Hey - if you're here looking for new stuff, you're likely going to be disappointed. Check here instead.
February 3, 2006 Hello friends, Hope the New Year is holding much hope and promise for all of you. For us, it's that time of year when we are working on budgets, evaluations, program plans, and all the other administrative gobbledegook. Yesterday and today I spent a lot of time preparing and distributing applications for our Partners in Employment grant program. Carl spent the two days setting up a web-based calendar system for a partner, Wakanyeja Pawicayapi (Put the Children First). They will also be using this calendar system to coordinate trainings and events with other service organizations in the community. January was a crazy month for me personally with a lot happening in my family right now. I have spent a significant portion of 2006 so far in the Northwest. Aside from that brief update, our main purpose in writing you all this time is to share with you an exciting new project that MCC Central States is involved in. It's called the Circle of One Book Forum. MCC is working together with Indigenous Issues Forums and Prairie Edge Book Store to promote one book each season, written by a Native author, and provide a discussion guide to go with each one. We think it would be awesome if any of you would hop on this new and growing Circle of One reading wagon! We are encouraging people to set up book forums in their own communities and make use of the Circle of One materials. It's a great way to connect our dispersed friends with what we're learning here. And it's a great opportunity for you to read some good books and talk about them deeply with your friends and family. We are attaching the Winter study guide here. We hope that in the near future there will be a website available where you can download information, share reflections on the reading, and see how many other book forums are gathering. We'll let you know when that's up. There are some new pictures up on the website, meyerloewen.net. Love to all of you! Karissa
