Well, I'm just going to look at some notes. The only way I can do this, I am the founder
of the Parenthood Resource Center. So that's that. That's all it is.
So how does the Lex Specialty Clinic now?
What I'm trying to, what I want to do is tell you how, how that happened.
And way, way back, probably maybe 40, 50 years ago, I had some prophetic word given to me
by a prophet, which was Luke 418, which are those famous words that God commissioned his
son Jesus to do, and then later on Jesus commissioned the disciples to do, like, you know, go, I forgot
what I should have written this down, but restore the church. What it did to me was I commissioned,
I made my own for myself from that, and I said my life passion is to restore to wholesomeness
every wounded, broken person. And that's really what was on my heart for getting the Parenthood
Center going. I mean there's an infinite number of things around that, but that's, that was
my reason. And we were all concerned about abortion, but the young ladies were victims.
They're just out on the street and everybody was saying, oh, you're pregnant, well you
should better, you better have an abortion. I mean, they just got so much wrong advice,
and they were hurting as it was, and then people started pushing them. Well you can't
carry that thing around. So I thought, I have got my passion for them. That's where it was
at that time. I really, I was part of the group, part of the group. So we did abortions,
so that's just what we did. I kind of almost felt the same way. That's the way it
is. And God had to put it on my heart then, that's not a good thing. So he did, but he
started with putting on my heart. The young ladies are victims here, and we need to do
something. So that's what I did. They were just, yeah, they were just victims, and
they put, I put them on my heart so deeply, but so I decided the thing to do is write
a tract, and take that tract down to Dayton's and stay it on the corner, and hand it out
to young ladies who are mine. Because the world was not telling them that. The world
might be doing that. They'd be handing out trucks, going and having abortions. You don't
need to suffer with that thing inside you. Go and have an abortion. Well, I wanted to
tell them, no, that's life inside you. God put that little one in there. Even though
you didn't obtain it in the proper way, that's life that God put in you. So you
need to do that. So I thought, all right, so how do we do this? We've got to have some
place where these young ladies could go. They can't just do it on an individual basis.
So let's form what we can call a pregnancy resource center, where if they have questions,
they can come. And somebody can talk to them, try to give them the true story, the true
story of what they're really doing and help them with their problems. And so, that's
kind of what really, what got the center going. Yeah, it was the... they were so
intense, so on my heart that I had to do something for them. At that point, I wasn't even thinking
so much about the babies. I mean, because I was in the same culture as everybody else.
They're babies, okay? So they're going to have an abortion. It was the same others.
It didn't mean that much until God really got hold of me and then I knew what was
going on. Anyway, I think our country, not the whole world, really, was still exploiting
these vulnerable young ladies. Every time I see one, I think, oh my God, now what's
she going to do? So that was... there were some other people helped, but that's
1985 was when we opened, wasn't it? May of 1985, they opened doors.
We went, yeah, so people came to help. There was a lot of people who helped. It wasn't
just all me and some people, some of you got people with you, Steve Newton, Bob
Venerman, Pastor Venerman. They were not necessarily in the formation of the center, but they
helped this whole thing. They were working with these ladies before that. So it just...
that's the way it went. And then we needed somebody to help run this thing. So how
do we do that? I thought, well, I can do it. So I just went to a couple of... I think
it was two young ladies, I think. I'm not sure it was for this, or I think it was
for this. Two young ladies I met. And I said, we're starting a ministry to help
young ladies make up their mind about their babies. Would you want to help us get
that going? And both of them said, yes, we will. So we got it started. And then many,
many people came on board. We had prayer meetings for weeks and weeks and weeks.
And that was all God's work then. So it was just God. Well, just a sharing with
the pastor with Vern as a pastor here last night gave an awesome sermon on saying, yes.
And that's not what we did. When we started seeing what was happening, God put on our
heart, hey, you got to do something. I don't know what to do. But I said, yes, God,
whatever, I'll do it. And that's the way it happened. And we had three or four
different directors that came and Gina came and Gina. And then I didn't leave. And then
I didn't leave. I came and she didn't leave. So she's still here. You want to kind
of pick it up from there. Gina's done a fantastic job there. So I don't know if it's
anything you need, you want to say? You know, I was just sitting here and looking
at my timeline. You know, we had a little timeline on our website. So I printed it
off for Bob and I to look at before we came and kind of remind us of some of the key
dates when things happen. So as Bob was recounting the Lord speaking to him on
this issue back in the early 80s and they actually opened their doors in May of 1985.
And so I'm sitting here looking at this and I realized just in this moment that
in May of 1985, on May 23, 1985, to be exact, my son was born. And God used my
pregnancy with my son on this very issue. It was a difficult pregnancy, blah, blah,
lots of difficulties. I worked in health care and worked in a clinic for those of you
who are a little older and remember group health, which is now health partners. And
back in those days, it kind of got referred to as group death because it was one of
the HMOs at the time that was really providing a lot of abortion services. And in May of 1985,
I worked for group health at one of their largest OBGYN clinics in Como. And I had
a difficult pregnancy and I had no plan to tell you all this tonight. Bob and
I had agreed that whatever the Holy Spirit led us to tonight was what we were going
to talk about. And so I'm sitting here looking at this May 1985 going, oh my goodness. At
the same time you were forming this place and opening doors was the end of a culmination
of a long pregnancy, a difficult pregnancy and a lot of bed rest. And because of that,
I had to sit in the back every day with my feet propped up because my insurance
was paying for this baby. And in this large, one of the largest OBGYN clinics
in the metro and prep charts for seven months. I went through every woman's chart. And in
those days we had paper charts and you had little sheets that you had to prep the
chart for the doctor with and stick it in there and put in all the pertinent
information on the heading. And that's what I did for seven months because I
couldn't get up and run around. I had to sit at a desk, my feet propped up,
people brought me charts and I couldn't do anything else. And I had to go through
all those charts. With this baby, I had my first ultrasound too. So I had three
year old twins, but I didn't have an ultrasound with them. And it was new,
you know, ultrasound was new. I had my first ultrasound with him at 10 and
a half weeks when I started having difficulty. And they determined that I
had a twin pregnancy again, had lost one of the babies. And I saw him at 10 weeks
perfect on this ultrasound, whole baby sucking his thumb. And I was raised in
a liberal home and I was a Christian by now, but I was still wishy washy on
this issue. Like Bob just said, it was just kind of how it was back then,
you know, like, uh, abortion sounds ugly, but you know, just is and
didn't have a strong opinion and seeing that baby. And then spending all those
months in those charts and almost every woman in that clinic had one or two
abortions. And I remember one who had had 11 elective abortions. And God
used that pregnancy and that timeframe, Bob, that exact timeframe to
change my mind on this issue. And to make me walk away from that place, I
quit after he was born. And to make me change my mind entirely and leave
knowing after all the ultrasounds I'd had during that pregnancy and
everything I'd seen that I needed to make sure that women knew the truth.
And that was my determination point was right when you were opening
doors. That's crazy. I didn't even realize that till I'm sitting here
looking at May 1985 going. Yeah, that's pretty wild. It is God. That's
God. That is, that is he got a hold of me. Not a coincidence. No
coincidences. Yeah. And I didn't come to the center until 2004. So a
long time later, I volunteered in the mid 90s, though, right when we added
care net as our national affiliation. I was in the group that took the
first volunteer advocacy training under the care net moniker with care
net training. I was in that group and volunteered. But that's wild. That
is because, well, we had to have a place to go. Now, I don't remember for
sure, but it seems to me we use the first place we had was the old
phone company office. The US West building. Yeah, then the quest
building for the first 19 years. Yeah. That's where I started as
volunteer was in that location. And I think your husband and some
other people from church came and, you know, modified that not
that location. Tom didn't help with that location. He did. He's
done a lot in the other locations. But yeah. But yeah, they it was a
crazy office too, because it was kind of a 1970s feel where it
had the open tops, you know, the 70s thing where you had the
walls, but you had the open tops, you know, it was all about
that in the schools and public places. And our counseling room
in there had the open top. I remember talking very quietly to
people in that room because the waiting room was right on the
other side of the wall. It was a crazy little space, but we
were there for a long time.
Yeah, that was good. I remember we need to get when
we started forming and doing things the way we should. We needed
to have a dinner for us. And actually was our first pregnancy
resource dinner. We had it at the Catholic Church in Cambridge.
The Parish Hall?
Yeah. Yeah. And we brought our own paid plates, paper
plates. We made our own food.
Spaghetti dinner I hear. The board made spaghetti. We did use
their cooking stove, I think, but we did all our own and
turned out good. Yep. And so that's a lot. I think that's
the last time that happened. But if you haven't been to
our dinners, they're not quite like that anymore. But
they're a little different now. But that was the
beginning. So that was our first lunch. Yeah. Yeah. One
other thing I wrote down here. Well, it has expanded. We're
all aware of what's called the Lex Center south of here
a little ways.
Yes, we have two locations now in Cambridge and East
Bethel, both. And when we named them, we rebranded and
named them Lex specialty clinics. We did that behind
Bob's back because he did not want something named after
himself. He's the most humble man I've ever met in my
life. He has been just at a personal level. I'll try not to
get teary. He has been the most amazing person to get to have
in my life. I adore him. He's like the father I never had. He's
the most kind, gentle, giving person. And a lot of times when
you have an organization like this with a founder who's
been involved all the years, they can kind of take it
over and own it, you know? I've never seen Bob try to
own this ever. It's always been the Lord's and he's been such
an amazing mentor to me in that way to know that no matter how
long I'm there, whatever I've done with it has nothing to do
with me. And because that's the legacy he's left is he's all
about it being what God has done. And so we named it
behind his back and then told him he didn't get a choice.
One of the things that is happening, I see in the news
that pregnant abortions are on the rise. Very much.
Yeah. In our state. We stopped it all over again.
And they got the same stuff going on where the young ladies
are being exploited. They're saying, well, we do it. It's easy.
Now all you got to do is take a pill or something. And so the
devil is having a great time. We need to get some more prayer
and get this thing worked out and get the devil kicked out of
there. So, yeah, it's always, it's always got to be
sustained, my prayer. Yeah, that is the number one thing we need.
There's lots of needs in a ministry. The number one need
always for us is prayer because it's, you know, this is the
kind of work that the enemy hates the most.
Because we're not just saving lives and unborn children
there. It's like Bob said, his heart originally was
what about what's happening to these women who are being exploited by this
thing called abortion. And so we're there to save the unborn and bring them to
life. But we're really there to save the
souls of everyone, including the adults, so that those children have a better
life and creating family and creating support and creating
knowledge so that they can go forward and do it well.
And the enemy hates it. He just hates it. So, lots of prayer coverage
is needed all the time. All the time for everybody there.
Yeah, I'm trying to, I thought we had a list of the names of the people. They were
probably a dozen people in our prayer group. And we prayed at least once a week
for two or three months to get that thing going. And that's the way it works with God.
It was over. We had no problem. We knew. Keep praying. It'll happen.
And in the original documents, it was in the original
organizing documents in the Articles of Incorporation. It was
a lot about doing Christian social services. And that was one of our names.
Cambridge Christian Social Services. And starting a Christian adoption agency and
things like that. And it really morphed over time as they worked and prayed. And
over time, God changes that to his plan. And it became the pregnancy center.
And that's really where it landed was that's what we need to do for people
in the community and provide these services.
Pastor Venderman from South Isayne Baptist, I think he went to abortion centers
and stood out front or kneeled out front and prayed for them. And so, yeah,
that was a lot of people needed to be doing that.
And Steve Newton, I don't know if he did that, but I know he was the pastor of the church then.
So, the church supported us. Most of the churches around here did support.
There's a couple that didn't. I mean, I don't remember what church it was,
but I got thrown out of one church. I could guess, but I won't say.
So, it doesn't always work just right.
Yeah, I don't know. I don't have much more to say. Anyone has any questions?
Yeah, we're happy to take questions and
a couple of things some of you may or may not know, but in 1995, when I think that was about
the time I came in as a volunteer, we formed a center in Moira. And we started that center,
and that center was a piece of us until probably about four or five years before they
were ready to file their own 501c3 and go on their own. So, we planted the Moira Pregnancy Center.
So, that's kind of fun history. And then in 2016, we opened our East Bethel location.
And that one we're keeping, it's just part of us. So, yeah. So, that's some of the history too.
We've had a lot of name changes also. In 1985, we started out as East Central Crisis Pregnancy
Center. And then we changed our names. Well, we did an affiliation in 1990 with New Life Family
Services for a few years. And we're under their auspices. So, we were a new life. And then
in 1993 was when we filed our own certificate of incorporation and became Cambridge Christian
Social Services. And then in 1994, we changed our name and became Cambridge Crisis Pregnancy
Center, which was a name that was used a lot for pregnancy centers back then. And then in
1995, we did the Care Net affiliation. In 1995, we opened Moira, the Moira Center. In 2002,
we changed our name again. We became the Pregnancy Resource Center of Cambridge.
And that was happening all across the country for pregnancy centers to get away from the crisis
name. And then we moved in 2004 to where we are now in City Center Mall in Cambridge. We had
been in that little tiny 500 and some square feet space for 19 years. And we have been now,
you know, in our space for 21 years. We'd like a new space in Cambridge. We'll get there.
And we added the East Bethel location in 2016. We actually added the Name Lex Specialty Clinic
in about 2008 when we added medical services. We just never really used it. But in 2016,
when we opened East Bethel, we decided we wanted a name that worked for both. So we took it
up and actually started using it at that time. So, and here we are today, our 40th anniversary
year in 2025. So we'll have our fall events coming up in October. I have invites out there. If you
haven't been invited, please come. It's going to be a celebration year. So we're going to have a lot
of fun. Oh, there was a couple more things. I was going to ask you a question. I can't
remember what it was right now. Does anybody out here have questions?
One thing you've got to keep in mind,
this whole thing is a God issue. I mean, I can still picture the young ladies, they're going
to have an abortion. They're walking down the street heading for the abortion clinic. I'm
thinking, what the world are they doing? They didn't know what they were doing. They just
didn't. They needed someone to guide them. And they were being guided now by the wrong principles.
They needed someone to come in and God said, it's time. It's time to do that. So that's
the way the center came. I always say that abortion is an evil tool of the enemy. It
really is. It does so much more than just the loss of that unborn child, everything it does to
a woman, a man, a family, you know, parent, grand, potential grandparents, etc.
It just affects so many lives in so many ways. It's so destructive.
And of course, we've all seen over the years how devaluing life that way
devalues life in all ways. And we get to kind of where we are today, where people cheer over
the death of someone publicly. And that's that devaluing of life across time. And abortion
does that. It devalues life. It ruins the lives of those who are the exploited victims, women and
men, and destroys families. So it's an evil tool. So it's almost like we're not quite there, but
at the same spot again, with more abortions happening, we've got to step up a little more.
In our state, of course, as you all probably know, it's a different area right now with
our current laws. And we have the most progressive abortion in the country in Minnesota,
our laws, our current laws. And we're right up there with North Korea, China, Canada,
with allowing it all nine months and even after in certain ways. And it, you know,
it's kind of crazy in that way. But an abortion is up somewhere between 40 and 50% in our state,
but that's because we're attracting from other states. We're a sanctuary state for it. We won't
help prosecute even if it's illegal to bring them here. Our government won't help with any
prosecution in the other state. So we're a sanctuary state. And that means people are
coming here for the service as well as our own. So we are in a difficult spot right now as far as
that goes, but God is more powerful than this evil. And there are more pregnancy centers in Minnesota
than abortion facilities. And so we just have to keep marching on and doing what we're doing.
We have to keep getting the message out. We have to keep providing the services that allow
these women to come in and get these free services that are attractive, even in their
circumstance, and help them see life. And that's what we do.
Bob, did you say it was Luke 4.18? That's the, is that the scripture that?
Pardon?
Luke 4.18. Is that the scripture that?
Yes.
Okay. Let me read that.
Okay.
Says the spirit of the Lord is upon me, for he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released, and that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free, and that the time of the Lord's favor has come.
That is beautifully perfect.
Well, of course there's more questions.
Okay. Questions?
I don't know how long ago it was. You got the ultrasonic, ultrasonic machine.
And I've heard that it's had a great success.
Yes. We started doing ultrasounds in 2007, 2008. That was when we added medical services.
And the statistics nationally are somewhere between 85 and 95 percent of women will change
their mind when they see their baby on ultrasound. Our success rate within our clinics has always been
between 95 and 99 percent successful. It's highly successful with good counseling around it.
And we work hard to have really good training for our advocates and our nurses,
so that they're getting that full holistic support around that ultrasound.
Thank you.
This may be a difficult question for you, but how many people do you feel are gals and
husbands and everything rolled together? Do you think you've helped you and the Lord?
I'm not sure I heard all.
How many people do we think, all together, with the women, men, etc., do we think we've helped
in 40 years? I guess I would have to say, well, I would have to say
conservatively, based on our annual statistics, I would have to say conservatively
5,000, but I bet it's way more because I'm being really conservative in my mental math right now.
Over 40 years. It's probably much higher than that, but yeah, yeah.
It really is amazing, effective work. If you're going to pray for us, one thing that we need a
lot of prayer for right now, well, lots of things, but let me give you the highlights,
would be how suppressed we're being and getting our message out.
Almost no matter how we work to use today's tools for marketing,
we get tamped down in the background. It's very challenging. So we added Google ads in June
of this year. We've been working for two years on some electronic stuff, a new client website,
SEO, all the things you need to do proper online marketing today, taking it up a notch,
spending money on this. We got our Google ads live in June. We had all our other things in place,
and we added Google ads. And our our pregnancy tests more than tripled in the first month.
The next month, they went down a little bit and now they've dropped right back down to
where we were. We're working with our marketing company saying what's going on in the background
of our Google ads, because we used to do Facebook marketing a lot. And then they were,
we'd pay for ads. And then they were, our ads weren't really showing up, even though we were
paying for them. Finally, they told us we just couldn't advertise because we didn't meet the
standards. And then so we started boosting posts on Facebook, paying to push them out more.
That worked for a while till they caught up with that. And then they said we couldn't
boost. You know, we didn't meet some standards, so we couldn't boost. So everything on Facebook
is now organic, which is fine. It's it's more for our donors now than clientele anyway.
So we have to push into some weird spaces like TikTok and Snapchat. So we're looking at that now
for social media. But even Google is, which isn't shocking, right? But Google ads are used
in a lot of centers. So we're trying to figure out what's going on right now there.
We need a lot of prayer for these things because this is where the enemy really tries to work,
is to keep the message down. When I started, I don't know about you, Bob, long ago, because
you probably went and spoke in a bazillion churches at the beginning to get the message out
about the center. Yeah. And when I started 20, 21 years ago, I was out in churches all the
time. And now I rarely get invited to churches. So that's a problem too, is we can't even get into
churches or church youth groups to speak to them on the issues. So it's getting more challenging in
many, many ways to get the message out. And so we really need ambassadors and helpers in that
area to just speak about us and help us get into spaces that are harder to get into.
Yeah, I got a question or a comment. Why don't we jump on the Charlie Kirk deal? There's a lot of
young people out there that are really going out for Christ right now. And what a perfect
opportunity to put the word out between them, you know, there's openings all over the place
going on. I don't know how you would do it because I don't know. That's a really good
thought that we'd have to think of, like, how do we jump on that in the young space? Yeah,
when you talk, let's talk about any ideas you have Sabrina on that, because
obviously we've all seen what has happened since that assassination of really spurring people to
speak and to stand up and to be more bold. And that's a really good idea to think about.
How do we tap into some of that young population? Because that's what it really
takes as them pushing in their own spaces, campuses, schools, you know, we can't just walk
into a campus or a school. We have to be invited in. And that takes the students who are there
to make it happen because they're there and they do have a right to have those types of things come
in. But that the schools are doing a really good job of tamping down so that they don't even
know about us. We used to go in to the schools and present. And we can't now. We can't go into
the schools and present. So it's a challenge. We've got to change that and figure out how to
get back in those spaces where we've kind of been pushed out. And it's super important because
of how this is affecting our young people and our college students. College age are the
24. I think the Charlie Kirk thing is going to have a lot to do with what we're with besides other
things, what we're doing now. Because the young people now are not susceptible, like they used to
be, to the stuff the devil is issuing. They're looking for godly stuff. So I think that I'm
just expecting that the abortion rate is going to start going down. I don't know.
I think the way Charlie did things and his ability to reach the youth and do it through
social media, you know, social media just like anything can be used for good or bad.
And he utilized it for good messaging. And that's one thing we're really looking at right
now is how do we utilize short clips of staff, of even client stories. We've been very protective of
our clients always and, you know, don't even ask them to speak about their stuff. But we realized
as a team recently, after all this happened, you know, they live online. They share everything
online. And we need to just ask and get permission and have them sign up and do a short
blip of what our place has done for them in their own words to share with others their age.
Because we have to get away from that thought of never show a client, you know,
once a year at banquet, we get a client story. We have to think differently
and get out of the box because they live differently. They don't live that way. They
share everything online. And so we have to be willing to change our minds that not
to abuse that, certainly, to be very careful. But with permission, etc., they're probably way
more willing than we even want to think. So we have to do more of that too and do those little
blips in the right social media spaces like he did to get the message out.
God has protected us too. As far as I know,
there's been no break-ins, no broken windows, no broken windows, no vandalism.
What we did do when we started, we anointed the door frames with God. And I think
God has used that to protect us. Every location we have done that.
And when we opened that, I prayed not only that God would protect it, but that as
each worker came through that door, that it's like a trick that kids used to do,
put a bucket of water. Well, we put a bucket of Holy Spirit so that when they walk through,
the Holy Spirit would fall upon them and then be so happy to be there.
And our team meets as a whole unit every Tuesday for 30 minutes of prayer for the ministry.
And that's always one of our prayers is as people come in the door, they feel
the power of the Holy Spirit as they enter, that they know they've entered a different space,
even if they don't understand it, which many would not, but they feel it.
And that's our prayer is as people walk in the doors, no matter who they are,
doesn't matter who they are, staff, volunteers, clients, anybody, that they feel the
difference as they walk in our door and the power of the Holy Spirit present.
So, and Bob made sure that every door and window was blessed and we prayed over them.
So General Motors called me a couple of weeks ago and they said, wow,
we would love to hire Gina. Would you let her go? We said, not in a million years.
God is good. He's so gracious and the work is hard.
As Bob knows for many, many years, it's hard work, but God is good and gracious and
He has blessed this ministry beyond all we could ask or imagine. And we know He's fixing to do
something again because we always have certain, certain markers that kind of happen to us
that tell us something's right about, right around the bend. And the thing is,
we don't always know what that is. Like we literally are like, we don't know exactly what's
coming, but we all feel that right now. And we don't know exactly what's coming, but we know
God's about to do something else. And every time He has just really expanded the ministry in a way
that that we couldn't have even thought of ourselves. So He's got something up a sleeve.
So someone else had a question.
Is there a resource center like yours in Princeton?
There is. So Malacca has a pregnancy center called Rum River Life Choices. And in Princeton
is their satellite center, much like we have in East Bethel. So there is a Rum River Life
Choices in Princeton now. And I know the director over there, Ann, and she's amazing. And they
run very similar services. Everything's run very, very similarly. They are a care net affiliate as
well. So they kind of use that as they're overarching. And yeah, they do great work over
there. So there is. And because there's service area between us, you know, we're respecting
of one another. And we just let churches are kind of in between choose. We don't care.
We're not territorial about that kind of thing. We know God will do it all. You know, a cute story
about the territorial thing. I have met directors who can get a little territorial. I've never been
territorial because why would you have a territorial or something like this? To me, that
seems silly. But it's all God. I don't care where they go. I just want them to go to a
good place that gives them the help they need, saves their child and helps them find the Lord.
And we were looking for our first satellite location.
And we first looked towards Princeton. We thought, ah, Princeton had had a center and it had
closed. Didn't make it. And we thought, you know, maybe that'd be a good location. And I got
a call from Ann and she's like, we're going to open a branch in Princeton. I'm like, great news.
Now I know we're not going there, you know. And so then we started looking at North Branch.
And we thought, you know, it's on the 35th corridor. It's very underserved over there.
There was a center down in, um, Lake Shasago, um, Center City, or Shasago over there in there.
And, um, so we were really looking at that. And then the Lord, um,
I got a phone call from the Shasago Center and they said,
we're going to pull up stakes and move to North Branch. Would you meet with our director
and give her some advice and direction? And I said, absolutely. And so I met with her and,
and then they were doing their first banquet over in North Branch. Now we had a bunch of churches
in North Branch supporting us because we were serving their community. And, um,
so we talked and they really needed help to get it going and revitalize. They had
kind of been dying over in Center City and Shasago. And so, um, I said, I'll tell you what,
I'll come to your first banquet. I'll tell my story. I'll be your speaker for free. And, um,
and then at the end I'll tell all the churches to support you. And that's what we did.
And that's what the majority of the churches did. And I had a few directors tell me,
you're crazy. Like, that's a huge chunk of your support. And I said, they're not my churches.
And after that, we grew exponentially. And the Lord plucked us in East Bethel where we
didn't, we weren't even looking down in Enoka County, which desperately needs way more than
even our one. We could easily put another location down in the Blaine area. Um, easily
I mean in the sense of service need, not easily in the sense of many other things it
takes to do that. But, um, I just mean in the need of, of people in Enoka County. So yeah,
God is good. He just leads, provides. It's His. It's not ours. And you don't have to worry about
it. He'll take care of it. We have not, not closed our doors yet.
I got a question for Bob. So your first, your first couple months, well first six months,
what, what services did they provide when you started? And how did people find you
when you started in 1985? We had a, I think it was like word of mouth, mostly.
Because it was kind of discouraging. Oh, use the microphone. Use your mic. It was kind of discouraging
because people would come up to me and ask you what you're doing while we were with the
pregnancy resource center. And they would say, what's that? They still do. They still do. They still do.
But it was just kind of more like people just knew
the word gets passed. And we just provided at the beginning
free pregnancy tests and counseling and a, like a baby closet, like a free material baby closet.
Sometimes in the tough days after I was director and we were adding medical and doing all that
at the board, Bob sometimes would say we'd be talking complex things. And Bob would say,
can we just go back to doing pregnancy testing, counseling?
Incidentally, Gina talks about board members. We had phenomenal board members. Man, I'm telling
you, we still do. They could just do anything. God is really good. So Bob, could I maybe invite you
to come to our Lions meeting one of these days and maybe ask for a little help being that you're a
Cambridge office? Would you be willing to come in and just talk to us for a little bit and ask
for your donation on Monday? No, no, one of the I'll tell you when we you and I get together every
week, but I'll let you know. Would you be willing to do that? I'll come. Okay. Very good. Thank you.
I don't have the same stuff that she has.
We have to do a D there. Any other questions?
Anyone? Anybody? How about Bob? Do you happen to remember what your tract said
when you were passing out tracks at the very beginning? Like, what was it? I never wrote it.
It was something that you purchased? I just had a plan and I said that's what I'm going to do.
But somehow or another during that time, somebody told me about something that was going up in Duluth
and so I called somebody up there and they kind of told me no, you don't want to do that, what
you're doing. And then we talked about Steve Newton or somebody said there's something going
on in Minneapolis that you should know about. So I thought about them and then that encouraged me.
Well, that's what we need to do for the startup center.
But Bob's so humble, he won't tell you that he still goes all over and hands out his book he wrote
and your book, you go around and hand out your book. No, it's not, but he's humble. He goes out
and hands out his book he wrote in restaurants. He just waits for the right person to come along,
the Lord to tell him I need to do that. And he's done amazing things like smuggle Bibles into China
many times. He's an amazing person, so he's very brave, doesn't shy away from tough things.
So it doesn't surprise me that he found it this place.