Kinship's Families & Friends Benefits

As Carolyn and I welcome new families and friends to Kinship, we are often emotionally moved by the personal reasons and needs shared. So many families are continuing to be bruised and confused by inaccurate and unloving actions taken by our faith leaders. Fortunately, Kinship has many resources and information it can share safely.

Over the past five years, many faith employees have privately joined Families & Friends. The common challenge people share involves the secrecy they have to use to protect their rainbow family member. The parents and other relatives accept their rainbow member and desire to support them but are rejected at work if they share their real-life situation. Their co-workers and supervisors often judge and insult their loved one. This causes the family to feel unwelcomed and unwanted.

The family is orphaned from their faith and, often, their jobs. This can cause depression throughout the family which may result in serious mental and emotional health issues. A long-time faith employee recently shared that they had retired and moved away from their faith office location. Now they could openly love their family member and publicly shop and travel safely. Their negative atmosphere had vanished. Now they and their new neighbors were creating a loving and accepting new life for everyone. Also, we are seeing more teenagers and young adults questioning their faith’s opinions and statements. They have seen their rainbow friends be rejected and judged negatively by pastors and other church members. This bothers them and they truly discuss and consider stepping away from their faith.

This is happening within our schools and colleges. Intelligent and open-minded students clearly see the lack of understanding and acceptance of real-life situations. They deeply question why they should support and remain a member of our faith. The other main challenge we see involves one or more family members strongly rejecting their rainbow member’s feelings and needs. These decisions are rooted in what they’ve been taught and the naive atmosphere they live in. We do not use the term “naive” to insult anyone. We use that term because we were naive ourselves when we helped our son out of his gay closet. We did a lot of research and dug deeply into the physiological and neurological knowledge regarding our DNA and its many subcomponents and functions. We discovered that our sexualities and personal feelings come from our brains. They are not personal decisions. Our son did not choose to be gay; he was born that way. Just like an autistic person did not choose to be autistic, or a deaf person did not decide to be deaf. How about being left- or right-handed! Maybe being very short or very tall!

These are all variations caused by our genetics and very complex brain wiring and functioning. They are not personal decisions made by each of us. Fortunately, Kinship’s Families & Friends is a safe and available resource that parents, grandparents, siblings, aunts, uncles, and friends can connect with to explore and expand their own knowledge, feelings and support for all their family members. Please feel free to contact us.

We have many years of experiences and connections with our own family and many other rainbow families. You are invited to “meet” us on the SDA Kinship webpage in the Families & Friends section. We have a short video sharing our own experiences and Kinship’s desire to connect with and support all families and friends desiring to help our rainbow members and friends live quality, loving lives. 

Our motto is “Jesus never looked the other way—and neither should we!!” Kinship is here for you and your family. Let’s follow Jesus’ example of listening, loving, and supporting everyone who reaches out for support!

— John and Carolyn Wilt, Families & Friends Coordinators