BY PASTOR SUSAN YOUNG
Contributing Writer
I remember the date: July 25, 2012. We had been financially supporting Alpha Pregnancy Help Center in Merced and hosting baby showers for their baby closet.
The director at the time, Carrie Alexander, and I met to discuss finding other areas where we could offer assistance. She suggested we have an interest meeting in Los Banos to gauge interest.
We announced it, made a flyer and posted it on Facebook. That evening, Carrie drove here from Merced, expecting to meet with a handful of people.
Instead, she walked into a meeting with about 40 women who were interested in helping in one way or another. I remember running back to the copier to make extra copies of handouts.
What is Alpha Pregnancy Help Center? Here is a quotation from its website: “Alpha Pregnancy Help Center (Alpha PHC) is a local non-profit agency and a California State-Licensed medical community clinic.
“We are also licensed with state and federal CLIA (Clinical Laboratory Improvement Amendments) offices. Our mission is to serve the community with life-affirming solutions related to pregnancy, parenting, and relationships.
“We know that an unplanned pregnancy can be a challenge when faced with financial hardships, changes in education and career goals, relationship or family issues, or just bad timing.
“And we understand—having an abortion can seem like the only real option. But there are things you should know before making such an important decision.
“Alpha PHC provides Pre-Abortion Screening. We encourage informed decision-making by giving you a safe place to process, and by offering free resources and medically-accurate information on pregnancy, surgical abortion, medication abortion, STIs/STDs and more.
“We also provide valuable information on parenting and adoption. We do not provide or refer for abortions. APHC does not benefit financially from any decision made and therefore does not put pressure on any woman re: her options.
“We offer professional, informative, and compassionate care to show you all your options and to support you in whatever decision you make.
“For a woman choosing to carry her baby, we offer resources and referrals to supplement your first trimester care, in addition to parenting classes and, if needed, reproductive loss support. We can also connect you with local agencies to assist you in other ways.”
Psalm 139:13–16 reads, “For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb. I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made; your works are wonderful, I know that full well.
“My frame was not hidden from you when I was made in the secret place, when I was woven together in the depths of the earth. Your eyes saw my unformed body; all the days ordained for me were written in your book before one of them came to be.”
Some of the women are teens or college-aged women, homeless women, women in domestic violence, rape, or incest situations, and women who are financially not prepared for a baby.
As you might imagine, a crisis pregnancy in Los Banos and a drive to Merced is often difficult at best and seemingly impossible at most. As Christians, we are pro-life. That is an easy statement to make, but it takes effort to support.
By fundraising and hosting baby showers for the unborn, where things like clothing, bottles, supplies, cribs, and often housing need to be provided, we understood the need was great to put our money where our mouth was to ensure services were free.
It is not enough to say we are pro-life, but we must put our hands to work in our community to help a woman in need of support.
At that meeting in 2012, Carrie Alexander asked if we were willing to be trained to offer client services to the citizens of Los Banos at our church.
It would require setting up a baby closet in the church, free space to offer classes to train mothers and fathers—some as young as 11 to 12 years of age—and offering resources should a parent opt for adoption.
Alpha Pregnancy Help Center also had a dream of having a mobile unit that went to cities in the county on certain days of the week to provide local services. Its members asked us to partner with them for fundraising.
The client services program began, and we were trained as client advocates.
We started to see women come in from all walks of life as they took classes on nutrition, pregnancy, the birthing process, how to bathe and diaper a baby and how to handle a myriad of tasks that a mother must know.
Fathers also took these classes, and for each class they took, they earned “baby bucks,” which entitled them to shop in the baby closet for things they would need for the baby.
We created such a bond with the moms that, pretty soon, we were invited to be at the hospital when their babies were born or shortly thereafter. We held babies in our arms who God truly had a plan for. We helped get babies placed in foster care or adoptive homes.
It has truly been a blessing over the years. We partnered with women at New Beginnings and St. John’s, and together, we have made a great team.
Soon, that dream for a mobile unit came to fruition, and it came with a nurse and the services provided at the Merced APC, thanks to donations from churches across the county and private donors.
We discovered that we were the first church in the country to partner with a pregnancy center and have trained on-site client advocates.
Carrie Alexander began to receive questions on how to get churches to not only partner with them financially but also open their doors to the work of their community in this area, with free space and trained volunteers.
Today, under the compassionate leadership of Director Debbie Croft, we continue to help move the same vision forward.
In 2020, the work of the mobile unit stopped during COVID-19. The mobile unit now comes to Los Banos twice a month with a trained nurse.
On the second Tuesday of the month, it is parked at Our Father’s House at 1005 I St., and on the fourth Tuesday of the month, it is parked at New Beginnings at 821 W L St.
What a blessing the last 13 years have been to our community as we continue to believe that all lives are precious.
Would you please consider partnering with us in prayer for the women who find themselves in a crisis pregnancy here in our county? Would you please consider praying for their children, that the best outcome for their lives is realized?
Would you also help us by spreading the word about the mobile unit? Blessings to you in the mighty and matchless name of Jesus!
