July 2025 Letter From the Directors

Although this letter is from all three of us, I need you to know that this is Melody writing to you all because I am going to reference my friends and my story quite a lot.

It is not shocking that one of the main objectives of Upstream Collaborative is to see family preservation ministries be networked and collaborative. It’s in our name.

The more we have researched the upstream events that lead to abuse and neglect, the more we have realized that the problem within the problem is almost always social isolation. A key verse for this entire movement is found in Ecclesiastes 4:9-10, “Two are better than one, because they have a good return for their labor: If either of them falls down, one can help the other up. But pity anyone who falls and has no one to help them up.”

We are fighting against social isolation for the families that our ministries serve but do we notice when we are laboring in social isolation? Are we trying to meet all the needs that break our hearts on our own?

Four years ago, I spent a stressful spring trying to figure out a million things I didn’t know about starting a nonprofit. But I was not alone. My friends, Bonnie, Lanna, and Emily, were right by my side, wrestling through how to accomplish this mammoth task, each in our own city. We cried together and laughed together and each used our very different giftings to create our own, and support each others’, organizations

Here is one thing you need to know, we have an enemy who HATES our oneness in Christ. He HATES the God is being glorified through our love for one another. This will not come easy and we cannot be surprised when disunity is easier to find than unity.

I encourage you to ask yourself this question today, how am I fighting back? How am I pursuing a heart of collaboration when the path of least resistance is to just operate in independence?

I know my friends would not mind me telling you that our unity is not always easy and the enemy has sought to “steal, kill, and destroy” in our collaboration. But we fight back and we show up and we forgive and we make time and Lord willing, I will get to continue to walk alongside Bonnie, Lanna, and Emily until the day we are all celebrating together in Heaven.

Friends, unity is worth the battle.