Beyond Stories: Loving Our Neighbors - Caring Choices
According to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), “Nearly half of all pregnancies, totaling 121 million yearly throughout the world, are unintended”. Even further, more than 60 percent of those pregnancies end in abortion, as unearthed in a study by the Guttmacher Institute, most commonly due to a lack of support and resource limitations.
Caring Choices: Empowering women & families to make an informed decision for their future.
Caring Choices is an organization created specifically to meet the needs for support and resources. With locations in Rochester and Webster, as well as a mobile unit, they are a pregnancy help center that works to provide free healthcare services and practical resources, embracing families with compassion and support.
This organization is about empowering families facing unexpected pregnancies, not condemning them. What is unique about Caring Choices is that they provide not only free ultrasound and STD testing but also counseling, courses, and resources for both mothers and fathers for months and years after the baby is born. They walk alongside families for the long haul.
“Love one another. As I have loved you, so you must love one another” (John 13:34).
Loving Our Neighbors
Throughout the Spring of 2023, Individuals from our Webster Campus responded to Caring Choices’ needs, and the results were overwhelming. Groups stepped into serving by cleaning and painting the basement of their Rochester clinic and providing shelving for a new storage area.
The Webster Campus also launched the “Loving Our Neighbors” campaign to collect items regularly needed by mothers and families. They collected everything from gasoline gift cards to baby clothes and diapers and were able to fill five vans!
Hundreds of our church members also stepped up by praying over Caring Choices’ clients and staff and even pitched in to give them specific gifts for encouragement.
Northridge’s team working on the new storage unit for Caring Choices
Pointing People to Christ
“When we say we are pro-life, we want to be there for that life. For the life of the baby, mother, father, and other siblings that are part of that family. To show up when the diapers run out and when the parenting gets tough. To strengthen families so that they have the confidence to keep going, because they know that the Jesus people will be with them! And that they may come to know Jesus himself. And we can do this in so many ways. Through ministries inside our church, through personal relationships, and through orgs like Caring Choices.” says Beyond Director Michelle Gerringer.
Our goal is to show up for these families when parenting gets tough so that families may be strengthened and pointed back to Christ. It’s in the consistent showing up that builds relationships and displays to them that the “Jesus people are with them.” So many are stuck in hopelessness and need the radical love of the Gospel. There is hope in Christ, so let us be His hands and feet in action and not only words.
