Sacred Time

Dear Kajijis,
How are you all? Hope everyone has found ways to staying cool this week. For those on vacation, we miss you and hope you are having a great time that is restful and refreshing. I'm going to use this email as an opportunity to take a step back for a moment and address the needs of our group and those within it. With attendance being so low lately, it's been hard to judge how things are going. I'm curious to know how everyone feels about how our group is doing so far. Is there anything you feel we should change, include, etc.? Are you happy with the dynamics of the group, with the things we've done, with the discussions we've had? Would you like to see this group going in a different direction? Do you agree with our "mission" so far? With our mission being to serve each other as mothers, wives and, overall, as women, I'd like to know if you feel you've been benefiting from this. The initial welcome letter sent to all the Kajijis included this excerpt from a Focus on the Family article:

"[In today's society] female companionship is often difficult to find, and many younger women, especially those with two or more preschoolers, abandon the search for friendship. It is simply too much trouble. To the young wives who are reading these words, I urge you not to fall into this pattern. Invest some time in your female friends - even though you are all busy. Resist the temptation to pull into the walls of your home and wish for someone to talk to."

"Remember, you are surrounded by many other women with similar feelings. Find them. Care for them. Give to them. And, in the process, your own self-esteem will rise. Then when you are content, your marriage will also flourish. It sounds simplistic, but that's the way we are made. We are designed to love God as social creatures; we don't do well in isolation. Don't let that isolation happen to you."

Our Kajiji Girl time is meant to be sacred for you as a mom - a time that for just once a week you can be recharged in the spirit of female friendship. By the way, the season of summer doesn't negate this desire and need in us no matter how busy we allow ourselves to be. And besides being away on vacation or taking fun days off with the family, I don't consider the "busyness" of summer to be very refreshing or fulfilling, do you? The Fall season is fast approaching and school will be starting up again. I'd like to take this time to "regroup" in a sense and ask whether Kajiji Girls fulfills a need in your busy lives and whether you feel you can really commit to the group. If so, I will gladly keep you on our email list and look forward to seeing you on most Fridays. If you don't think you can commit or you have other ministries in your life that fulfills that need in you, please let me know (and no hard feelings!). I simply want to make sure that you are not caught in isolation as described above with no support group around you. I hope to hear from each and every one of you over the course of August in answering this question. If I have not heard from you by September, I will assume you are too busy to commit to the group. However, if there is anything that the group or I can do for you whether or not you can commit to the group, please let us know! We are here for you whether you can make it to our Friday gatherings or not.

This Friday looks to finally be a beautiful day for an outing - hopefully no thunderstorms or rain clouds and no heat stroke weather either. So we'll plan on meeting at DeMeritt Hill Farm in Durham, NH off of Rt. 155. Go to http://www.demeritthillfarm.com for directions and info about the farm. At this time, topics of discussion will be put on hold until group size is larger in order to facilitate more interesting debates. Looking forward to unifying our group for the coming season and enjoying what's left of this one!

Blessings,
Crystal