Sav-A-Life Sunday at My Church

Yesterday was "Sav-A-Life Sunday" at my church! For weeks our Pastor had been announcing that September 7 we would be collecting gifts to help stock the closets at the Sav-A-Life Pregnancy Center where I volunteer.

As you can see from the pictures, the trunk of my car was full when all of the baby gifts were loaded in! This afternoon I unloaded everything except the many packages of diapers and the five diaper bags. Everything else I brought in and laid out on the spare bed where I grouped similar items together in piles. I wrote down every kind of item we had received and how many of each one. We have to fill out a form containing all this information at the center and I thought it would be easier for me to do it today than at the center tomorrow and risk being interrupted several times. We received so many cute things. My bedroom smelled just like a nursery! Which I liked!

A friend from church came over this afternoon to bring more gifts and helped me with the counting of the gifts. Then we bagged them all up and she and I put them back in the trunk of my car ready to deliver to the center when I go to work tomorrow.

Maybe you are not familiar with Sav-A-Life Pregnancy Centers or any Pregnancy center for that matter. Let me give you a quick introduction!

We are home to a variety of services tailor-made to help women, regardless of age, race, level of income or education. Our main service is, of course, a FREE pregnancy test. Every client is offered FREE counseling from peer volunteer counselors. First time mothers are offered FREE parenting classes. At the end of each of the parenting classes she is given FREE baby items (blankets, bibs, bottles, booties, bath accessories, baby clothes, etc.) For single women we offer...and encourage... FREE abstinence classes so that she will not have yet another unplanned and unwanted pregnancy. FREE post abortion counseling is offered to those clients seeking to be free from the daily guilt and shame they often feel. Do you notice one word in this paragraph that stands out? The word FREE! That tells you that our clients pay nothing for our services. But as you know, nothing is free! Someone has to pay! We are so thankful for people like those at my church and other churches, businesses and individuals who so willingly open their hearts and their wallets and help to keep the doors of our center open.

Each client we see is given the opportunity to hear what Jesus has done to pay for her gift of eternal life. Just as she doesn't have to pay for the services and the baby items she receives at our center because someone else has paid for them for her, we try to give her the good news that she doesn't have to pay for her sins because Jesus has already paid for them when he died on the cross. "But God commendeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." Romans 5: 8 (KJV)

Some of these women may realize for the first time that there is hope! Hope for forgiveness if she has already had an abortion. Hope for assistance with some of the needs of her often unexpected pregnancy. Hope for acceptance and counseling from our staff. And most of all, hope for a new life in Christ. "For the wages of sin is death; but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord." Romans 6: 23 (KJV

Since we don't force the gospel on anyone, some women leave the same way they came....lost and undone...but they have made a choice. We have sown a seed even though we may never see or even know when, or if, the seed takes root and causes a client to want to know more about God.

Please pray for the work of crisis pregnancy centers all across the world! Because...."Jesus loves the little children...all the children of the world...red and yellow black and white...they are precious in His sight....Jesus loves the little children of the world."

Marilyn