Life Matters

0:00The following commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff and management of WBCA or the Boston Neighborhood Network. If you would like to express another opinion, you can address your comments to Boston Neighborhood Network, 3025 Washington Street, Boston, Massachusetts, 02119. To arrange a time for your own commentary, you can call WBCA at 617-708-3215 or email radio at bnnmedia.org. Hello, welcome to Life Matters. I'm your host, Brendan O'Connell. Well, we're

1:01looking at how do people recover after having had an abortion. A lot of them have told stuff it, keep quiet, don't tell anybody. And on the pro-life side, there are organizations that have grown up helping to treat this problem. And we have one of them today. We have Jack Harber from Tennessee, dialed in all away from Tennessee. He and his wife Sheila started an organization called Save One and would like to welcome Jack to the show. Oh, thank you so much. We are honored, or I'm honored to be here with you. Jack, first I'd just like to ask, how did you ever get involved with the pro-life movement? Well, I think I've always felt like I was pro-life. I never really had that tension moment, though, until my wife and I met. We were dating and she was in the middle of her seven years of being unhitched after

2:07the abortion. So she had had an abortion, almost immediately started drinking to numb herself from the thoughts. It got to the point where she's like having to take a pill to go to sleep at night. So she doesn't have nightmares in the morning. She's having to take a pill to counteract the pill. She took to go to sleep. She's smoking pot all day. And then she's going to the bars at night. And in that same time period, I was an alcoholic for, I was probably a 10-year alcoholic when we met. And so we met in the bar. We didn't meet in Bible college. And she's a hot mess. I'm a hot mess, but I definitely knew I wanted to marry her. And so we just became one big hot mess. And we truly were. I mean, we were just a, you know, we were just a mess. She didn't tell me about the abortion until after we got married. It was that, in fact, about a year and a half after we were married because, you

3:09know, the abortion issue, it has a stigma. It's a, it's a shameful thing that it hanged shame on people. And she was worried that I was going to leave her. I was going to not want to be around her. And it was just the opposite. I just wanted to help. I just didn't know how to help at the time because of my drinking and stuff. So if you fast forward just a little bit, we're, we've been married a couple years. And she's riding down the road. We're living in Chattanooga, Tennessee at the time. And a radio ad comes on from the local pregnancy resource center. And the radio ad goes like this, if you're suffering after an abortion, we have a class for you. What a, what an incredible concept to reach out and to try to help people who are suffering, you know, from the aftermath of abortion. And so she, she goes to this class. She, she was a little concerned about, you know, like, what is a class going to do for me? But when she goes to this class, she,

4:11she finds that she is in the middle of a Bible study. And that Bible study just introduced her to the, the love and grace and mercy of Jesus Christ. And it transformed, transformed her life. And in that transformation, she became a totally different person. And I was so happy for her. But in that process, she looked at me and she says, you know, if God can do that for me, he can do that for Jack. So, you know, because of the alcohol and my drinking was a problem. It was no doubt about that. So she tried to get me to go to church for years. And then years later, years later, I mean, probably six, eight years later, six years later, what it was, we, we get up on a Sunday morning, she's wanting to go to church. And, and the pattern that I had realized during that time was, if I went to church, then, you know, everything's kind of peaceful around the house. If I don't go to church, it's, it's hell on earth at the house. She, you know, and in our relationship. And so I go to church

5:17that morning, I have an incredible encounter with God and Jesus. And I gave my life to, to the Lord that morning. And as I did that, I was delivered of 23 years of alcoholism. So I had been drunk for 23 years. And in that, yeah, in that miraculous moment, we just decided that whatever God asked, that's what we're going to do. So very quickly, because Sheila had been through this transformation, she had started volunteering at the pregnancy center and doing their abortion recovery classes there and doing other things at the pregnancy center. And so she goes to our pastor, she says, Hey, I know how to teach this class. And he said, I have been looking for something like this. I have been looking for something exactly like this. And so she starts teaching the class. And that's, that's how, that's how mine reduction to it was. I, I never

6:20really had the tension of, you know, do I believe that abortion's okay. I just never really thought it was okay. And then I'd never run into that in my life. So seeing what it did to her, I knew that, that, you know, my stand was going to be on the, on the side for life and to help people. Not only those who were considering, you know, we've over the 26 years that, that we've been doing this type of ministry as a nonprofit. And Sheila was working long before that. We've, we've had many opportunities to talk to people that were abortion minded, that were considering having an abortion. And, you know, we've talked to them about life. We've talked to them about the, the aftermath and so, so many. I don't, I don't honestly know. And I'm, this is not a bragging thing. I don't know of anybody that we actually have spent time with and got to talk with that, that went ahead and chose abortion. I mean, there's a possibility that I don't know about it,

7:24but I don't know of any. So it, it has been, it has been our consuming passion. In fact, when, when she started teaching the Bible study at our church, it soon turned into the non-profit that we're talking about now, save one. And from, from that point, I entered into ministry, ended up pastoring for 11 years. And after being there 11 years, God very clearly spoke that we were to do this together at save one. So I resigned the church. And this is what we've been doing side by side since 2018. Uh-huh. And how did you, so how did you, from 2018? Because when I spoke to Donna Florida, oh, a year or so ago, now, um, you were mentioning how you, you're growing not only in America, but all over the world. I mean, how, how did that transition happen? Or what, what were the, on the people word of mouth is often the greatest sales point. Yeah. How did, how did this all happen

8:28that you've got now? And tell us how big your organization is now. Sure. The, the incredible thing in the growth is no doubt that it's God, you know, I mean, we, it's just, if we, if we consider anything, but him being the, the catalyst and the, um, and the power and the movement behind what, what's happening then, that all we're doing is vanity. But certainly he uses, uh, willing vessel. Jesus Christ. Yeah. Yeah. They use vessel. He, you know, God uses Jesus uses human vessels to accomplish his work here. And so one of the things that had happened over between the time that I, uh, gave my life to Christ and, and the time that in 2018, we knew very clearly I was leaving the church is, is we had devoted ourself to ministry and, and ministry in many different opportunities through missions through, uh, through teaching through, you know, doing discipleship groups,

9:33hospital visits. I mean, we just, we did everything we possibly could. And what happens over that time and, and serving and being faithful to the church, faithful to the Lord is God just, he, he has these inspired intersections that you don't even know at the time that they really are an inspired intersection. It's just you meeting or ministering with somebody going on a trip, you know, doing some work for the Lord and whatever capacity it is. And then years later, you start to realize, wow, that was because we were doing this now because that person and, and I worked together many, many years ago, or we were introduced many, many years ago. And so God has all of these willing vessels all over the earth that he just puts us with. So when, when we left, when I left the church, that was our only source of income. Shia Gila had never in, in 18 years,

10:34taken a salary with save one. So we had to, we had to decide how are we going to do this ministry and, and bring money in, um, to the ministry so we can go out and do more. And I just started calling my friends that had churches and, and saying, hey, we're leaving in September, we're leaving the church, you know, we're looking for some services that we could come and, and tell people about life, tell people about Jesus, tell people about abortion recovery and that you, you can be healthy again, you know, and so very quickly we, we, we were able to, to book the entire rest of the year. And one thing that I noticed is we're doing it then people are saying, well, I don't have anything now, but I have something in 2019 and, and it just kept happening, and it just kept happening over and over. Churches want to talk about this. They just haven't known how. And they've wanted to preach against the sin of abortion. And, but they didn't have a compassionate response on the back

11:39and, and so the, the compassionate response is what, what we're, resourcing the church with. We have Bible study, we have to, you know, discipleship materials, which are a, a Bible study for women, which is a way it started out. And then after a couple of years that Sheila had been teaching in the church, we, we have women that have, you know, they've had an abortion, they're suffering, they come to the class, they go through the Bible study, encounter God's word and counter God and counter Jesus. And then they, they get their healing, well, they come out into the church and they start telling their, their story like this is where I was, this is what I did, and this is where I am now. And that's Revelation 12 11, which says, we overcome the enemy by the blood of the lamb and the word of our testimony. Well, we're overcoming by the word of our testimony. Jesus has always done his part. So as those stories are spreading, other women are emboldened to come to the class. Well, all of a sudden, a couple years out,

12:44we got a guy that comes up to Sheila and says, hey, can I come to that women's Bible study or teaching? And I, you know, the, the, the courage it took for that guy to ask to go through the women's Bible study. You know, I mean, sometimes we can laugh about it, but I mean, that was a courageous thing on his part. His pain was so much that he was willing to be uncomfortable in order to get to the comforter and, and to have that pain taken away. And so Sheila, I mean, honestly, the pro-life movement had done a great job with a lot of things, but the, but the pro-choice side has also been ingenious in some of their moves. And one of the things that they've done since 73 is they have tried to push back and, and keep men out of this. But with their mantra, if it's my body, my choice, it's not your body, not your choice, sit down and shut up. You know,

13:45the all of those pushbacks that they did, it silenced a lot of men. They didn't know how to respond. They know how to act. And so their voice wasn't taken. It was just silenced for a while. And so after, with, with our ministry particularly, after this guy came and asked if he could go through, Sheila hands him seriously a pink book with flowers on it and says you've got to change the pronouns. And that's, that's all we had to give to a man at that point. I mean, that's how, that's how the, the whole industry, you know, it was just women centered. It was driven to, to help women. And so he goes through the class and he does the same thing. He goes out into the church and he says, this is the dark place I had gotten to because of what happened. And then I went through this class and this class gave me my life back. And so another man comes and says, hey, I want to go through that Bible study. And so we got a, we got a clue that we couldn't just keep handing out

14:49pink books with flowers on them and, and asking men to change the pronouns. So the, the guy, you ask about this earlier, the guy that went through the first, the first male that went through, he took a job that took him overseas to Slovenia. And he's in Slovenia in Europe. And he writes back email at that time, you know, you couldn't, you couldn't WhatsApp and, and do text or all these international calls and stuff at that time. It was hugely expensive to try that. But he writes back to Sheila and says, the need is great here. Can I start a save one here? And Sheila says, sure, absolutely. Now we had, we already had, we already had one chapter of save one in Romania that had started almost the same time that we, we got started. But they had, they had, but it was

15:51just that one chapter. So anyway, he goes and gets an NGO, he gets an NGO for all of Europe. He didn't just do it for Slovenia. Oh, wow. I know. What a, what a, what a godly move on that, in that one moment, move there. So when that NGO for all of Europe happens, then that's opened the entire European block, all of the countries for us to be able to go to. And so now, right now, in Europe, we have 13 different countries that we have save one of presents in and they are rocking and rolling over there. But, but Timothy, the guy that, the first guy that went through and he tells his story. So I'm not outing anybody by using his name. Timothy then gets transferred to China. And he's just in China just a little bit. And he writes, Sheila said, the need is great here. Can I start say one China? And he was able to get an NGO there in China. So I mean, unbelievable. I

16:54thought China was very adverse to any type of it is. And one of, you know, mainland is a little bit different, but this guy, Timothy did his thing and he did well. And then we passed it off to some people who were local there and they've just done an incredible job. So it just, it just keeps happening like that. And so where we ended up with all this, one other thing you mentioned, the ripple effect after we were helping women and we're helping men and we're combining classes with men and women, people with a lot of letters after their name told us, no, don't do that. That's not that's not a good way to get healing. It's an incredible way to get healing to combine men and women for groups because the men see the women's side of it and what they've gone through and the women see the the hurt and the pain that the men have gone through. And so it's like a deeper level

17:55of healing. It's a it's a greater way for us to be able to help people. Now we do one-on-ones and you know, we do groups and we do some just men's groups. I'm just women, but that's what that's the way we teach and train is for them to to do it any any time it's possible to have them combine. Well, as as people are coming out into the church, all of a sudden we started having grandparents and siblings and aunts and uncles who had been affected by the abortion issue in their family, they had lost a loved one. Some of them had lost grandchildren, some of them lost siblings and even even people who had participated like you know and this this is a very very prevalent way that some people come from for the ripple effect is that they were in college and they paid for an abortion to help somebody thinking that they were actually helping or they drove somebody to the clinic to help them out because they didn't have a ride and then they see somebody's like that

18:59person that they they're thinking they're helping their life go off the rails and then they start feeling guilt because they have participated in the death of a child that they didn't they didn't really think it all the way through. So we wrote a third Bible study Sheila did on this one is called the ripple effect and so we help men, women and families and and some people in that you know in the outer fringe but we want the family to be whole whole and healthy and when the family's whole you know when mom and dad are healthy then the family's healthy and when the family's healthy that affects the church and that makes the church healthy and that's that's what we want we want to we want a healthy church so well you say healthy you're talking about mentally psychologically is that what you're talking about absolutely because in this grief and shame and sorrow that that people go through there's there's symptoms that start to manifest if it's not helped dealt with if it's not you know if they don't address it and so those symptoms start to come out just like

20:01Sheila's did the the most prevalent thing is drug and alcohol abuse yet drug and alcohol abuse is the number one symptom and then you have pornography because there's no chance of pregnancy and when when somebody's looking at pornography so they we have a lot of men and women both turn to pornography there's anger there's eating disorders there's you know unable to have a relationship with with whichever opposite sex it is so there's just so many so many different things that are unhealthy and and really they're the elements of our society because we you know we have recovery centers that have weightless we have an oak you know we have unbelievable amount of violence going on to to resolve things we you know there's just the pornography issue is a multi billion dollar industry and those things aren't healthy and so

21:02what we're trying to do is just help people be healthy mentally yeah for sure and use to see your do you see it growing continuing to grow like for instance isn't an NGO brought about by United Nations they appeal there and where do they get their money for these NGOs well every we do not take government money we haven't we've never done that so what what happens is we you have to have an NGO to have an organization overseas so what every every one of our countries here in America and anybody that's helping with save one we have to raise our own budget we have to we have to go out and you know we have to make the ask from time to time and and certainly not uncomfortable but it's certainly not comfortable excuse me but I'm never uncomfortable doing it because I believe so much in what what we're doing that I don't I don't mind asking I've

22:06never been the salesperson I've always worked on a service type industry or helping people and to to get to a point to where you have to ask for money that's been a little bit you know I like oh I don't love that part but I don't mind doing it because I believe so much in what we're doing and and the raising those funds and it's it's helped us so helped us to expand to continue to grow when somebody asks hey can you come to this location or this location then then we've we've started we've stopped having uh trying to be the only one that ever goes out because this thing is so much bigger than what Sheila and I are and so we've we've developed a team we've developed a speaking team we've developed people in um probably I I notice your website you have uh you can that uh lecture series yep yep that's uh can I ask one question how is your ministry changed with

23:07the uh the rapid growth of chemical abortions and yeah uh for instance uh uh doctor dr dr delgado on again recently yeah and um you know they've saved about eight thousand lives but uh you must run into that it's the psychological aspects of chemical abortion versus surgical abortion with before when people were coming to us from a surgical abortion many times the the distance between the abortion and when they would come for help could be 10 20 years it easily I mean we have had some people that finally came you know after 30 40 years one one person I know it was 60 years since the abortion it it happened even before a row versus weight at that point so those were pretty standard when row was overturned and it was sent back to the states one thing that the other side had done was they had they had been planning and they they just came up with a new

24:13level of evil and that push with chemical abortions they call it um they call it health it's not women's health it's the you know medication abortions yeah it's it's not that it's it's you know what what happened was these these they're being lied the women are being lied to men are being lied to is that it's a simple thing you do on a you know on a Saturday in your home and everything's fine well it's not fine they're they're not told about the graphic unbelievable things that are going to happen in their house and when when the child is discharged they've got to make a decision on what to do with the child so where people were waiting years before they came for help and trying to just stuff it away you know compartmentalize it and use coping skills that people are not able to do that now and and we're we're getting calls literally from people who are still

25:15in the home in the in the at the end of the process of the chemical abortion we're getting calls at one week or six days six weeks the calls are coming so much quicker because the trauma is so much greater than it was before and even with the men the men think oh you know I'll be there for you I'll I'll sit there with you and they're seeing the incredible things and they're having to clean up incredible stuff and it's just it's just it's a nightmare it is an absolute nightmare so I love I love the abortion pill reversal network APRN and the numbers I mean like everybody everybody that's involved in any type of pro-life issues abortion recovery whatever it is APRN should be in your phone because when you get that call you you've got to be able to respond on you know hey I took

26:17the first pill but I don't think I'm doing the right thing so it's good to have that phone phone number and it's 877 558 0333 that's that's the number I mean yeah I had that handy every one of us that's the number for abortion pill reversal yep yep okay there's somebody and I think that that's man 24 hours a day I believe that's right yeah it's certainly yes you've got to check the stories they're really quite something and we're kind of getting close to the end of our our show yeah I got long-winded just a second there you asked me a question I didn't get to the end of it the answer is we're we're today we are 453 chapters of save one a chapter is simply a church or a pregnancy center or a standalone organization that we've vetted that teaches the save one Bible Bible studies and we are in 30 nations around the world well that is fantastic growth thank you so

27:22much for your efforts it's really amazing well God's good yeah and folks we hope you found today's show to be unique and formative content rich truthful and thought provoking thanks for watching and listening my name is Brendan O'Connell your friend for life you the preceding commentary does not necessarily reflect the views of the staff and management of wbca or the Boston neighborhood network if you would like to express another opinion you can address your comments to Boston neighborhood network 3025 Washington street Boston Massachusetts 02119 to arrange a time for your own commentary you can call wbca at 617 708 3215 or email radio at

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