One Friday outside a metropolitan abortion facility, our Sidewalk Advocates encountered a woman who the abortion facility was unable to serve. The abortion facility manager brought her out to the sidewalk for real help, stating she needed to be taken to a hospital. It turned out that she was homeless and living in a car, after having been trafficked to escape genocide in her home country – and now she was pregnant. Her journey had been filled with unimaginable hardships and violence.
Our Advocates took her under their loving wings and ensured she and her child would get the care they needed. She was welcomed into a home providing a safe and nurturing environment where she was able to sleep safely for the first time in months.
The next day our Advocates accompanied the young mom to a pregnancy care center where she decided – because of the help she was given – that she would keep her baby, naming him Gabriel, after the son of one of our Advocates who helped her. A sonogram revealed her baby had a brain malformation, but with support and an emergency transfer to a healthcare facility that respected life, she received the care she needed to carry her baby until birth.
Despite his serious health challenges, Baby Gabriel was born, was baptized, and lived briefly in his mother’s loving arms with the support of perinatal hospice care. His life was valued and honored in the short time he was on this earth. And importantly, his mother can find comfort in knowing that she did everything she could to protect and honor the beautiful gift of this precious soul who found his way home to the Lord.
The young mother, who has since been reunited with her husband and two sons, is now working as a home health aide. She is deeply grateful for the help she received, which began with an encounter on the sidewalk. She experienced the profound power of Christ’s love and lived the truth that beauty can blossom, and healing can occur, even through tragedy – when the gift of life is valued and honored.
Submitted by Sidewalk Advocates for Life – Washington D.C. / Baltimore, MD
You can help more women like this young mother find the real help and hope they need to choose life with a matched donation today at sidewalkadvocates.org/donate. Thank you!
