Blessings and Love, Dear Family. Thank you for being here.
Our son Rama is arriving this May.
Many of you have followed our journey and supported us when we were raising funds to keep our family together through the visa process. We are deeply grateful for your generosity and love.
We are coming back to this community one more time.
Long before we found each other, we each carried the same deep feeling that the world needed a different way to live. A simpler way. A more connected one. When Yogananda's teachings entered our lives, for Mashida in 2017 and for Maria in 2020, it became clear that this was the path we were called to serve. In 2021, God brought us together to dedicate our lives to this vision side by side.
Our service is to help Yogananda's vision of world brotherhood colonies become real in our time. That means connecting existing communities to each other, training young adults to live and serve within them, and building the infrastructure that allows this movement to grow. We travel, we serve, we build. We have given our lives to this. And now we are also becoming parents.
For years it felt like things were moving slowly. Now the time feels right and ripe. This year has been the most fruitful yet. We are hosting Yogananda World Café gatherings bringing devotees together around community life, a Young Adult Leadership and Community Building training, a founding Roundtable for communities, and we are launching a digital home to connect devotees and communities across the world into a living global network.
Rama is arriving into all of this. He is not separate from this mission. Community begins at home.
We are raising $5,000 to cover the costs of his arrival and our first months together as a family of three.
Here is what that covers:
- Birth and postpartum care costs not covered by insurance
- Basic living expenses for the first months of Rama's life while we remain fully present to him and to the work
What we need right now is the freedom to welcome him fully, without the weight of financial pressure pulling our attention away from him and from the mission.
Every time we share this vision, people see themselves in it. They see this as the path for a new world. We trust completely that it will continue to unfold as God has guided it.
We open this space for anyone who feels called to contribute. This mission does not belong to us. It belongs to the world.
May God and the Gurus bless you abundantly.
With love and Gratitude
Maria, Mashida, and Rama Shabazz
Organizer
