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DivorceCare friends,
I’m so excited to write this letter to you! Last summer, you blessed my socks off. When I went through unexpected surgery on my kidneys, many of you sent me cards and prayed for me, walking me through a very difficult season of my life. I want to give back to you. I want to thank you. I want to meet you face to face and give you a warm hug and a big ol’ dimpled grin.
As I was praying about that, I felt like God wanted to connect us beyond hugs and smiles (as nice as those can be!). So on my roadtrip last summer, I stopped in to see the DivorceCare staff. We talked through what it might look like for me to come alongside the DivorceCare groups.
Here is what we would like to propose. As it is now, I travel about once a month to do retreats around the country. The audiences are varied from singles to single parents to married folks. But I would like to design an event specifically for you, my single again friends. My passion is intimacy with Christ and real, authentic relationship with others. I would love to come and share within your local community. Whether you partner with several churches in your area, or do it solely within your own church, I would love the opportunity to spend time with you.
A typical event (held at your church) might look something like this:
Friday night: Keeping it Real (opening talk about relationship with Christ – the real thing)
Saturday morning: Real Friendship (what it looks like to live in authentic relationship with others)
Saturday afternoon (or later morning): Purity in the Real World (this would talk through practical tools to maintain purity after divorce)
Each talk could run anywhere from 45 minutes to an hour and a half. There’d be small group discussion as well – men with men, women with women - in order to build some lasting accountability and initiate a sense of community.
Cost: $800.00, plus travel. Those churches who have already done this have either used budgeted funds or raised money through different fund-raising activities. If you share the cost among several churches, that works even better.
I’ve been talking and praying all of this through with my family – and we would like to throw out a bonus offer. My husband is a gifted teacher and has a lot of experience (both personally and in ministering to others), with parenting kids at a distance, dealing with alienation and a painful divorce, maintaining purity, working through forgiveness, etc. He would be delighted to do a breakout session for the dads in your group. This could be done on Saturday. At the same time, I could do a breakout session for moms, and my daughter, at 16, would be a wonderful volunteer to help out in any way needed. If you would like to bring out Brian and Sam as well, it would only increase the honorarium by 150.00, plus travel (so for the whole Kok Colopy package, it’d be 950.00 plus travel for the three of us).
Another option is a much shorter event – a banquet or an evening workshop with a talk to encourage and inspire. This could take place on a weekday evening and would reduce the honorarium to $500, plus travel.
Finally, this would be something I would coordinate. While DivorceCare has been kind enough to endorse this, their plates are full. I don’t want to add another thing to their already packed agendas.
Oh friends, this is exciting! I have a few spots left in the fall of 2008, a several in 2009, and boatloads in 2010, I hope you’ll check your calendars and start planning. Whether you bring me in solo or bring in two or three of us, we would be excited to serve you. You have been a blessing to us, may this give us the opportunity to be a blessing to you!
If you have any questions at all, or to book us, please e-mail me at Elsa@elsakokcolopy.com or call me at 479-685-0412. Thank you, friends! I look forward to hearing from you!
Elsa
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