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The Joint Triennial of Friends United Meeting, Quaker Men International, and the United Society of Friends Women International is an important time of fellowship, worship, and discernment across our global family of Friends. The Triennial Planning Executive Committee met on August 26, 2025, to consider several important developments regarding the planning of the 2026 Triennial. It is with heavy hearts that we share the decision to suspend plans for the in-person Joint Triennial gathering originally scheduled for July 6–11, 2026. This difficult decision was reached after much prayerful discernment. Several factors contributed to the decision, the most significant being that U.S. immigration officials have denied visas to the majority of our international members who had applied to attend. Without the full participation of Friends from across our global fellowship, the essence of our Triennial—an event grounded in fellowship, worship, and discernment across cultures—would be diminished.
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Meet Esther Makokha, a resilient 55-year-old mother of five and grandmother of four from Kivikiyi village in Webuye Sub-County, Bungoma County, Kenya. A widow, an orphan, and the fifth born in a family of ten children, Esther’s life is a moving testimony of endurance, faith, and grace. Esther lost her husband, the late Jonah Masinde Walucho, in 2002, when she was only thirty-two years old. Jonah’s sudden death changed her life significantly. She was left to raise their five children alone after being abandoned by her in-laws, who came and took away everything she and her husband worked for and owned. The journey was far from easy, but Esther pressed on, driven by love for her children and her unwavering trust in God.
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The Mt. Elgon region of Kenya, situated at the Kenya-Uganda border, has faced decades of hardship from tribal clashes and militia violence between 2006–2008 that left many families displaced, traumatized, widowed, and economically devastated. Many of these affected households rely on low-income activities to make ends meet, so that even affording basic things like sanitary pads for menstruation is considered a luxury. Girls in Mt. Elgon miss up to five days of school each month due to the lack of sanitary pads. This has led many girls to drop out of school, and enter early marriages, which shifts the financial responsibility of providing for them from their mother to their spouse. Other girls who cannot support themselves are exposed to sexual exploitation.
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Obeying Jesus’ command to go and make disciples is a wonderful adventure in faith. I experienced this while working in the mission hospital in Kaimosi, Kenya many years ago. It began with God nudging me to go out into the villages and do small group studies. He revealed the way when Meshack came to pray with me at the hospital...
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The story reminds us that we can be the drivers of the bus, or passengers in the bus: drivers because we have leadership positions to help steer the congregations or meetings; passengers because we could be part of those being directed by the leadership...
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Emily Provance writes about how Quaker communities might begin to think about caring for parents and families, based on the second year of the Quaker parent mutual support groups co-sponsored by Friends United Meeting, New York Yearly Meeting, and Philadelphia Yearly Meeting. Chief among her findings: Quaker parents feel profoundly isolated. "Some parents are literally alone...Other parents feel isolated despite not being literally alone. Parents in the group talked about the isolation of being the only Quaker in their geographic area or the only Quaker family in their meeting. They talked about the difficulty of developing deep friendships in modern society. They talked about their hunger for connections with parents in similar circumstances: other disabled parents, other single parents, other foster parents, other parents with shared custody arrangements. Facilitators heard it repeated again and again: 'I feel so alone.'"
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Throughout our history, the people known as Friends (or Quakers) keep rediscovering an essential and enduring truth: There is one who speaks to our most basic needs and most significant hopes—Christ Jesus the Lord. Both individually and communally, we are learning to know and follow the Voice that guides us in the way we should go. Together, we seek to understand and obey that truth which sets us free. As a people, we share in the experience of that powerful life which makes all things new. Maybe you are searching for an authentic and transforming faith and community to call home—if so, come in and join us as we seek to know and follow Christ.
Friends United Meeting commits itself to energize and equip Friends through the power of the Holy Spirit to gather people into fellowships where Jesus Christ is known, loved, and obeyed as Teacher and Lord.
