Hi, everyone, Vanessa here. I am dropping into your feed today with a bonus conversation to share

with you a little bit more about our upcoming Anne of Green Gables Pilgrimage. I am joined by two very

special guests, Casper Ter Kyle, who is leading the pilgrimage, and Courtney Brown, who is our

programs manager and is going to be the logistics coordinator on this trip.

Hi, Courtney and Casper.

Hi, Vanessa.

Hi.

Oh, I love having both of you in one place.

Casper, so you picked the theme of friendship for this trip, and I'm wondering why you think that is an important theme to focus on while on a pilgrimage.

Well, I feel like I'm in my late 30s and I have never been more committed to the importance of

friendship than I am at this life stage.

I feel like there's so much written about romance.

There's so much like, I mean, literature about family.

But friendship, if I think about my day-to-day experience of what makes my life meaningful,

what brings my life joy, it's the friends I have.

It's the like poop report text that I share with you. Yeah.

It's the, it's the like, it's really enjoyed too. Honestly, so helpful. But it's it's, it's this web

of relationship that enriches my life and frankly helps me to keep going and the way I keep other people

going when times get hard. And especially, I think,

in our life stage where a lot of friends have young families or really significant caring

responsibilities, you know, the kind of opportunity to enrich, deepen, even start new friendships,

really dwindles. And so taking the time to focus on why friendship matters in our life,

...