Five Years and Counting: Community for Christian Working Moms
Restored is five. FIVE! I feel like a mom when her kid goes off to kindergarten. Where has the time gone? Have I been a good steward of what was entrusted to me? Are behaviors in line with core values?
Stephanie Llorente and Allie Roepe created Restored in 2017 to develop community for Christian working moms.
Only time will tell.
If you’re reading this and you weren’t around five years ago, you should know that we’ve come quite a long way since our humble beginnings. In year one, we “bribed” church staff for discounts on already cheap space for meetings. We shlepped food from home to those same cheap meeting rooms to entice attendance. We sweet talked volunteers into setting up and breaking down for gatherings. Our photos were marred with fluorescent lighting and inexpensive decor from the Target dollar spot. If we had $200 in the bank, we were thrilled.
And, in spite of all of that, the sweetest, most real group of women continued to show up month after month to connect with those who understood their lifestyle - and their faith.
Then 10 people became 20, and 20 became 30. Thirty turned into more, and…
We didn’t care how big the Instagram following was. We didn’t need fancy reels or branded images. We weren’t worried about having enough hand sanitizers or donning masks for safety in a pandemic.
Ministering to working mothers was a calling. And it was fun.
Kicking off our five-year Table Talk with Stephanie Farley.
And now, we’re five.
It’s not lost on me that at five years old, the children we nurture from infants start kindergarten - a significant shift from daycare, preschool or home life. At school, they learn to make new friends, become equipped to navigate the world around them, and - hopefully - engage with teachers and school leaders who encourage and motivate them to grow and achieve.
Isn’t that what we hoped for Restored when we dreamed it up five years ago? A space for Christian working mothers to live in community, to navigate a fallen world and feel seen while doing it?
Yes! We dreamed of something to encourage, equip and restore the mother who sees her kid only a few hours a day after work. We hoped for a refuge that would support deep friendships for the mom whose schedule is dominated more by PowerPoints than play dates. We meticulously planned for decision-making mothers who bear the mental load in the office and the home.
Shopping and connecting at the five-year celebration.
That infant child named Restored - the one birthed through pain, tears and sacrifice - has started proverbial kindergarten.
At our five year mark, I’m proud to say that Restored is hope fulfilled. We’re encouraging, equipping and restoring moms across the Triangle and beyond. We’re linking arms with moms in the trenches and demonstrating how our faith-filled work matters in a marketplace that needs Jesus. If has been a blessing to you, it’s all because we said “yes” to something we felt called to create.
Yes, our IG page is sleeker in 2022 than it was five years ago. We produce decently viewed reels. We host events that are larger in scale. Our roster of moms is a multi-state collective. But, at its core, and in all it represents, Restored is still - and will always remain - the sweetest, most intimate home for career-minded, faith-filled moms. And for that, I’m grateful.
“Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken.”