leaders and supporters of the Adventist faith. Carrol often shared about her firm beliefs in the basic teachings of our faith. Then, many years ago, their youngest son came out of the closet and Carrol and her husband went into their own faith closet—a common journey for all “rainbow” families.

But Carrol’s love for her son would not be quenched by their personal beliefs. She started researching and exploring all available articles, books, and biological studies regarding sexuality and sexual attractions. Her strong maternal love for her family helped her shift from earlier learned black-and-white decisions to slowly accepting broader and real information. Yes, it was a challenging journey since her husband was employed at the General Conference level of Seventh-day Adventists. She respected their situation, but her intense motherly love for her family continued to grow and explore.

Carolyn and I like the term “tenacious: holding firmly, persistent, stubborn”—that was Carrol! A few years after going into their closet, she wrote and published their family journey, My Son, Beloved Stranger. For protection and safety, the first edition used pseudonyms for everyone. But as folks started reading and connecting with their family journey, she started supporting LGBTQ+ issues at public events; and, in 2005, she republished their story under her name. It is a powerful, very well-written family life story.

Carrol joined SDA Kinship many years ago and started the “Family and Friends” ministry. She realized families and friends need to connect for support and understanding of their family “rainbow” member. She was often seen at major Adventist conferences in booths discussing and supporting “rainbow” families and situations. She was tenacious; her strong motherly instincts rallied many other mothers and families.

In closing, we want to share her final epilogue statement from My Son, Beloved Stranger.

“One of my greatest sorrows is realizing how many Christians have failed to show Jesus’ love and have driven our sons and daughters out of the church and away from God. I am thankful for the ministry of Kinship, which has provided what my church has not: a place of compassion and support for those who have been rejected. I believe that someday in the future many of us will look back in shame at our lack of love. I’m just thankful that God knows the hearts of our children and will judge them with mercy and true justice.”

Thank you, loving, tenacious Carrol. It was an honor and joy to know you and work with you. Rest in peace from your final painful days. Soon all of our “rainbow” families will gather—what a potluck that will be!

— John and Carolyn Wilt, Families and Friends Directors

Families & Friends

The Eleventh Commandment: Be Kind!

Recently we discovered this new publication, The Eleventh Commandment: Why Kindness Matters, written by Rich DuBose, Michael Temple, and Karen Spruill, with added support from her husband Timothy. The book is available from AdventSource. This authorship team is an amazing tapestry of Adventist pastoring, writing and sharing personal songs, publishing books, magazine editor, video film director and editor, legal advocate, and licensed psychologist with many years focused on suicidal situations. 

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Families and Friends

ENJOY THE KINSHIP “SPIRIT”

We’ve been re-reading an excellent book by  Loma Linda theology professor, Richard Rice, Believing, Behaving, Belonging: finding a new love for the church. Early in the second chapter, a section is titled “The Spirit Creates Community...the spirit not only works within us, but it also works among us, or between us. It gives spiritual life to the community and the individual.”

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FAMILY AND FRIENDS

“Together Again” Kampmeeting

July 14-17, 2022
John & Carolyn Wilt, Directors-at-Large
Families & Friends Coordinators

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FAMILIES AND FRIENDS

FROM PYRAMIDS TO WHEELS

Often we connect with families struggling with the sudden awareness that a family member is LGBTQIA+. This new awareness can be stressful and awkward for all the family members. Feelings and emotions can range in all directions, causing confusion and misunderstandings. It’s more common than many families realize until they suddenly are spinning in their own emotional tornado.

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FAMILIES & FRIENDS

SAINT VALENTINE & KINSHIP

Welcome, February 2022! Yes, many of us are still protecting ourselves from various strains of COVID, so we will send cards or electronic greetings of love and affection rather than give hugs and handshakes in person. In the North American areas and many parts of Europe, February 14 highlights the wonderful emotional traits of love and affection for others.  

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Connecting & Supporting LGBTQ+ Families

Kinship Families & Friends Zoom Roundtable

The SDA Kinship Families & Friends group desires to support all families working their way through emotional and, possibly, confusing times. We (Carolyn and John) conducted two Sabbath school evaluations. In one class, 42% shared that they had an LGBTQ+ family member, and in the other class, it was 45%. We also estimate that 5-10% don’t know if they have an LGBTQ+ family member, while an additional 5-10% don’t care to admit it.

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FAMILIES AND FRIENDS

IT’S CHRISTmust SEASON

Every 365 days we’ve learned to celebrate a truly unknown event—the actual day and location of Christ’s birth. For hundreds of years, biblical and theological archeologists have searched and searched for precise, accurate evidence of when and where our beloved Christ was born. We wish them all well on their valuable searches and look forward to their successful discoveries,…

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Are Conversion Therapies Successful?

As Carolyn and I connect with many LGBTQIA+ families and close friends, we are often asked about SOCE. Yes, we have connected with a few folks who claim “success” when they experienced SOCE and we’ve also connected with other folks who failed their SOCE experience.

So what is “SOCE”? We’ve done some research from several angles and will share what appears to be well-based information and recommendations.

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FAMILIES & FRIENDS

SOME 2021 KINSHIP KAMPMEETING HIGHLIGHTS

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Family & Friends

Focusing and Refocusing, Adjusting and Readjusting

Focusing is a complex process. How many times a day do you stop and focus on something? Maybe you need to see a special store sign or read an email message. Maybe the room is noisy, and you need to focus your ears to hear an important announcement. Or how about focusing your emotional support on an activity or a dear friend? Our human brains and emotions are constantly being challenged and refocused to experience our daily lives, and our reactions and behaviors also need to readjust to new situations.

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Family & Friends

HAPPY MAY TO ALL KINSHIP FAMILIES & FRIENDS

Wow, it’s springtime already! Our wildflowers are springing up in the foothills, green grass is bursting out for our deer to enjoy, and the male turkeys are busy attracting some girlfriends.

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VARIATIONS CAUSE BENDING !!

As Carolyn and I explored “variations,” we discovered that every one of us is “varied.” She and I have different heights, different body shapes, distinct personalities, and even different behaviors. We are greatly varied.

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FLEXIBLE LEARNING

“Learning” is an interesting and complex process. All living creatures learn as they grow and mature. If you think about that process, it’s easy to recall watching your pets learn to find food, chase toys, or hide from you when you are looking for them. Also think about yourself or your children as you learned to walk, talk, play, read, and even think and make decisions. 

So learning is really gathering information or experiences to make, hopefully, excellent decisions. Where are those decisions made? All decisions originate in our brain and transfer to the muscles, organs, and emotions to protect us and help us survive. Yes, some reactions appear to develop naturally through our genetics, but we develop and learn most of them as our brains and ourselves mature.

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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.

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COMING OUT - FAMILY PROCESS

Many LGBTQ+ folks have celebrated their successful “coming out” to friends and their families. It’s probably a process and event they had thought about and worked on for many months and years. Hopefully, they had created a network of friends and other LGBTQ+ folks that helped them - even coached them - on the scary but desired event. Their understanding and supporting friends were valuable allies for that major and probably emotional time.

Yes, it was a “successful event” for the LGBTQ+ member. They wanted to do it, they needed to do it, and they had their personal courage and friends’ and allies’ support to fall back on to if it didn’t work out as desired.  

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FAMILY & FRIENDS MONTHLY ROUNDTABLE ZOOM DISCUSSION

Our monthly roundtable discussions are beginning to connect and, hopefully, provide a beneficial and personal time to meet and share around the Kinship world. Each discussion has increased in attendance and participation, thanks to all of you all who have joined us.

Last Sunday our roundtable was enriched with Pastor Kris and Debbie Widmer’s thoughts and comments regarding “The Fiddler on the Roof” movie/musical and its very meaningful songs and dialogue about adjusting to life-impacting changes. There was excellent participation and comments from many of those who joined the table. If you didn’t join us, you missed Pastor Kris’ modification of the meaningful closing song - somehow Walla Walla,  Loma Linda, La Sierra, and other traditional Adventist locations were woven into the song. It was a great closure to a good discussion regarding traditions, change, and family. 

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GREETINGS FROM DISCOVERY BAY...

Greetings from Discovery Bay in Washington state! We are sitting in our timeshare gazing at the smooth waters of the Puget Sound. It’s warmer than usual but at least the air is smoke free. We left California last week in dense smoke and fires. 

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