A Nouwen Network online

A Nouwen Network’s Online presence - Blog, Website & Social Media

Regrowth was emerging from the bark of the burnt Eucalypts only 4 months after Australia’s 2009 Black Saturday bushfires. (This series of fires started on 7 February 2009 and raged on until 14 Mar 2009.) The devastation and losses from these fires were very fresh in the minds of those who gathered in early 2010 to begin to shape resources for A Nouwen Network. Photos of the new growth emerging in areas of Victoria that had recently been seared by fires were published worldwide. These iconic Australian images spoke powerfully of ’New Hope’, ‘Recovery’ and ‘Resilience’. One such image was adopted as the banner for A Nouwen Network’s first online presence, ‘Out of the Depths’, a wordpress blog launched in 2012. This banner image was then retained on the website.

“May all who visit our website, ’Out of the depths’, be blessed, encouraged and inspired

as you read (or quickly browse) the content.” ~ Irene Frances .

Extract from E-Update Feb 2015 …my husband Rob has worked with me over the past few months to redesign the Homepage of our website. The goal of this redesign has been to make locating key content, especially prayers for specific mental health issues, as simple as possible. We hope that the new Homepage format (complete with prayer candles) will mean searchers on our site can find what they’re looking for, and that they can find it quickly. We are very grateful to Daryl Wood for carefully selecting Serif WebPlus as the website design program when he generously created the site for the network. As Daryl predicted, over the past year Rob has become increasingly more confident and proficient at using the many features Serif offers.

Frequently people seeing our webpage and resources assume that we have an office. I believe it is important to know that the present website is the precious legacy of an entirely voluntary ‘baton passing’ journey that is conducted in private homes. The journey started early in March 2012 when Irene Frances began uploading onto a WordPress site, what she described as the “truck load” of prayer resources that I’d gathered. This site had just over 12,000 visits in the two years before a new website was launched.

Daryl Wood offered to build the current website in memory of his mother June, who was a founding member of A Nouwen Network. He, like Irene, gave countless hours to migrating the content. The baton was then passed to Rob; he has in turn given many hours to it.

For me, our website holds a story of humility, persistence, and generosity that typifies how everything to do with A Nouwen Network has been carried out. Many, many, people have freely given of themselves, and of their time and gifts so that by a variety of means our Network proclaims “the faith community says to those people who suffer from the symptoms of mental illness, and to their family members: We will walk with you. And God walks with you. You will not go through this alone”

Now for my part, I have been forging on with the learning challenges that are presented regularly to me as a social media newbie! As the new Homepage will tell you, A Nouwen Network now has a presence on facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest. I mention this as these are additional means of “getting the message out” to your friends and contacts. I believe that ‘the new’ will fit in very well alongside all the previously created resources. I pray that they assist A Nouwen Network, and others who share our vision, to reduce the stigma and discrimination associated with mental illness, and “to give new hope”.

Jane Frazer Cosgrove, facilitator.

“Writing about the spiritual life is like making prints from negatives … Often it is the dark forest that makes us speak about the open field. Frequently prison makes us think about freedom, hunger helps us to appreciate food, and war gives us words for peace.

Not seldom are our vision of the future born out of the sufferings of the present and our hope for others out of our own despair.

Only few ‘happy endings’ make us happy but often someone’s careful and honest articulation of the ambiguities, uncertainties, and painful conditions of life gives us new hope. The paradox is indeed that new life is born out of the pains of the old.”

― Henri J.M. Nouwen, ‘Reaching Out - The Three Movements of the Spiritual Life’

The facebook page “A Nouwen Network - Mental Health Ministry Matters” was created on October 13, 2013 with the kind assistance of Matt, who showed me the basics.

A second facebook page, Mental Health Minsitry -“Being there with Love, Prayer & Action”, was hosted March 2014 - Nov 2015. The goal was to encourage faith communities to support and participate in, a wide range of Awareness Events related to Mental Health Issues. This content was later merged with the main ‘Mental Health Ministry Matters’ page and past posts were archived in an album there.

NOTHING CONTAINED ON THE WEBSITE IS INTENDED TO CONSTITUTE, NOR SHOULD IT BE CONSIDERED, MEDICAL ADVICE

OR TO SERVE AS A SUBSTITUTE FOR THE ADVICE OF A PHYSICIAN OR OTHER QUALIFIED HEALTH CARE PROVIDER.