The Bridegroom and His Bride

written by Al White, Development Specialist

As the newest member of the PCC Development Team,  I bring a pastoral background into my responsibilities. My role is to encourage generosity and support for the PCC efforts. I have the joy of aligning passions and resources on behalf of our mission to “compassionately engage, educate and inspire others about the truth of human sexuality.”

I’ve been recently captured with the Biblical metaphor that depicts Jesus as the Bridegroom, and His followers, the church, as His beloved Bride. This relational aspect helps us understand His sacrificial love for us, and our response to that love. That relationship is also a great way to encourage husbands and wives to adopt that he/she model as they both have roles and responsibilities to serve each other out of love.

I recently discovered another and even more specific application of that word picture to the work of the Pregnancy Care Center. Beyond the model of a great marriage, we can also see the model of the roles of a father and a mother. Jesus served His Bride with protection and provision through sacrificial leadership, and The Bride, the Church is called to a maternal role of producing and developing life.

Traditionally, the Church nurtures life through its Christian education, or discipleship efforts. The legacy of producing generations of faithful followers is clearly set forth in the models of the New Testament churches. But with such a maternal responsibility for producing Christian life, should not Christ’s Bride be equally passionate about protecting life? If our interest is about creating more and more followers of Jesus, doesn’t it make sense that we should be more interested and active in insuring that more potential followers are given a chance to be born? Our hope is that every child born would someday hear the message of Jesus’ love and respond, to be born again. Children can’t be born again without being born the first time.

Followers of Christ – be His beloved, radiant and ready Bride of Christ. Embrace that maternal role that calls us to affirm life that it may be born – with hopes that the child will be born again. Yes, our mission is to help others be “born again”, but our initial maternal role and responsibility is to protect and promote life.

Thank you for your ongoing support and prayers for the Pregnancy Care Centers of South Central Indiana. Your partnership with us not only affirms life, but fulfills the Church’s mandate to create more followers of Jesus.

Defenders of the Weak

written by Christy Shaw, Volunteer Coordinator

Recently, many of our staff members were able to attend the Indiana Association of Pregnancy Centers  (IAPC) conference in Indianapolis. The opening devotion was a thought provoking pep talk, steering us forward in the battle we are in daily, as we serve in our communities. I wanted to share some of the statements made, to encourage you in your service here at the PCC, no matter what role that may be. We greatly appreciate and admire the time and efforts given by faithful supporters and volunteers who are “Defenders of the Weak”!

In working with the PCC, you are given the chance each shift to compassionately engage with many stories. In response to those stories, you are obeying scripture in many ways:

• God is a “Father” that looks after, protects, defends, and provides for the “fatherless”. Our clients may have biological fathers, but the PCC steps in to be a supportive, spiritual, and emotional “father” to them.
• God looks after our clients, and you do also by listening to and providing for them in their time of need.
• God commands us to look after the widow and orphaned. A part of PCC’s mission is to serve the babies and clients who are abandoned. 
• You care for the most powerless, voiceless, most vulnerable group in the world – the unborn child. That is close to God’s heart!
• You serve the margins of society, ones without resources, support, and who are alone and afraid.
• You are pushing back on evil by affirming life through your compassionate engagements, education, and inspiration! 
• You are caring for the vulnerable and defending a growing culture of death. 

When you serve “the least of these", you are most like Jesus! In Matthew 25:40 God tells us that when we serve the weak, we are serving Him by meeting the immediate needs of those who are hungry, thirsty, estranged, needing clothed, sick and in prison. PCC definitely sees people daily who are sick and in bondage to sin. They are in desperate need of love and service, so that our deeds can point them to the One who is the Lover of their souls. I cannot think of a better way to show them God’s love than to meet them right where they are in desperate need of Hope!

I am so glad God meets us where we are and we do not have to become a perfect person before He starts perfecting us! His grace knows no abounds! Amen!

Never grow tired of doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9

Don't Forget Your Condom, Dear

Written by Cynthia Workman, Abstinence Education Administrative Assistant

Parents, when you slip your teenage son a condom on his way out the door before a school dance, what are you protecting him from?  When you take your 14 year old daughter to the doctor to get her prescription for birth control pills started, what are you avoiding?  One of the consequences of teen sex is pregnancy.  Condoms and the pill help avoid that consequence.  Too bad you can’t put a condom on your child’s heart, their emotions and their future.

When providing birth control to our teenagers we are communicating we believe they have no discipline or character to resist a physical urge for sex.  We wish to help them avoid the consequence of pregnancy.  However, in supporting their teenage sex outside of marriage, we are giving them the green light to behavior that endangers their health (STIs or Sexually Transmitted Infections), their heart (one relationship after another without commitment or true love), their social life (malicious gossip) and their future (higher rates of depression and suicide).

According to the Health and Human Services website under the page heading Reproductive Health, it states “adolescents ages 15-24 account for nearly half of the 20 million new cases of STI's each year. Today, four in 10 sexually active teen girls have had an STI that can cause infertility and even death.  Also, though rates of HIV are very low among adolescents, males make up more than two-thirds of HIV diagnoses among 13- to 19-year-olds. STIs often have no obvious sign or physical symptom, so regular screenings are critical.  The most effective way to prevent STIs is to abstain from sexual activity…”  Dear parents, do you see the words “4 in 10 adolescent girls have an STI which can lead to infertility and even DEATH”?  Why then, would you give your daughter a pill to take or slip a condom in your son’s pocket on date night?  Why would you not say, “You are a precious treasure!  I value you so much I am telling you the BEST way to avoid pregnancy, an STI and a myriad of social and emotional ills, is to WAIT until marriage before having sex.  Abstinence is not a deduction or subtraction of something from your life.  It is an INVESTMENT in your future and your life!  I love you too much to encourage you in being sexually active at this time in your life.  I am here for you should you need to talk about anything related to this area.  I am your biggest cheerleader!”  Be real.  Be honest.  Don’t avoid the hard topics.  Let them know you believe in them and their future and want what is BEST, not what is necessarily easy. 

So parents, if you have supplied your teens with the means to be sexually active, you need to ask yourself why.  Are you trying to avoid public embarrassment?  Are you trying to avoid financial burden? Are you trying to avoid legal responsibility?  Are you trying to prevent a consequence, but avoid the behavior that leads to that consequence?  Do you realize your child's hear, mind, soul, as well as their body, are worth fighting for more than any of the aforementioned items you may try to avoid.  Do you realize encouraging and supporting them in waiting for sexual activity helps protect their future marriage relationship as well as the environment and relationship they bring your future grandchildren into?  Do you realize that young people can and will rise to the challenges placed before them with supportive, cheer-leading, honest parents beside them.  Challenge your sons to be men of integrity who treat women with respect and honor, who do not view women as a commodity.  Challenge your daughters to be respectable women who do not lure young men with their immodest dress and provocative words.  Communicate their great worth and encourage them to wait for marriage so they can protect their heart, mind and soul by following the wonderful blueprint, designed for our good, and handed down from our Creator. 

Meet Kimmy!

Kimmy Gordon is our intern for the summer!

We are so excited that Kimmy is spending her summer with us, helping us with a number of projects in all areas of the ministry.

"I am most excited to be in this community and engaging with all of the different people that work for and with PCC," Kimmy said. "I hope to gain a better understanding of what a nonprofit looks like on a large scale as well as in more detail."

Here are a few quick facts about Kimmy:

• Hometown: Palestine, Illinois
• Family: Parents, Mary and Julian, and one brother, Bobby
• School: Attending Johnson University
• Major: Triple major in Bible, Counseling and Nonprofit Organization Management
• Graduation Date: Spring 2015
• Hobbies: Hanging out with friends, reading, watching movies and long-boarding  

Kimmy's dream job after graduation is to open up her own nonprofit dealing with adoption.

"I am still praying about and asking God for His guidance on this area of my life," Kimmy said. "But as long as I am doing what God has willed me to do then I will be completely happy!"

David Sandhage - Our Friend, Advocate, Board Member

David Sandhage (center) at the 2013 Walk For Life, with
Marge Miller (left) and his wife, Cathy (right).

Today we say goodbye to a humble servant of God—our friend, partner, advocate and board member, David Sandhage. We praise God for the opportunity we had to walk alongside him, serving our communities with compassion and love. We will miss you, David!