HBI
The Stewardship Foundation
As one of our core financial partners, I recommend a service that you may not have access to – and one that may be especially relevant in the next few weeks.
As you are no doubt aware, it appears inevitable that certain “tax cuts” (such as the capital gains tax) will expire at the end of this year. There may be great benefits that you and your family – and the charities you support – could experience if you make certain financial decisions BEFORE the end of this year.
If you are interested in learning even more, you need to make a phone call by December 15 (see my final paragraph) to complete your decision making by December 31.
Some of those decisions may involve charitable gifts that not only bless the charities of your choice, but also help you lower your taxes (and some may even supply you with an on-going income stream)!
Until now, Heartbeat has not had a way to help our donors with such decision making. Just this year we have developed a relationship with The Stewardship Foundation, headed by two gentlemen that I have known for several years – men who are strong Christian husbands and fathers who are 100% pro-life. (One of them formerly even worked for a state-wide pro-life organization.)
This Foundation has already helped one of Heartbeat’s donors who wanted to make a gift of a ring to a pro-life organization. Charities, like Heartbeat, are familiar with donations by cash, check, or credit card, but often do not know how to help a donor who wants to give personal property or give in a more “creative way”! Thanks to The Stewardship Foundation, I have learned about MANY ways of giving that I had no idea about!
If you work with The Stewardship Foundation, you could benefit ANY charity you love – your parish or church, your local pregnancy center, a school, a community organization, including Heartbeat! But what charities you decide to benefit is totally up to you!
The Foundation can help with a variety of ways of giving (and can work with your present attorney or financial advisor if you want), such as:
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- Bequest — a gift of property or cash to an organization under a will
- Donor Advised Fund — An easy-to-establish, low cost vehicle for charitable giving; you set up the fund with your gift, then advise how that money will be distributed to charities
- Charitable Remainder Trust — an irrevocable transfer of assets to a trust that pays you income during your lifetime or pays to your beneficiaries at the time of your death
- Gift Annuity Trust — a charitable donation that reduces taxation and provides you a lifetime income stream
- Charitable Lead Trust — a trust set up to provide yearly payments to your designated charity
- Endowments — your gift creates an invested fund owned by a charity, and earnings are used to support general or specific needs of the charity’s mission
Here is one amazing story, included on the Foundation’s website, of a donor who was helped by the Foundation. This donor chose to create a “charitable gift annuity” which is a simple contractual arrangement between the donor and The Stewardship Foundation. The gift annuity pays a guaranteed fixed sum each year for the life of one or more beneficiaries.
Mary Lou Fisher is an 82-year-old widow who over the years turned $150,000 into over $1.5 million in the stock market.
During the economic downturn of 2008, Mary Lou suffered along with other investors and saw her portfolio lose over 30% of its value.
Now concerned about her health, and knowing that she will soon have heavy cash outlays for health care and assisted living, she would like to sell the stock and put the proceeds in cash and debt instruments.
Her accountant told Mary Lou that if she sold the stock and paid $127,500 in capital gains, her net worth would be about $872,500 and earn only about 4% per year. She would likely pay $12,215 in incomes taxes on an income of $34,900, leaving just $22,685 for spendable income. This worries her.
If, however, Mary Lou chose to gift a charity $1,000,000, she could earn over 7%, or about $74,000 per year from a charitable gift annuity. This news brings the peace of mind she needs to counterbalance her health worries, and the opportunity to make a significant charitable gift lifts her spirits.
Mary Lou now feels that her life has taken on a new sense of purpose. She sees her wealth as more than personal security — she sees it as meaningful.
The Stewardship Foundation, a 501(c)(3) investment ministry, describes itself this way: “an ecumenical, Christian-based foundation that works with all faiths that promote respect for human life from conception to natural death, honors traditional families that encourage the full development of men, women, and children who are created in God’s image; and that safeguard religious freedom as a means to embrace our Creator God, our Savior Jesus Christ, and the wisdom and guidance of the Holy Spirit as we understand them.”
We invite you to view their website, www.stewardshipworks.org , to learn more.
If you are interested in discussing how the Stewardship Foundation can be of benefit to your long-term planning and offer ways that you can reduce your personal taxes while benefitting Heartbeat or other charities you love, please call Jim Kebe at (614) 800-7985.
Good stewardship is what Heartbeat is about – and we know that YOU also strive to be good stewards of the gifts the Lord has provide you. THANK YOU for saving and changing lives through your gifts to Heartbeat!
Surrender the Secret
Tyndale House
A bright spot on the horizon for the pro-life community
by Ellen Foell, Esq.
The pro-life movement delivered a blow to the Health and Human Services birth control mandate Nov. 16, as the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia granted a preliminary injunction to prevent the Obama administration from enforcing the requirement on Tyndale House Publishers.
This is a very bright spot on an otherwise dim horizon for the pro-life community.
Challenges to HHS regulations have consistently appeared in the news, and this is the third ruling of its kind since President Barack Obama signed the bill into law March 23, 2010.
The law, in part, demands that all employers—with very limited, narrow exceptions—who offer insurance to their employees either become Obamacare-compliant, including coverage of contraception, abortifacients and elective abortions, or face severe financial penalties.
Since Tyndale House is a for-profit publishing company, it does not fall under the narrow exemption guidelines, even though its books and publications are religious in nature. Tyndale House currently provides its employees with health insurance that specifically does not cover abortifacients, including Plan B and ella.
Represented by Alliance Defending Freedom, Tyndale House successfully argued that the mandate’s enforcement would violate its rights under the First and Fifth Amendments of the U.S. Constitution, as well as the Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
The court agreed, ruling that enforcement of HHS regulations would substantially burden the organization’s free exercise of religion.
“Bible publishers should be free to do business according to the book that they publish,” Alliance Defending Freedom’s Matt Bowman said in a statement posted on the legal ministry’s website.
For more information, click here and here.
Happy Thanksgiving
What is Heartbeat thankful for?
We wish you and your family a very blessed and safe Thanksgiving weekend!
The Future of Our Movement
Join the fight for life right now. Help us send 1.2 million red postcards to the President on January 22 urging him to honor life from conception until natural death.
The results of the election are not surprising, given the polls and predictions in advance. However, they are nonetheless shocking and sobering. Voters have chosen to confirm an Administration in Washington, D.C. that has undertaken the greatest expansion of abortion since Roe vs. Wade forty years ago.
It is heartbreaking and distressing to see that our nation will continue being driven down this path for another four years; a decision that will, of course, drive the rest of the world more deeply into a culture of death.
This “choice” means that more babies will be killed through abortion and abortifacients, more mothers and fathers will suffer harm, more families will be destroyed, and our nation will slip further away (in national policy matters) from our Christian roots and founding principles—especially the principle that we are endowed with unalienable rights, the first of which is the right to life; and the principle, enshrined as the first right in our Bill of Rights, of freedom of religion.
It is a frightening time. But, as Christians, we know that the Lord has won victory over death. We know that the Lord is still with us, and that He can do mighty deeds! We never give up hope, never despair.
Today and going forward, Heartbeat International continues to start, strengthen, defend, and support pregnancy help ministries all over the world.
Today and going forward, Heartbeat continues to answer the call at Option Line®, 24/7, via the phone (800 712 HELP), internet (OptionLine.org), live chat, and email, connecting those in need to life-saving help in their own community.
Everything we do saves lives and advances a culture of life. We continue to do what God is calling us to do.
One of my favorite reminders from Holy Scripture is Psalm 20:7, “Some put their hope in horses and chariots, but we put our hope in the Lord our God.” How seemingly “old-fashioned” to put hope in horse and chariots when we now have atomic weapons and spaceships that explore outer space! Yet, at one point in the history of the world, horses and chariots were the most powerful war implements imaginable. The things of this world are ever-changing, including technology and political power. But God does not change. He can always bring life from death.
We will continue full speed ahead! We know the Lord will bring many fruits from our labors, as He always has. We are willing to bear any burden to assert our right, as a Christian organization, to do what we are called to do, even in an increasingly anti-Christian atmosphere. We will continue the fight for LIFE, armed with His love and empowered by His grace. We covet your continued prayers for courage, wisdom, protection, and success.
You make all of this possible with your support, prayers, and partnership. Thank you!
Don’t Give Up, Rise Up!
One more telemarketer. One more commercial. One more debate. One more biased media pundit spouting forth an opinion.
It is easy to become battle-weary by this time in an election year.
In fact, it is so much easier to turn off the television or computer, flip through the newspaper to the crossword puzzle, and completely ignore the election activities altogether. It is exhausting and discouraging. However, exhaustion and discouragement are not good destinations for the Christian, not to mention for those of us engaged in the pregnancy help movement.
The stakes are high, and those who come behind us are looking to us to do what the Lord is calling us to do. So how do we shake off the ever-heavier blanket of despondency and discouragement? Perhaps we can all take a page out of a playbook I have come to trust and rely upon.
Along with many others, I had waited with much anticipation for the ruling of the Supreme Court in the case challenging the constitutionality of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (“PPACA”), National Federation Of Independent Business Et Al. v. Sebelius, Secretary Of Health And Human Services, Et Al., (No. 11–393, June 28, 2012).
The morning the ruling was to be announced, I delayed going to work because I wanted to hear the report live. Not being able to focus at home, I finally got in the car and I heard the commentaries begin.
I was frustrated, floored, furious and frankly, befuddled. Like many attorneys, I could have predicted the vote for most of the judges. However, I was not in any way prepared for the vote of Chief Justice Roberts, not to mention his majority opinion that upheld the PPACA as a tax. I felt betrayed and dejected. I was so disheartened.
However, that night, as I read my daily devotionals, I came across the following verses in Psalm 11, written thousands of years earlier, but in strangely similar times:
Flee as a bird to your mountain;
For, behold, the wicked bend the bow,
They make ready their arrow upon the string
To shoot in darkness at the upright in heart.
If the foundations are destroyed,
What can the righteous do?
David, the writer of the psalm, had the obvious pointed out to him—the foundations are destroyed. Flee!
King Saul had attempted to kill David many times. Imagine the tragedy of Saul, the very king of Israel, handpicked by God, constantly seeking to destroy the Lord’s anointed. What could David do? To whom could he appeal?
David’s appeal was to the Lord, the King of Kings and the Captain of the Hosts:
In the Lord I take refuge
The Lord is in His holy temple;
The Lord’s throne is in heaven;
His eyes behold, His eyelids test the sons of men.
The Lord tests the righteous and the wicked,
And the one who loves violence His soul hates.
Upon the wicked He will rain snares;
Fire and brimstone and burning wind will be the portion of their cup.
For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness;
The upright will behold His face.
In a way, I felt as if the very foundations had been destroyed. If the Supreme Court could not see the unconstitutionality of the PPACA, what recourse was there? As I was taught in law school, the Supreme Court is the court of last resort not because it is always right; rather, it is right because it is the court of last resort.
So now what? My natural reaction was to flee. Surely Antarctica could use a decent lawyer. But no…fleeing was not an option. Ignoring the whole process was not an option, either. Dedicated ostriching is not a possibility. My main temptation was to give up. What could one person do? What could even the entire united church do?
But in the end, I was encouraged by the truth that God reigns. The Lord is sovereign. Yes, he reigns over even the heart of the king. “The king’s heart is like channels of water in the hand of the LORD; He turns it wherever He wishes.” (Proverbs 21:1 )
If we honestly believe God is sovereignty in control, then even when we grow battle-weary, we will not give up. We will rise up. God is still on the throne. Even when it seems the foundations are being destroyed, God is an unshakable refuge for His people.
We, as those who find our righteousness in God’s anointed—the Son of David—will one day behold His face. We have a solid, unshakable hope, but it’s not one merely set aside for the by-and-by. It has implications for us in the here and now.
What is in our hands to do? Right now it is the election. Beloved, we need to vote, get out the vote and speak truthfully to those who look to us for guidance.
The Lord, who tests the hearts of the righteous and the wicked, loves righteousness, and He loves to see righteousness done—in every facet of life and at every level of private and public life.
People of God, don’t give up. Rise up!
Rick Santorum endorses Heartbeat's Option Line®
Pregnancy help centers are good for America.
This true and essential message is now being touted by Rick Santorum through his political advocacy group, Patriot Voices.
Launched in June, Patriot Voices brings awareness to one charity per month, and “crisis pregnancy centers” are in its sights for the month of October. In speaking of the pregnancy help movement, Patriot Voices specifically refers its audience to Heartbeat International’s Option Line®, and www.OptionLine.org.
Every woman deserves to be loved and supported during an unexpected pregnancy, and pregnancy help centers do just that, valuing the life and health of both mothers and their precious babies.
Option Line serves as a vital connection point between women experiencing an unexpected pregnancy and their local pregnancy help centers. As Patriot Voices points out in its recent correspondence, Option Line is also an excellent way to find a nearby pregnancy help center that needs your support and involvement.
Visit www.OptionLine.org and find your local pregnancy help center today!
Under Watch
Investigating the pregnancy help movement
Known abortion advocate and self-proclaimed investigative reporter Katie Stack has recently gone undercover to more than 30 pregnancy help organizations (PHO) in attempt to smear the work of the pregnancy help movement.
Honored by organizations such as NARAL and NOW, Stack has consistently spoken out against the work of our movement, and the information we provide. Unfortunately, she has received publicity on the national level, including an opinion piece in The New York Times that criticizes both PHOs and Heartbeat's Babies Go to Congress event. This event gives our affiliates the opportunity to share stories with their local congressmen of moms and babies helped by centers in their communities.
There continues to be a concerted effort by the opposition to publish negative reports and use potentially viral videos – especially among young people – to spout falsehoods, misinformation, and spurious allegations attempting to discredit PHOs. Stack has made it her mission to spread the false information NARAL and others so readily tout.
Heartbeat has created tools to help shield our affiliates from these attacks. We cannot guarantee that Stack and others like her will not enter our centers. We can tell you, however, that if our affiliate organizations follow the Commitment of Care and Competence, they are doing their part to protect their center and the women they serve.
Our Commitment of Care and Competence was designed to dispel the abortion activists’ false accusations, and to form the basis for strong client-services approval ratings. This commitment is the standard for affiliation with Heartbeat.
Heartbeat is here for our affiliates. Remember, our first response is always to join you in prayer, remembering that God will work all things together for our good.
“The LORD is my light and my salvation—whom shall I fear?
The LORD is the stronghold of my life—of whom shall I be afraid?”
- Psalm 27:1
Future Generations
A Family Legacy For LIFE
Hi, our names are Ken and Cathy Clark and we serve on the Heartbeat Board of Directors. We attended our first Heartbeat Conference in 2000 after co-founding a Birth Choice pregnancy center in Orange County, California.
Anyone who has attended a Heartbeat Conference (as a Heartbeat donor/partner or through an affiliate's board, staff or volunteer) has witnessed firsthand God's Spirit and His movement within the pro-life community. It was this Spirit of God in Heartbeat that touched our hearts to make a difference, not only at our local level but with Heartbeat on a world-wide level. We urge you to attend the next conference in Dallas, April 2-5, 2013. You will be awed and blessed by what God is doing there through Heartbeat.
We are the parents of two daughters and we're happy to say that our family of four has become a family of 11 (including our two sons-in-law and our five amazing grandsons!). We give thanks to God for these gifts entrusted to us. We consider our faith, our family, and our passion for life (born and preborn) as our most precious gifts. And, a 
great joy for us is that our daughter now works for Birth Choice, so building this legacy for the next generation continues in our family!
We have answered Heartbeat International's challenge to change the culture of our country and our world. Our goal is to replace death with LIFE, a culture of life. Our hope – and the hope of all future generations – depends on what we are willing to invest (our time, our talent, and our treasure). We thank you for your partnership with Heartbeat International and for being part of the solution to this tragedy of abortion.
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Get out the vote: Education
Get out the Vote: 5 Free Downloads!
We are less than 30 days away from the election … is anyone else tired of campaign commercials?
It seems that the ads get more malicious and frequent every election season. As pro-life voters, we must strive to see past the “smoke screens” and educate ourselves on the issues. We have pulled together many free resources and educational tools for you to use leading up to November 6. These tools will inform you about where the candidates stand on issues like abortion and the sanctity of human life.
No matter the outcome of the election on November 6th, there will still be a great need for pregnancy help organizations. No politician can reach and rescue lives from abortion in their own communities like a pregnancy help center can! More than policies, women need a personal touch from someone who cares.
With your support, Heartbeat International comes alongside these centers to provide the help and support they need to save as many lives as possible. We can’t do this life-saving work without you! Help us connect women to their pregnancy help organization one life at a time by partnering with us today.
Join us to Reach and Rescue lives from abortion
Millions of women need your help to choose life – otherwise, they and their babies become abortion statistics. Your passion is to be involved in saving lives in a life-changing way, you can make an impact by joining with Heartbeat and becoming one of our valued partners.
What is Heartbeat International?
Heartbeat International is the first network of pro-life pregnancy resource centers founded in the U.S. (1971), and it is now the most expansive network in the world. Heartbeat has 2,000 affiliated pregnancy help ministries including pregnancy help medical clinics (with ultrasound), resource centers, maternity homes, and adoption agencies in almost 50 countries around the world to provide alternatives to abortion.
Heartbeat's Life-Saving Vision...
...is to make abortion unwanted today and unthinkable for future generations.
Heartbeat's Life-Saving Mission...
...is to Reach and Rescue as many lives as possible, around the world, through an effective network of pregnancy help ministries that Renew their communities for LIFE.
To achieve our mission, we do the following:
We REACH those who are abortion-vulnerable through Option Line®, our 24/7 contact center.
We RESCUE those who are reached through our life-support network of pregnancy organizations providing true reproductive health care, ministry, education, and social services where lives are saved and changed.
We RENEW broken cities around the world, by developing pregnancy organizations where abortion clinics are the only alternative for abortion-vulnerable women.
Additional Info
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- Donate Now Alternate Link https://www.heartbeatinternational.org/reach-give
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WTH1 Content
Heartbeat's Option Line is a 24/7, live, contact center for women considering abortion. Through Option Line women are counseled about alternatives to abortion and connected to their local pregnancy help center immediately. YOU can rescue lives through Option Line. Find out how today!
- WTH1 Link REACH: Discover Option Line
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WTH2 Content
Every day our pregnancy help organizations serve thousands of women and save thousands of lives from abortion. They are in need of people like you to help them continue this work. Find out how you can get involved in your local center by finding the location closest to you today!
- WTH2 Link RESCUE: Find a center near you
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WTH3 Content
Talking about abortion is never easy, but we want to help. Download this simple guide to learn 10 Things you can say and do to make abortion unwanted now and unthinkable for future generations!
- WTH3 Link RENEW: Free download
Remembering Roe Unites Pro-Life Movement
RememberingRoe.com Calls Pro-life Movement to Reflect, Repent, Restore
By Virginia Cline
How could we fail to acknowledge the more than 54 million children aborted in the U.S. since the horrific Roe v. Wade decision on Jan. 22, 1973—the most tragic and unforgettable landmark date?
The upcoming presidential inauguration is planned for Jan. 21, 2013, causing a shift of the March for Life to that Friday, leaving the anniversary without acknowledgement. Heartbeat International and at least 10 other partnering pro-life organizations did not want the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade to pass without a national day of prayer and fasting, so they created RememberingRoe.com.
RememberingRoe.com promotes a day of remembrance and hosts a variety of interactive tools, featuring an opportunity to sign up for a national hour of prayer via webcast on Jan. 22, 2013, beginning at 3 p.m. EST led by the National Pro-life Religious Council.
This site is also the driver for a national red card campaign to send 1.2 million pro-life postcards to the president in order to remember the 1.2 million victims of abortion each year in the U.S. alone. Democrat or Republican, the leader of the free world needs to hear from Americans about the sanctity of every human life on the 40th anniversary of Roe. For a small donation, visitors can sign up for a red card—personalized with their name—to be delivered to the White House on Jan. 22, 2013.
Forty years of destroying life in the womb is the battle defining our society. The promotion of aborting a child as “choice” has endangered our very civilization by attacking the dignity of human life and denigrating motherhood. The escalating evil of abortion calls for a supernatural response found only in the unity of every pro-life person in America imploring Heaven’s intercession.
For this day, Jan. 22, 2013, we challenge every pro-life individual to kneel together as one nation under God and call upon Him as we remember, reflect, repent and plead for restoration.
Abortion is the deadliest battle of good vs. evil in our lifetime, and the strongest weapon against this kind of evil is prayer and fasting. Our hope is that members of the pro-life movement recognize the significance of this important defense in the battle of life and connect with RememberingRoe.com.
There’s a place at the site to share your prayer and your story of how you first heard about Roe v. Wade. Some of us are old enough to remember exactly where we were when we learned about the now infamous U.S. Supreme Court decision. For those born after Roe—the generation that survived Roe—you are invited to share your reflections on when and how you learned that the Supreme Court had determined that every woman has a right to abort her baby.
I remember my father’s tears on January 22, 1973. It was the first time I had ever seen him cry. I was 11 years old when I found him crumpled up on the stairs, shuddering, with his folded hands pressed to his face as he sobbed. I will never forget how he was curled up in the fetal position as he wept. It took him no less than 10 minutes to choke out the fact that seven men on the Supreme Court had decided it should be legal for a mother to abort her baby. On that particularly bleak Monday afternoon, he cried for the millions of babies he knew would die at the hand of Roe.
My pro-life passion was ignited that day after witnessing my father’s heartbreak and hearing his cries: “I could have done more. I should have done more to stop abortion.”
Imagine if our stories listed online at RememberingRoe.com inspired Christians everywhere to do more to help each mother reject the choice to abort her child.
Click here and share your story.
The goal of RememberingRoe.com and the goal of Heartbeat International is to make abortion unwanted now and unthinkable for future generations. The Holy Spirit has the power to enkindle in us the fire of compassionate love so that the pro-life movement can renew the face of the earth for LIFE. Let us unite so that we may never forget.
Remembering Roe
Site Launched to Unite Pro-Life Movement in National Day of Prayer, Reflection
COLUMBUS, OH – With the 40th anniversary of the Roe v. Wade decision approaching, Heartbeat International and at least 10 other pro-life organizations are partnering to launch RememberingRoe.com, an interactive website commemorating Jan. 22, 1973, the day abortion became legal in the U.S.
The site offers interactive tools and historical information regarding the U.S. Supreme Court’s decision to federally legalize abortion through all nine months of pregnancy. RememberingRoe.com serves as the hosting platform for a national hour of prayer via webcast Jan. 22, 2013, beginning at 3 p.m. EST.
Visitors can register without charge for the online prayer hour at RememberingRoe.com beginning immediately and up until the time of the event, which will be led by the National Pro-Life Religious Council.
For a small donation, visitors can also sign up for a red postcard, personalized with their name, to be delivered to the president on Jan. 22, 2013, reminding him of the importance of every human life. Organizers hope to deliver 1.2 million postcards to the White House, symbolizing the number of children aborted in the U.S. each year.
Additionally, RememberingRoe.com provides an outlet for visitors to share where they were when they heard about this shocking legal decision, and how they plan to pray for an end to abortion. Visitors can watch videos of spokespersons from sponsoring organizations, discussing how they have been affected by Roe v. Wade.
Organizers are urging members of the pro-life movement across the nation to observe a full day of prayer and fasting on the date of the anniversary, asking God for an end to abortion — which has produced over 54 million aborted children in the U.S. since 1973 — and bring about a restored, life-affirming culture to the nation and around the world.
Confirmed sponsors include: Heartbeat International, Option Line, March for Life, Concepts of Truth, Family Research Council, Focus on the Family, Good Counsel, Life Legal Defense Foundation, National Pro-Life Religious Council, NIFLA, Priests for Life, and Students for Life.
The National Pro-life Religious Council is a Christian coalition which acknowledges Jesus Christ as Lord and Savior and is called to affirm and witness to the Biblical standard of the value, dignity, and sanctity of human life.
Founded in 1971, Heartbeat International is the first pregnancy support association in the U.S. Heartbeat’s Option Line (1-800-712-HELP/OptionLine.org) connects women facing unexpected pregnancies with the emotional support and practical help they need to welcome new life.
