Happiest of Holidays!

As 2018 comes to a close and we get ready for a brand new start in 2019, I want to express my gratitude to all who have made Kinship’s progress possible this year. Many of us contribute to our progress by generously giving the best of ourselves through our time, talents and funds. I like to quote this snippet from Generous Life, Increasing Your Joy Through Giving by the Fetzer Institute.

Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to YOU

Thanks to you, SDA Kinship is stronger today!

At the October 2018 Annual Council (#GCAC18), Seventh-day Adventist Church leaders approved a widely debated document that unprecedentedly proposes, among other things, “public reprimand” and “disciplinary measures” that include removal of conference leaders from committees due to matters of what is determined to be “non-compliance.”

We agree with the North American Division of the church that the voted document “does not follow the biblical values proclaimed by the Protestant reformers and the founders of the Adventist Church.”

Reinder Bruinsma has been a Seventh-day Adventist conference president for the Netherlands and for Belgium, General Conference administrator, pastor, and author - among several other things. In what he loosely calls his "retirement" he continues to write, speak to Adventist leadership and laity conferences and, attend other meetings around the world. 

Seventh-day Adventist Kinship International (SDA Kinship) is joining a chorus of LGBTIQ (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, intersex, queer/questioning) advocacy groups in calling on the Maritime Conference of Seventh-day Adventists to rescind its invitation to Coming Out Ministries, one of the featured presenters at a youth event in Pugwash, N.S., this July.

Here’s Why
While Coming Out Ministries (COM) has been promoted as being representative of LGBTIQ people, oddly, the leaders of this ” ministry” do not identify as LGBTIQ. Instead, they use terms such as “redeemed” to describe their sexual orientation. Their philosophy is predicated entirely on a model that views LGBTIQ people as fundamentally flawed and broken.

Your privacy and preferences are important to us at SDA Kinship, and we are providing this notice explaining our online information practices and the choices you can make about the way your information is collected and used.

We have recently updated our Privacy Policy so that you have a better understanding of what we do with your data.

by Debbie Widmer, Family and Friends Coordinator

It’s been a busy couple of weeks and it’s not over yet. First was preschool graduation, with those adorable children in miniature caps and gowns waving their hands, unashamedly, at their parents. Next came eighth-grade graduation a week later. These young people tried out their adult looks—awkwardly child-like one moment and boldly confident the next. Today was an academy graduation. These graduates are on the brink of adulthood, making adult decisions about their futures.