The Divine Dance

by Sue Chess, Executive Director

(Excerpts from https://www.desiringgod.org/messages/a-new-years-plea-plan in italics.)

Nothing but the simplest impulses get accomplished without some forethought, which we call a plan.  As the Executive Director for Care Net, planning is very important to the future growth of this ministry.  It is very possible to go through life with little time devoted to the future, but this is not God’s way.  However, reconciling that with being open enough to God’s leading to accept closing doors and adjusting course will always be the challenge.

Proverbs 14:15 says “The simple believes everything, but the prudent looks where he is going.”  He considers the days to come and what they may bring.  Then the “prudent” thinks about how best to prepare for them and use them to accomplish His purposes.  The difference between planning and not planning is whether you look where you are going in the future, or whether you focus all your attention on the immediate right in front of you.

Over the last month, I’ve been examining the process God has used for Care Net and what we’ve learned in studying His ways over the past 16 years. 

When we pray, then plan, THEN move ahead doing just the next step (since that’s all we may know) God does big things!  Several years ago, we felt He was leading us to begin offering STI testing here at Care Net in addition to pregnancy testing.  Each week, I’d write down the next step to seeing that goal accomplished.  Weekly, the list would change.  “Call Health Dept.” “Check possible lab” etc. At one point, the realization came that when one door closed, under the direction of the Holy Spirit, we simply went to the next, and so on.  It was like an investigative journey or a Holy Spirit dance.

We applied the same method to adding a new Center in Martin County.  First, we prayed and believed the way clear and then listed the plan of what to do.  Each week found something else on the week’s plan moving us in that direction.  One big hurdle that we had no means of jumping was the Board’s determination (with my full support) that we needed a $50,000 buffer in bank before beginning.  A letter went out and the funds came in. 

We added the Student Services department to the ministry of Care Net in a similar fashion. 

Care Net’s Administrative Center that we moved into this past fall 2017, was approached in exactly the same way.  We searched for the perfect location for years, with one location after another checked off as not the right one. First, the knowledge that purchasing a building was His plan, then one step, a door closed, one step, another door closed, until another would finally open.  I’d love to say it was easy but it was not—it was painstaking, toiling, frustrating, but amazing.   PEACE has always been the guiding beacon.

God has done this for years, and I have finally realized He frequently leads all of us this way as we search to find the pathways He has for us.  But the point is to search…and take a step…if you want to find the path!  Yes, go there…no, not there…adjust course...recalculating…yes, there! For years, my motto has been “do the next right thing.”  Perhaps it should be DO the next right thing.  Start moving so that He can adjust or confirm the next step!

This is the Divine Dance of the Holy Spirit and it is the truest intimacy.

Careful planning is part of what makes a person wise and productive.  Not to plan is considered foolish and dangerous.  This is true even though the Proverbs teach that we do not know what the future may bring.  “A man’s mind plans his way, but the Lord directs his steps.”  (Proverbs 16:9)  The fact that the Lord is ultimately in control of the future does not mean we shouldn’t plan.  It means we should commit our work to the Lord and trust Him to establish our plans according to His loving purposes. 

Paul gave many examples of this in the epistles.  He carefully planned and then God would change those plans. Frequently, He put Paul in prison where he would write letters instead of going to the places he wanted to be.  But, in that process we received letters that make up a LOT of the New Testament.  He (Paul) had a general guideline: he wanted to preach where no one had preached before.  Then he developed a specific plan from this guideline….what makes this especially significant is that as far as we know those plans frequently fell through.  He was arrested in Jerusalem.  He went to Rome as a prisoner….It’s just like we saw in the Proverbs.  God is the one who finally makes the future.  But we plan nevertheless.  God uses our planning even if he aborts it and replaces it with something else.

 

Planning is crucial in Christian living and Christian ministry—even when God overrules it, and maybe especially when God overrules it.  That simply means He is doing a new thing along the way.  His creativity in teaching us new things as He is about the work of the Kingdom is a source of amazement to me.  If He corrects direction along the way, that is simply His leading in the Divine Dance.

Through a Client's Eyes

My husband and I are MORE than grateful for connecting with Care Net.  Everything happens for a reason and while I couldn’t understand why we unfortunately lost our first baby last October, I knew that God must have had a plan for us.  I just didn’t understand… didn’t know why all these bombs were going off in our lives…  I had never felt so alone and so upset and scared.

Time certainly helps to heal but after finding out just three months later that we were pregnant again, we were excited, scared, nervous, and very anxious.  I didn’t have health insurance…. I had no medical support and all I wanted to know is if this second baby – rather this second miracle - was okay or not.  Was there a heartbeat, was I going to lose this baby too, was I doing something wrong?   I knew all the worrying and anxiety was bad for both me and my baby, I knew stress was not good in pregnancy… my mind was racing and my heart unsettled.

Feeling so desperate and scared, I began to research pregnancy services in my area and discovered Care Net in Port Saint Lucie.   I truly believe God put this place on our path.  My husband and I were able to receive an ultrasound* on our very FIRST visit – and I know most places make you wait until you reach 20 weeks to get an ultrasound!   Receiving that ultrasound was like putting a Band-Aid on our hearts.  We were able to see that heartbeat, that flicker of light… I knew I had life inside of me… a feeling that I cannot even begin to describe.  On that very same first visit we were given ultrasound photos to take home and were also given a homemade patchwork quilt – so very nice! Not only that, we were able to meet with the Men’s Director, who just happens to be a local pastor and a peer-counselor who met with my husband and I together and also separately.  Through the love of God this place has shown us support, love, and caring in such a way that sometimes it’s unfathomable to think that such a place really exists right here on the Treasure Coast! 

I first entered Care Net in a state of terror and crisis. I knew that my emotions were getting the best of me.  I kept thinking about what had recently just happened to me and my husband and how it had begun to chisel at my marriage.  I felt that I didn’t have the support that I needed to grieve... I was pregnant again and supposed to be feeling all this joy and happiness, but fear was blocking everything.  Walking in to Care Net that evening changed everything – not only for me, but for my husband too.

I’m now 25 weeks pregnant and mountains of positive progress have been created and shaped for me, my husband, and my son – who will make his grand debut in September!  Care Net offers an Earn While You Learn Video Series.  We are able to choose from a wide array of interactive prenatal and postnatal video topics that we are interested in most as expectant parents.  As we watch videos we earn points and are then able to go ‘shopping’ in their store, which is amazing! 

All they want to do is help in any way they can – whether it’s with words or with items that we are in need of.  Sometimes our peer-counselors will watch videos with us, which is really comforting because we can pause the video, comment and share thoughts and ideas which is helpful - and quite fun actually too!

We look forward to our weekly meetings.  Emails are shared throughout the week and we feel like we have met some truly incredible people.  People that care about us and pray for us.  These people have helped me enjoy my pregnancy and have helped me in my marriage as well through counseling and through the Bible – amazing blessings have come our way!  I no longer hold onto this fear and anxiety because they have helped us to feel and to KNOW that it’s all going to be ok.   Again, we are grateful to Care Net and to God for allowing us to connect with such a beautiful and spiritual place.  We are also excited to continue to connect with them – even after our son is born!

  

We’d like to send our appreciation to all the staff and volunteers that have helped us.  We don’t know where we would be without all the hugs, support, and love.  THANK YOU from the bottom of our hearts!

*(Care Net offers free ultrasounds on a limited basis.)

What About Him?

By Kevin Pierce

      Director of Men's Services

“It was a big blessing for us to go to Care Net the other night and to feel the support that you all provide. It was a blessing meeting you and getting to chat a bit, I really didn't expect there to be the 'guy support', that's really cool.”-client email.

These words bring joy.  We hear them all the time from Dads who are clients at Care Net.  Another Dad came with his partner for a pregnancy test.  I told him he was a Dad.  I asked him if he knew what it took to be a good one.  He said “I have no idea.”  I got to share with him not just his responsibility, but the honor and value that comes to him, when he gets equipped to be a Dad.

Our male clients are told by culture that their view and opinion is unimportant, or unwanted.  Yet almost 70% of the women who come to a Care Net say that the most important opinion to them is that of the father of their baby.  If he is connected, supportive, and equipped, there is a very high likelihood she will carry and parent their child.  The National Fatherhood Initiative showed that pregnancy loss was cut in half when there was a supportive Dad in the mix. Studies on fatherhood show that kids in homes without a present, equipped, active Dad are 279 times more likely to engage in destructive or harmful behaviors later in life.  Present, equipped Dads result in healthier, better educated, more confident, and more successful children.  To those “secular” statistics, we would add the principles and history in Scripture.  God’s redemption plan for this broken world has good Dads as a primary component.  That is why culture has Dad as a primary target.  That is why Dad is so critical to us at Care Net.

Our Dads working with Dads at Care Net get to see amazing, world changing things.  Young men come, feeling powerless and disconnected.  They are quickly shown that they are quite possibly the game changers for their partner and unborn child.  They hear an encouraging voice, telling them they are capable.  It is true that knowledge is power.  One of our favorite things is to help a man understand what is happening to the mother during pregnancy, so that he becomes a resource for her.  His eyes widen, and you can see the confidence increasing in him.  We teach our Dads what it means to love both mother and child, from God’s perspective.  When this happens, he becomes incredibly effective, because his “why” for doing things gets set.  He learns about budgeting, and discipline, and dealing with his own issues in healthy ways.  He moves toward becoming the man God needs him to be in a difficult situation, even if he did not start right.  The most incredible thing we get to do is watch some of our Dads meet Jesus for the first time, or surrender again to him.  When they come into right relationship with their Heavenly Father, and get connected to a disciple making church, we see progress to our ultimate goal.  A family, made whole in Christ, growing together.

I sat across the room from a man who had agreed to an abortion.  His words were powerful.  He talked about the ending of a life, but he was more broken by the fact that he had “failed to protect her (the mother).”  He shed tears as he asked for her forgiveness, and she extended it. As heartbreaking as that was to hear, it showed that he got it with regard to who he is supposed to be.  As he connects with us through our abortion recovery program, we can help him deal with failure, and then see it become motivation to be that man he is supposed to be.

That client, in our initial meeting, said “Boy. You are all about the baby here, aren’t you?” I told him that the child was important to me.  So important, that my whole focus was to be a support for him.  He looked puzzled.  I explained that if I can make a difference in his life, I get three for one.  He becomes the Dad, and husband or partner he needs to be.  She has a man in her life that provides what she needs, and only he can give.  Their unborn child gets an engaged and equipped Dad.  As they receive all we offer, and embrace what God has for them, a healthy family that stands and stands out in this culture gets developed.

I love the women that come here.  I love the children they carry in their womb.  But the calling for me, and the other men who volunteer at Care Net, is to always ask “what about him?”

JESUS Cares for Care Net

By Nanette Maldonado
     Community Liaison

Jesus cares for Care Net.  We care at Care Net and we don’t stop caring at Care Net. When I think about a burning fire, I think about us at Care Net.  I think about the staff and the volunteers that serve and the fire we all need inside of us to do what we need to do.  Why is this necessary?

It’s necessary because…

 

There are HARD days and we can’t quit because of them, we need to overcome them.

Prayer covers us on those hard days.  It fuels the fire in our hearts to overcome them.  If you didn’t know this, you know now, we gather every morning to pray together.  In fact, we pray frequently, and we don’t stop when we lock the door at the end of our day.  We keep praying.  The faces we see and the hearts we hear from are not forgotten.  We move from heart to heart, and we hurt when our clients hurt, and we rejoice when we see our clients rejoice when God moves in such a unique way, in unique situations.  Crisis turned into triumphs.  Trust me, there are days when our joy is zapped, when our hope is losing its grip on our ANCHOR and that’s when we run to sit with the ONE who gives REST and PEACE.

We won’t quit, because He won’t relent.  Quitting is not in the DNA of Care Net and who we are.  I mention again, prayer fuels our fire.  Prayer is the very thing that keeps us seated in passion during the victories, through the defeats, with the lost, and in gain.  We do have both, you know.

   

You see, those are the times when the response of our prayers unfold and we have to trust God with the results we see.  Especially the times we did all we could.  Times when we hoped the situation would change but didn’t, or the end result wasn’t exactly what we wanted it to be.  But GOD. 

There are times when we feel we missed the mark, or didn’t say what we needed to say, or what we said was not enough...once again, what do we do…we pray.  We care at Care Net.  You see, we don’t work alone.  We work with someone else…JESUS.  He is the BOSS.

He invites us.  In everything we do, we invite Him.  From the music we play in our waiting area, to the receptionist we have answering calls, to the counselors we have speak with our clients….it is all orchestrated by God.

God brings the clients to our doors.  He is there when a mother who thinks her daughter may be pregnant Googles and finds Care Net.  He knows.  What about the young couple that waits for the results of a pregnancy test, and finds out they are pregnant, when they themselves are barely on a first name basis.  He knows.  What do we do?  We PRAY, we LOVE, we LISTEN and we share information that calls for wisdom.  God knows and He leads.  He is faithful, even if the mother takes her daughter to get an abortion after meeting with us, and when the young couple decides to give their child up for adoption.  He knows.

   

I end with this in mind, we can’t do what we each do here at Care Net without HIM.  We see a lot and we hear a lot.  We get bogged down and we have days when we are on cloud nine!  We do it all for HIM and we serve the unlikely, the unlovable, and the unreachable.  Prayer sustains us and that is what fuels us to continue the good fight.

  “Live in me. Make your home in me just as I do in you. In the same way that a branch can’t bear grapes by itself but only by being joined to the vine, you can’t bear fruit unless you are joined with me.  (Please continue to read passage, John 15:5-8)

Stay connected to HIM: Prayer, Trust, Faith and Love fuels our fire, what about yours?  

STEP IT OUT!!

By Willow Sanders
     Director of Student Services

I can't pinpoint why this story (click to read) hits home so hard but I'm definitely on the verge of tears.

Maybe it's because I can imagine full well the pain & courage it took for her to 'come out' about her pregnancy afraid of the way she'd be received. Maybe it's because there are days I sit on the receiving end of that conversation with sweet, Christian kids who are afraid of how they'll be received. Or maybe, more organically, it’s because I can’t believe so many years after the sexual revolution we’re here, so often, as a church, horribly dealing with this issue.

Yet, if I sit for a moment, I KNOW it is because I was received so well when it was me.

We can all point to moments in our Christian walk when we missed the mark in our response to sin. Some grander than others. Could be the smaller moments seemed more inconsequential than the larger missteps, but make no mistake, they all led to something.

Honestly, I can always remember the moment like it was yesterday. I don’t know why that is but it just is, and what I remember about the moment isn’t the shame I felt in knowing I had a front row seat to the decisions I’d made, which I’m confident was flowing like a river. It wasn’t the position I now saw myself in that days before was just a dream. What is seared into my memory is the way I was received by those who had for days, weeks, months, years been trying to lead and guide me in ways that would produce good fruit in my life. It was total Grace.

As a ministry and a large society, we have the chance to offer that same grace when we see those who face any type of misstep in their own life. It’s crazy to me how so often we see culture pushing our young people to become sexually active, then leaving them by the wayside when the consequences come. We, as the church, are not supposed to be like the world. Our response needs to be one of well thought out love and compassion!

It got me thinking that especially in this area of out of wedlock pregnancy we have three key things we can do:

STEP UP

We are all able to do something when it comes to this issue. Could you be called to volunteer for a ministry that reaches out to this often-maligned part of culture? Could you spend some time in prayer on this issue? Could you be a voice out in your community or social media arena to share your story? Maybe you can STEP UP, speak into, and call out the strong in our young men who might easily just fade away in this whole scenario.

STEP OUT

This area can be so controversial in our faith-based community. We feel uncomfortable speaking out in favor of something that was the result of someone’s willful sinful behavior. May I remind you that this “something” is a BABY created in the image of God. It is our obligation as image bearers ourselves to speak life whenever and wherever we can. So STEP OUT of your comfort zone and ask God how you should respond when faced with this situation. 

And lastly, STEP A-SIDE…

Nope, not what you think. What if you stepped a side one of these young people going through this and let them know that they can do this! That God is for them, and with Him ALL things are possible even in the darkest of circumstances. Give them the courage to face one of the hardest, most rewarding journeys of their life with Hope instead of fear.

All this leads me to encourage you to seek out a pregnancy center in your area, ask your local church if they have ever heard of Embrace Grace, research both, and then listen to how God tells you to take that next STEP.

It begins on May 16 at midnight and goes to midnight on May 17! 

Thank you for providing a confidential place for families in crisis!  For the past 27 years women and their partners facing an unplanned pregnancy have come to Care Net Pregnancy Services of the Treasure Coast for safe and confidential assistance free of charge.  Because of the medical services, community connections and material supplies offered to them in our centers we are better equipped than ever to increase their life-affirming options.

On May 16, 2017 at midnight to May 17th, at midnight, Crisis Pregnancy Center of the Treasure Coast Inc. (DBA Care Net Pregnancy Services of the Treasure Coast) is participating in the Great Give Palm Beach & Martin Counties, a 24-hour online giving event led by the United Way of Palm Beach County, Achieve, Nonprofits First and United Way of Martin County. Great Give 2017 is designed to raise as much money as possible for local nonprofits in just one day!

Plus, each donation made during the 24-hour period will be amplified by bonus pool dollars and hourly prizes!

We hope you will consider donating to Care Net by following the link https://www.greatgiveflorida.org/care-net-pregnancy-services-treasure-coast

Or go to www.GreatGiveFlorida.org and enter a search for Crisis Pregnancy Services of the Treasure Coast which will take you to Care Net’s page on May 17^th.  

24-hours CAN change our community!

Last year, Care Net ministered to 4977 clients and students in our centers and classrooms all across the communities in which we serve. 

Your gift can go far in reaching our community with the truth that saves lives and the love of Jesus Christ that transforms. Care Net continues to see ministry growth each and every year.  Give to keep our community strong.  Together we can make a difference one life at a time. 

Sincerely,

Sue Chess

Executive Director 

Care Net Pregnancy Services of the Treasure Coast

965 SE Federal Hwy.

Stuart, FL 34994

(772)871-2211

Divine Appointment or Coincidence?

By Rayma Zugel
     Lead Center Director

Have you ever had a "divine appointment"?

A divine appointment is a meeting with another person that has been specifically and unmistakably ordered by God. Psalm 37:23 states, "The steps of a righteous man are ordered by the Lord." I can tell you that seeing God set up these "appointments" is a thrill that is beyond comparison.

Picture this:  Two peer-counselors at Care Net, two clients walk in simultaneously. The clients fill out their paperwork and the Receptionist takes the clipboards back to the peer-counselors. “Who will take who?” she asks, and just like that, a divine appointment set by God before the foundations of the earth takes place.

Then there’s the client who didn’t show for a scheduled appointment but walked in on a day when she would pray to receive Jesus as Savior because of the obedience of the peer-counselor that is volunteering that day.

We have seen things like this happen over and over again. Some would say coincidence; we say an appointment set by God.

At Care Net we just finished with our Spring training for new volunteers. Here was another Divine Appointment.

We set a date for registrations to be in by so that we can be sure we have all the materials we need for each individual. That date had come and gone. The day before the training was to start I received a call from a man interested in volunteering. I explained to him the need to attend the volunteer training. Oh but wait, he has plans that first weekend. “So maybe,” I tell him, “you can take the next training in October,” which is hard for me to say because of the need for volunteers, especially for men, in both of our Centers. His next words surprise me. He is going to see if he can back out of his previous engagement. When I spoke with him the day of training, he told me he will be there as well as his wife. The engagement they were going to was changed so that they did not need to be there, because God has plans for them at Care Net.

Have you felt a pull on your heart for volunteering at Care Net? We would be happy to do a 4 hour mini training that can get you started making changes in the lives and hearts of many of the men and women we see. Then in October, you will take the full training and answer the call God has placed on your heart. “Then I heard the voice of the Lord saying, “Whom shall I send, and who will go for us?” Then I said, “Here I am! Send me.” (Isaiah 6:8).

Are you the “Me”?