HBI
Send a Message to the White House
Remembering Roe: Pro-Life citizens unite to end abortion
RememberingRoe.com, in partnership with Red Envelope Day, hopes to send 1.2 million pro-life messages to the President on January 22, commemorating the 1.2 million babies aborted in the U.S. every year since 1973, when abortion on-demand became legal as a result of Roe v. Wade.
Pro-life citizens are encouraged to join this effort by visiting RememberingRoe.com and clicking the red, “Send a Message” button on the website’s homepage.
Led by Heartbeat International, more than 10 pro-life organizations have united to form RememberingRoe.com, an interactive website commemorating the 40th anniversary of Roe, the insidious Supreme Court decision that has led to the killing of more than 54 million unborn children in the United States alone.
Just as Americans will never forget 9/11, the day on which nearly 3,000 lives were lost in the attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, so too, we will never forget Roe v. Wade, which has allowed nearly 3,300 unborn children to be aborted every day for the last 40 years.
RememberingRoe.com provides a centralized venue for the pro-life community to declare, “We will never forget.” The website provides tools to share stories, post prayers, and register to join a national prayer webcast January 22 at 3 p.m. (EST).
Go to RememberingRoe.com and see how you can participate in the unique pro-life event.
WHAT: Remembering Roe – virtual prayer event
WHEN: Tuesday, January 22, 2013 | 3:00 EST
Meet the Moms and Babies - January 2013
Mapi and Marella
In February 2007 I found myself in an unexpected pregnancy.
I was alone in this country trying to make it on my own. I was not married and I was not sure how the baby’s father was going to handle the news.
I went to a doctor and he told me that I was at a 90% risk of having a Down Syndrome baby because I was 35 years old. He recommended that I have an abortion. I felt all alone, desperate and all I could do was cry.
As I was driving home, I turned the radio on and there was a gentle voice answering questions at a Christian talk show. She was saying how this organization could help women with an unwanted or unplanned pregnancy. She said that Heartbeat of Miami Pregnancy Help Medical Clinics could help. I was not sure how they could help but I was desperate.
When I called the number, I spoke to Martha who told me that they could offer alternatives to women that did not want or could not have their baby. She asked to meet with me just to talk and share with me the options that I had.
I had already made an appointment with an abortion clinic but I decided to meet with Martha first. She arranged for me to have an ultrasound. That is when I saw my baby for the first time and heard her heartbeat. The ladies in the clinic treated me with much love, dignity and respect, never judging me and giving me the opportunity to see my baby. They offered to help me with different resources and also a plan of adoption. They spoke about faith, about life. Even if my baby was indeed Down Syndrome, there were people willing to adopt her. At that very moment I knew I did not want an abortion. How could I end the life of my baby?
We prayed at the Clinic and I felt strong even though I knew there were very difficult times ahead of me. However, I didn’t feel alone anymore. I felt there were people that cared about me and the baby with no hidden agenda, with no other interest than my well being.
Martha kept her word to be there for me. She followed up on me. I was a total stranger, yet she treated me as family. I felt more encouraged that I wanted my child more than anything.
The girls at the clinic continued to follow up with me making sure I had the resources I needed it. The joy came back to me and I had hope to face tomorrow. I no longer felt alone, I felt I had a new family that truly cared.
When the time came to have my baby girl, Martha and Jeanne (the Clinic Director) where in the hospital with me. When my baby Marella was born, she became the first baby born to this wonderful ministry.
Five years have passed and my daughter Marella is everything for me. She fills my life with joy and she is the most beautiful gift I have ever received. I work as a Realtor and I am able to raise my daughter with everything she needs and her father is a very important part of her life. He loves her and helps support her. She takes dancing and music lessons. She also takes art lessons and paints beautiful pictures that I proudly frame. She is intelligent and well behaved doing wonderful in school.
I thank God for Heartbeat of Miami Pregnancy Help Medical Clinics. If it hadn’t been for them, Marella wouldn’t be here today and I might have never had the opportunity to experience the blessing of being a mother.
Help Promote Remembering Roe
Remembering Roe is an opportunity for our nation to come together to commemorate the 40th anniversary of Roe v. Wade, the insidious U.S. Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.
As we mourn the lives destroyed by Roe, YOU are invited to join together in solidarity on January 22, 2013 for a national day of prayer and fasting to end the violence of abortion. From 3:00-4:00 p.m. EST you can pray with the National Pro-Life Religious Council* in a very special “hour of prayer” webcast.
Please sign up today to show your commitment to join with the Body of Christ in prayer as we go to our knees together to end abortion.
"They all joined together constantly in prayer..." Acts 1:14
After you have registered to pray with us on January 22, you have to opportunity to invite your community to join you.
Acts 1:14 refers to the early church, saying: "They all joined together constantly in prayer..."
We are called to do the same. Take time to download free graphics (like the image shown above) in order to promote this prayer event to your church, family, friends, and community. Encourage them to register to pray with us to commemorate this somber anniversary. There is great power in unified prayer!
New Year’s Resolution
I deleted an app from my iPhone this afternoon.
It was a good app, and free when I got it. But, as I read through Jonathan Edwards’ Resolutions, as I do every year, I became instantly convicted that this app—which I just downloaded yesterday—has already wasted too much of my time.
Edwards, regarded by many as the finest American theologian ever, jotted down 70 resolutions over the course of several months in 1723, and these have stood the test of time as some of the most brilliant, yet simple resolutions a Christian can make.
Several of them cut like a boning knife through my flabby heart, not the least of which is Resolution No. 5:
Resolved, never to lose one moment of time; but to improve it the most profitable way I possibly can.
Not one moment wasted. Not even when I’m waiting at the airport or stuck in traffic. Not even when I’m early to an appointment—a rare event in any case—and have 15 minutes to kill. To Edwards, a truly godly man, those 15 minutes didn’t belong to him in the first place, and therefore, were never his to kill or make alive.
I love this resolution of Edwards, not only because it sounds ambitious to the point of heroic, but because it is so squarely biblical. It’s nothing more than a simple restating of the Apostle Paul’s instructions to the church at Ephesus:
Look carefully then how you walk, not as unwise but as wise, making the best use of the time, because the days are evil. (Ephesians 5:15-16)
I want to imitate men like Edwards and Paul, who understood and embraced the gospel so wholeheartedly that every moment became an opportunity to capitalize upon and make the most of, for my ultimate joy, for the good of others, and for the glory of God.
Step 1: Cut out the Fat
The first step to capitalizing on the precious opportunities that each moment represents—to really redeem the time and make the best use of it—is to prayerfully quit doing things that do waste time. There goes that iPhone app. Is Facebook next? Pinterest? Maybe.
That’s what Edwards means when he resolves to “never lose one moment of time,” and it’s what Paul is shooting for when he warns his readers to watch how they’re walking, “not as unwise, but as wise.”
Can you picture Jonathan Edwards, the third president of Princeton, frittering time away on Facebook or Twitter? Or, can you picture the Apostle Paul, commissioned by Jesus as a servant and a witness to the resurrection, burning time on his cell phone while he waits for the bus?
Step 2: Capitalize on the Moment
Following the pattern set by Paul in Ephesians 5, Edwards counters his negative goal (to not waste time) with a positive objective: “to improve (each moment) the most profitable way I possibly can.”
This “improvement” starts with the heart. Are we actively seeking Christ where he is to be found—in his Word and among his people, the Church? Are we actively seeking to embrace the gospel so that we can say with Paul, “the love of Christ controls us”? (2 Corinthians 5:14)
This is what Paul means by “making the best use of the time,” and there is no app for it.
This kind of living takes discipline, study, and Christian community. And this is the kind of living that will really make a difference in the world, including the people you interact with on an everyday basis.
Baby Safe
In Fishhoek, South Africa, "Marc and Veronica" hold their newly adopted baby girl and praise God that, after six long years of waiting, He has answered their prayers.
Cradling their daughter, "Jenna", in their arms at the site where she was left by her birth mother, the beaming parents know firsthand the value of the work Baby Safe International is doing.
For Marc and Veronica, the thought of Jenna’s probable fate without Baby Safe’s life-saving innovation is unimaginable. At just a day old, Jenna would likely have been a victim of infanticide—infant exposure—had it not been for the availability of Baby Safe’s deposit box, which empowers desperate mothers with a real choice to preserve the life of their baby.
In South Africa, “baby dumping,” as it is called, is an increasingly common occurrence in both rural and urban areas. Some babies are found in plastic bags in rubbish heaps, others in storm drains, abandoned fields, ditches, alleys, or even in rural homemade toilets.
Some of these children are found, thankfully, alive, while others are found dead—upwards of 500 in the Western Cape of South Africa in 2010 alone—and still more are never found. This sad fact tells us that baby dumping is, by its very nature, widely unreported.
Baby Safe, a nonprofit Heartbeat International affiliate, specifically targets this injustice in its region, just outside of Cape Town, by producing and distributing “baby safes,” where mothers can leave their babies anonymously as a real alternative to the horror of infanticide.
The box has a variety of safety features to insure that proper care will be given to the baby who is left by his or her mother. When a baby’s weight is detected inside the safe, a team of dedicated staff are immediately notified, while a safety backup system assures the baby will be promptly rescued by Baby Safe volunteers.
Through the production and distribution of these boxes, Baby Safe is carefully building a network that enables desperate mothers to choose life for their babies. This network is spreading throughout South Africa, and has broken through the northeastern border to Swaziland.
While its visible efforts are focused on providing an alternative to infanticide for desperate mothers, Baby Safe’s long-term vision is to connect with at-risk women before they reach the point of dumping their babies, with holistic direction that includes Bible studies, parenting classes, nutrition education, and even exercise and dance classes.
To learn more about Baby Safe, and to find out how you can help, visit TheBabySafe.org.
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
More...
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!
