Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: Sam.
[00:00:31] Speaker B: So we have Jen Pace and Janice Bing with us from First Coast Women's Services. Welcome to the Code Red Studio.
[00:00:36] Speaker A: Thank you so much.
[00:00:38] Speaker B: We're honored to have you. We appreciate the work that you do for the kingdom and for preserving human life.
And so why don't you tell us, how does somebody end up becoming the CEO? Let's go there first.
Of such, how many clinics do you have?
[00:00:54] Speaker A: Currently we have six locations.
And the short answer is the typical Sunday school answer, which is Jesus, that is how you become CEO, is just completely the Lord and then the work that he's. That he's done.
[00:01:06] Speaker B: What were you doing previously?
[00:01:07] Speaker A: So I've.
When I got saved when I was 16 and felt very much called to ministry, but didn't know what that meant and really was pursuing the Lord and asking God what he had for me. And I felt like when I received Christ, there was so much that God did in my life and I felt like I was serving the girl that I was back in the day. And so I never had become pregnant as a teenager and I never had an abortion, but I very easily could have. And I felt like I wanted to serve the person that needed Jesus before that. So I've always been drawn to this kind of work. So when I graduated college, I went to Bible college. I worked for an organization called Project SOS and. And we would go to high schools and middle schools and talk about the benefits of waiting. And one of the places that we went to was a place called St. Gerard Campus, and it was a high school for teen moms. And when I went to the class that day, I felt like I was looking at me when I was a teenager. And I just felt like this is exactly what I want to do with my life.
And to be able to speak into someone's life when they think. Feel like it's the worst time in their life, but really it's not. It's one of the greatest things that God is doing. And God uses, you know, God works in very mysterious ways to draw us to himself.
And so that was kind of the beginning, the very beginnings of me starting to do this type of work.
[00:02:36] Speaker B: Isn't it interesting that, you know, sometimes we think, we talked about it Sunday at church. We're going through Romans as a church. And so we were talking about Sunday when.
When you come to Christ at a very early age, you come to Christ usually because of a sense of something's missing, but having a memory of B.C.
remembering who you were so you can recognize that when you see it It's a good thing. It's a grace of God that he doesn't let us forget what we were saved from before Christ and helps us to recognize that in others and those things that we were, the idols that we were worshiping and the things that were on the altar for our life, we can recognize it when we see it in other people.
We talked about Sunday, I think it was Keller that said, a lot of times, fear, the things that make us unusually afraid or despondent or angry can show us what the idols are on our life.
You walk into a young lady's life and I'm sure you see a lot of fear.
[00:03:42] Speaker A: 100%. 100%. The last prayer text I sent last night, even we have a prayer text ministry. And whenever there's an abortion minded woman who comes into the center, we send out a prayer text. And we don't share identifying information, but we just want people to pray. And of the five, I think there were five people on that prayer text. It was fear. She's afraid, she's afraid, she's afraid, you know, and so that, that fear, when we let the emotions of our life drive us, it's a really poor decision maker.
And so we have to have something deeper that governs the decisions that we make.
You know, whether it's a sinful decision or a God honoring decision, we cannot allow fear to be that driver. And so to be able to speak into someone's life and to provide, hope, to provide, to help them, to see that there's a way to kind of pull back the clouds and to help them to see that there is a path forward and say, hey, you're not gonna be alone either.
I'm gonna walk with you. You know, Hagar is one of my favorite verses. The story of Hagar in Genesis where she's running and she doesn't know what to do, she's confused. And God meets her and says, she's like, oh man, you're the God who sees me.
And I can do this hard thing that I'm terrified of because I know that you're with me. And so to be a picture of that in her life is an honor.
[00:05:09] Speaker B: I'm thinking about the woman at the well that's out there.
Both you ladies have been around church and you know that ladies that went out in the middle of the day to the well, that was not the norm. She was doing that for a reason. And Jesus tells later she had many husbands, she had a past.
And when he approaches her, her life is probably marked by Fear and confusion and anger. And he said, if you only knew, if you only knew who it was that was speaking to you, the peace that would bring, you know, and so I think you guys get to be that in the lives of young ladies.
Janice, let's back up a little bit and tell us a little bit about.
For those, we're kind of jumping into the conversation, assuming everyone knows what it is you ladies do and you're in the clinic closest to our congregation here, Northside, and. And so tell us a little bit about what exactly is the service that you ladies offer to young mothers and fathers in our area.
[00:06:07] Speaker C: Well, I think the beautiful thing for us is that we get the opportunity, as Jen was mentioning, to step into someone's world at probably one of the most critical, confusing, messed up times and be able to speak into their lives and say something that helps change their hearts. They usually come in. 80% of the people that come in are wanting an abortion, or at least that's what they're thinking.
They're unplanned pregnancies.
They are wanting some. Usually, like I said, about 80% of them are looking for an abortion. And honestly, most of them have never really heard of first coast, nor do they know the benefits that we provide, which are free pregnancy tests, free ultrasounds, free parenting classes. Up until that child is one years old, we get the privilege of stepping into their lives and saying, you, you don't have to be alone. I know it's a very confusing time, but we're here to support you. And so not just from a, you know, they step in and they get a pregnancy test and an ultrasound and that's great, but to come alongside them and offer practical support such as the fact that they, you know, they get the parenting classes which help them understand, you know, even trimesters that they're going through. And what my, what my body is going to, you know, what's going to happen with my body and what it's going to be like with the birthing process and what, what is it going to be like now that my child is a toddler or relationship issues or finance issues.
So we deal with them not just in their particular issue, but also come alongside them practically supporting.
And I think it's beautiful because one of the things that I love about us is that we not only come alongside and help with all of those kind of things. What if the woman comes in and she's actually sleeping in her car, but she's pregnant?
So do we just say, well, we want you to keep the Baby and good for you. No, we come alongside and say we have an opportunity for them. We can bless them through what we call doors of hope, where we help them kind of get back on their feet.
You know, we will make sure that they have housing. We won't let them go away and just say, well, you know, try to work it out. No, we give them options. And we also have amazing support agencies that we connect to. That's also a, that we're able to direct them, to get them involved with. And if it means us reaching out to the agency on their behalf, just to make sure that they have like a baton passing so they don't feel like they're alone, we're here to help. We offer, of course, we provide them all kinds of information. Right. They come in. If they are talking about an abortion, we're going to share with them. Now we don't, we don't do abortions nor do we refer to for them, but we will at least provide them the information about the abortions and then we'll also let them know. But you also have the option of parenting and we'll walk alongside you up until that child is one years old to help with that. And you also have the option for an adoption which will walk alongside you, connect you with agencies that we've already vetted to be able to connect with couples that are looking for newborns.
So there are all kinds of options. So they're, they don't, we don't just say, you know, well, we would love for you to keep the baby and that's great. I think one of the most beautiful things for me is that we get the opportunity to pray with people, you know, with their permission, of course, but we get the opportunity to pray with them and to speak into their lives at one of the most difficult times.
Last year, 1731 women who had chose, who walked in the doors wanting an abortion, chose to keep their baby. Wow, that's huge across the board. 1731, just on the north side alone, out of that 1731, there were 253.
So it's a powerful work that we do each and every day as we step into someone's world to help them. First, non judgmental. It doesn't matter if you're married, not married, what your religious background, if you, you know, the other day a Wiccan walked in and you know, okay, so we are not going to, you know, push them away because they don't believe like we believe.
That's not the point. The point is we're here to help you hopefully save that baby's life. We want that baby to be able to take their first breath. And if we could walk alongside you to help you do that, we're gonna do that.
[00:10:28] Speaker B: You know, I think back. Abortion's been around as long as pregnancy's been around. There's been ways to perform abortions.
When it became so medically accessible in our country, it was a time, and many people don't realize this, but there was a time when even Christians, they weren't even really divided over it. Christians were pro abortion almost across the board. There were very few that were not in favor. Billy Graham. It would shock a lot of people to know that Billy Graham was at one time Crisp W. A. Criswell was the leading Southern Baptist. First Baptist in Dallas, Texas, was a pro abortion pastor. It would be shocking to a lot of people to know that there was a lot of things that people didn't understand about the development of the baby. And their theology hadn't caught up with the science of what was taking place. And so you would have people like Schaeffer, Francis Schaeffer, who was standing against the abortion industry and fighting for life.
But he was almost a prophetic voice at that point in time. And so I wonder, I've never dug into the history of it, but I would be curious to know, when did clinics like yours become a thing?
Because I'm assuming it's pretty expensive to run those clinics.
What does the average clinic operating costs look like?
[00:11:53] Speaker A: It costs us about $500,000 a year to run.
[00:11:56] Speaker B: That's very low from what I would have expected.
[00:11:59] Speaker A: Right. So our annual operating budget is about $4 million. And we have six locations and a call center. Our call center is the most expensive of our locations to run because it's run by nurses. We have nurses who will answer the phone right away. So, as you know, girls live on their phone.
And so if they type abortion clinic near me or abortion, we have paid advertising that will try to catch her before she goes to Planned Parenthood or one of those locations.
[00:12:29] Speaker B: You've got to think about SEO. You've got to think about buying ads. Wow, I've not thought about that.
[00:12:35] Speaker A: Yes. So that's a big part of what we're doing. AI is impacting our marketing. And so you're always looking ahead of how can we make sure we're reaching her before she is in the hands of someone else. And so we have registered nurses who have OB experience. So that way, when she's in that life or death decision making Point. And she's trying to decide who she's going to make an appointment with.
We want to catch her, we want her to understand the importance of the ultrasound. And so you saw the pregnancy center movement kind of start on the heels of Roe vs. Wade because the Christian community, and to your point, the Catholic community was really the first they were to really start the movement, the pro life movement and Protestant congregations came kind of after the fact. But you began to see the impacts of ultrasound. You know, if I have an opportunity to ever speak at a church, I can guarantee you this is going to happen to me after. Even if I have two minutes just to say quickly, this is what we do. I guarantee you I'm going to have someone come up to me afterwards and be in tears and say, you know what, I'm post abortive, never told a soul. But I've walked with this for years and a lot of times it's someone who's in their 60s, who's in their 70s, who said, if I would have only known it was a real life, I probably would have chosen differently. And then the deep regret that she has because she wished she would have known that I was a life. So the ultrasound is really still one of the most powerful, impactful things in helping her to make a choice for life. It's also one of the biggest things, things that we will utilize to help an abortion minded woman understand why she needs to come to see us and why that benefits her. So that's really part of our ministry.
[00:14:24] Speaker B: What do those machines cost?
[00:14:26] Speaker A: A current machine is about $36,000.
[00:14:29] Speaker B: And how many do you guys have?
[00:14:30] Speaker A: We have six. Well, actually we have seven machines. One of our centers has two ultrasound machines.
[00:14:36] Speaker B: You've got one at each center, is that right?
[00:14:38] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:14:38] Speaker B: And so the budget, that's remarkable that you can run those facilities on 500,000 a year.
You're managing that well, obviously.
[00:14:50] Speaker A: Volunteers.
Volunteers, yes. We're always in need of volunteers.
[00:14:54] Speaker C: Yes, please.
[00:14:55] Speaker A: If anybody's listening and Phil's called, what
[00:14:58] Speaker B: type of person do you need?
[00:14:59] Speaker A: We need someone who's available and willing to be trained. So it's funny, when we recruit volunteers, usually someone will say this to me. Oh, I really feel God calling me to volunteer, but I'm too old. Oh, I really feel like God's calling me to volunteer, but I'm too young. Oh, I really feel like God's calling me to volunteer, but I have an abortion and I'm not qualified. Oh, I really feel like I'm called to volunteer, but I haven't had an abortion, so I'm not qualified. So, you know, if someone's had an
[00:15:26] Speaker B: abortion, because I've had the same experience anytime we've talked about it, you know, if it comes up in the text or if we're having a pro life Sunday or whatever it might be, there's always someone that comes up and says, this is between me and the Lord, but I want you to know this.
And I think they just want to know that we're good, that we're okay, that she's not my enemy, that I'm not going to think of her as a second class Christian or whatever, which of course we would. We've all got sins that we've been forgiven of. We all needed. Jesus didn't have to die a little longer for her than he did for me. Right.
So we're good. And that's easy to forgive for me, but. But what I found is many times they can be the greatest advocates for life.
[00:16:08] Speaker C: Yes, been there.
I'm actually post abortive. So probably about 40 years ago I made that decision. Terrible decision. But in my selfishness, that's exactly what I did. And I have the privilege of stepping into people's lives at a time when they may want to do that and be able to, with permission, share my story, share the regret, share the shame, but also share the beauty of redemption and the fact that Christ still, he loves me and he's given me an opportunity to kind of share my redemption story with others, to kind of help them see through a different lens. To see you don't have to necessarily go that route. There are options. I didn't think I had options. I did not have someone talking to me, sharing with me. Here are some things you might want to consider.
I was a Christian when I did that, by the way.
So when I am in conversation with individuals or if I share at churches or what have you, I'm able to at least share that because I think that almost lets people breathe a little bit because they're like, okay, I did have this and I'm not. It's not the worst thing in the world. There is redemption through the blood of Jesus and I can actually share my story with others and help them make hopefully a different decision. Not everybody walks away making a different decision. Some people still walk away choosing to do that. But on the other side of that, even though we encourage people not to or would love to have them not to, we do have abortion healing. We have kind of an intro to abortion healing that's through first coast that we also provide. So anytime someone will do that, we'll say to them, because we do follow up calls, let's say. So we're following up with individuals and they let us know that they've done it, they've already taken care of it, they don't need our services anymore. And we'll tell them even when they meet with us initially and we talk about all the benefits and they still want to kind of be in an abortion mindset, we'll say to them, we realize it, but we love you and we want you to know that this journey, it didn't, it won't stop with the fact that you took a pill or you laid on a table and got a snip. It's not going to stop with that. There is, you're going to need some help. That's awesome. And we're here to help you.
[00:18:23] Speaker B: Does that happen at the clinics or those gatherings?
[00:18:25] Speaker C: We do have gatherings and there are times allocated where there are individuals that are kind of trained in that space and they help them navigate that. And that's usually kind of a one day event. But there are. And once we determine or that individual says, I probably, I need more because we're doing an intro to it. So they need a little more. And we do partner with another organization where we can. They do like a 10 week, I think 8 to 10 week Bible study that kind of helps people understand kind of where you are and you don't have to be a Christian to be a part of that also.
[00:19:00] Speaker B: That's that it's interesting.
I think one of the reasons I like to do these kind of conversations and podcasts, people can let their guard down or they can watch this.
They may be frustrated and angry because they presume we're enemies.
But the only enemies that we have, we have Satan and demons are our enemies. But the only enemies that we have outside of Satan, they make themselves. They make us their enemies.
You know, we're not looking at anybody as an enemy and saying, you know, we're out here to destroy or to hurt you in any way. We're come alongside and help love on people, but people that may strongly disagree with our political stand or theological stand on abortion.
We're not angry at them, we're not enemies toward them and we're here to help them as well.
And so I've had ladies my age that in devastation and tears finally got to the point that they could talk about it.
And once they got past that, we had that conversation and they saw, okay, I had A staff member one time come to me that was post abortive, and she confessed it to me, and she said, you know, at the time, it just wasn't something that we saw as a problem and never considered it. She had never heard anything mentioned from the pulpit about it.
So here's what I would say to those people who are watching, who are trying to figure out, how do I look at people like Pastor Zach or the ladies at First Coast.
You've always got to remember we've got a broad audience that includes young people who are trying to make up their mind on if this was ever in my future.
Is this something I would consider.
We've got young people who are.
Have friends that are going to have to make a decision about life or abortion.
We've got people who are post abortive.
We've got people who have.
They've politicked against or for either side.
So all of those people are in our audiences, and all of those people are coming to your. To your door. And so sometimes if someone hears me speaking on abortion, they're going to hear the prophetic, this is wrong. This is sinful.
This is murder. They're going to hear that. I'm not going to hold back, because a lot of times at that point, I'm talking to that young lady who doesn't know what's two years ahead of her, and I want her to at least have some anchor in her past to go, oh, Pastor said, pump the brakes here.
I want her to have someone of a spiritual authority who said that.
The same can be true for someone who's LGBTQ community.
[00:22:04] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:22:05] Speaker B: If they hear certain sermons, I'm talking to the young man who's struggling with his identity.
That doesn't mean I hate everyone who walks down that road and comes to a different conclusion and in a different sermon, they may hear me speaking to that part of the congregation, of the audience.
And so I'm saying this for those who are watching, who may not be watching because they agree, they may be watching, getting frustrated, and I would just say hear that side of it, that we've got to be considerate.
We can't take the message and just take all the rough edges off. So it's so vanilla that everybody's going to concur.
Sometimes we've got to be very clear on where we stand. But we live in the real world, and all we have to deal with is sinners.
That's all God has to work with, is sinners.
So we're going to sin. We're going to make bad decisions. And when that happens, we've got to have plans. And that's James that says, don't just say, God bless you. Have a great day. We're praying for you, but get in there with them and offer them some help. And that's what you ladies are doing.
[00:23:17] Speaker A: We have a new program that's a prevention program. And so kind of birthed out of the past, where I went into high schools and middle schools and talked about the benefits of waiting. I have four kids myself. My oldest is 20, my youngest is 11.
And they're living in this world where the culture is saying, oh, abortion's okay, LGBTQ is fine, and they have to wrestle with these things. And you're right, they really need to wrestle with it before they make the decision, before that choice is in front of them. And it's so important as parents, as leaders, as mothers, as fathers, as a Christian community, to have a conversation about it beforehand. So that way people are able to kind of wrestle through that.
My daughter, they all go to a Christian school, and she still had a lot of friends that were pro choice, and then there were some that were even struggling with some of those issues. And so I remember, you know, really talking with her through it and helping her to wrestle through that. So she. It wasn't just her mom's convictions being imposed upon her, but where she felt free and open to talk to me and us to wrestle through it together. And I think that's really important, too, as an organization that is proclaiming the dignity of life, proclaiming the fact that it's one man and one woman that God's called as a biblical family.
And. And to be able to reach them before they're faced with those decisions, because an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. It's true.
So I think it's also important for us to be able to unapologetically voice what we believe, but then also wrestle with those things with dignity.
[00:25:02] Speaker B: It is. And when it comes down to what may feel like at the moment, worst case scenario, and it is a horrible scenario when abortions taking place, it's horrible that a life has been lost. But I often use the phrase, if the gospel doesn't work now, what good is it when you're in your darkest moment and you're dealing with the worst of sins, if the death of Jesus didn't step into that, if it's just for Sunday school people who never make mistakes, which they don't exist, but if it were that kind of gospel, this is A dirty gospel that steps in the most horrible moments of our lives and is sufficient.
And so I think I want them to hear both.
We will battle the darkness because we've seen the repercussions.
But when it does have its way, we've also seen that light has come into the darkness.
And so both of those truths have to be equally proclaimed. And you know, I would say don't judge a church or a pastor or a ladies clinic or whatever based upon walking into one sermon and thinking you understand the breadth of everything that man or that woman believes.
It is an ideology, but it's a worldview.
It's a view for all of the occasions of life and all of the situations that we're going to be thrust into.
We've got to, you know, you've got four kids, I've got three kids. They're not going to all make the decisions we want them to make. We know that. We're not ignorant, we're going to pray for them.
But we've got to be the kind of parents that, you know, if all of our dreams come true with our kids and they do exactly what we want them to do, they praise the Lord, don't get prideful, walk in humility and enjoy it. Right, right. But. But chances are just like us, they're going to make mistakes along the way. And we've got to have a faith that can see us through the best and the worst of times. He leads us through the valley of the shadow of death sometimes.
And the good shepherd doesn't only take us beside the still waters, you know, sometimes it's through the valley of the shadows. And so a gospel that can carry us through those times. It's what we're proclaiming.
So tell me about the fathers. I know, Janice, you and I have talked a little bit about.
You could manhandle that mic if you need to pull it up closer to you.
I know we've talked a little bit about when the ladies come in the clinic, how often are they joined by the biological father or male figure in the young lady's life?
[00:27:55] Speaker C: Usually about, I would say about 70, 80% of the time. Really.
[00:27:59] Speaker B: That's incredible.
[00:27:59] Speaker C: The fathers are there fathers or a male comes with them, whether that's a friend or what have you.
[00:28:05] Speaker B: Are they pushing the abortion or are they. What is their heart at it? Are they supportive?
[00:28:09] Speaker C: I think it could be 50, 50 with whether or not the male, you know, is supporting or not.
But I think one of the biggest things is we have a men's male mentoring Group. Right. We have over 60 men that support us throughout all of the centers. We try to have at least one male mentor with each, at each of the various shifts that we have. And they will actually walk out there and get the men, because the men, you know, they came with the woman. They didn't necessarily have an appointment.
[00:28:43] Speaker B: So they're out in a van.
[00:28:45] Speaker C: They could be in the lobby, or they might have sensed there was way too much estrogen in there in the women's clinic. And so they may sit out there, but the men will literally walk out there and, you know, say, hey, can we have a conversation for a few minutes? I know that your young lady is, you know, back there in her appointment, and more times than not, they will. And we get the opportunity to share with them some of the same things we're sharing with the ladies, how important it is sometimes, men or women, they don't have anyone to talk to. And I find that that's one of the biggest things for us, is that if we can let people with no judgment and just an opportunity to just voice some of their pain, because maybe they don't even get a chance to say that in their family. Maybe they burn too many bridges. Maybe people don't want to hear what they got to say. But we allow them to, you know, to be able to share. And with the men, they get an opportunity to hear it from a.
A respected man who loves the Lord, who is sitting there listening and honestly looks like a father figure to someone who may not have that in their life. And so to be able to have that person there to listen, but then to also share some insight and to be available every few weeks for the parenting classes, because they'll usually see the same person each time. And until that baby is a year, you know, what kind of relationship's being built and what kind of trust may be being built and what kinds of opportunities that male mentor is able to speak into that person's life, pray with them. The other day, probably about a month ago, this gentleman, one of the male clients, called one of the male mentors to say that his father had passed and he just needed him to pray.
Do you know how important that is to have to reach out to someone who is not your family member to say, I want to let you know that my father has passed, and I really need you to pray with me today. I mean, that was powerful. So they're developing relationships, just like with the women. The women are being. Having relationships, you know, develop throughout that whole time, up until. Imagine coming in finding out you're pregnant at four weeks and up until that child is one years old, every three weeks you're coming in, having parenting classes, having an hour of conversation. You take about a 20 minute video, you have a conversation about it and sometimes they'll walk in and you don't even talk about. You don't look at a video because maybe they had some things on their heart that they really needed to kind of share or had a trauma that happened in that week and they want to kind of talk about it so they get an opportunity. But with the men, I think it's so beautiful because most of them don't think that there is anything in there in that place for men. But no, we have male mentors and I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt, more times than not, if that man comes into the, into the ultrasound with the woman, that's a beautiful experience. And they get the privilege of seeing just what she's seeing on the screen. They get to see the heartbeat. Do you know that a heart begins beating at 18 days?
Most people don't even know they're pregnant at 18 days. But to be able to see the heart flickering on the screen and sometimes the baby is waving, moving around, or sometimes they're twins or triplets and you get to see all that on the screen and you might have been laying there originally abortion minded. But more times than not, once that happens, you're changing your mind. There is a whole different perspective being shaped.
[00:32:01] Speaker B: There's something in a man and there's something in a woman that's very different than the moment when they made that decision.
They were thinking very differently when they were in the bedroom, in the car, wherever it happened. At times in those moments, Chuck Swindoll said, in a moment of lust, practically everyone's an atheist.
God is the furthest thing from their mind. And so in that moment, they're not thinking the way a man should think. They're not thinking about repercussions and costs and consequences and all that. They're just thinking about pleasure of the moment. And so going from there that got them in this situation to bringing them to a moment of sobriety when they see all of the repercussions of will either kill something in them or it will bring something out of them.
And so what we want to do is to bring out the good stuff God's put in there for them to stuff. And that doesn't mean necessarily that you're going to marry the mother.
There's a lot of different ways that could go two wrongs don't make a right.
So I think a lot of young men are surprised when they come to me with that sort of thing is they feel like I'm going to guilt trip them into a marriage that they don't feel ready for.
Well, it may or may not be in your future with this particular lady, but that child needs a father either way, you turn it. And needs decisions made on their behalf that they can't make for themselves now.
So we can help them navigate all those things.
But deciding, is this child going to be put up for abortion? Are we going to parent this child? How are we going to do this? All of those things can bring something out of a man or a woman that there is something about. I remember the first time our oldest, when we saw that heartbeat.
I didn't know a heart could beat that fast.
I told Julie, I'm a Baptist pastor, but I said, this child's a Pentecostal, obviously, with the way that little heartbeat was going, but it really was, it was like, okay, I got to find a new gear that I didn't, I didn't know I had. And with every child that brought something out of me that was good.
And so in those dark moments that are fearful, confusing, can make us angry. It can also cause us to dig deeper and find something in our manhood or womanhood that we didn't know was there.
[00:34:33] Speaker C: Correct.
[00:34:34] Speaker A: We found that they're more likely to choose life if the father of the baby does come for the ultrasound. And so one of the protocols that we have is if she didn't bring the father of the baby with her for the first pregnancy test or the first ultrasound, that will say, hey, we would like to offer you a second ultrasound. So that way you can include the father of the baby and help him to be a part of the process. And to your point, you know, we're not trying to say you have to stay together, but he needs to be a part of the conversation. And because he is a part, he is part of the decision.
And so then we also offer relationship skills classes because even if they don't end up together, they're still going to need to learn how to co parent. They're still going to need to learn how to communicate and to fight fair and to make it about the child and not about themselves. So there's so many aspects that we can pour into their lives. And so that's part of the reason why we can see so many men is because we want to include the
[00:35:30] Speaker B: father of the Baby, what have you experienced in dealing with churches?
Has it been easy to work with churches? Has it been complicated? I'm just curious. You guys are a little bit further from us. We've had more probably dealings with the nest locally, and we just try to be there to support them. We send volunteers, we serve, we give. We bought ultrasound machines for them.
We'll help any way we can.
I presume that's the norm. Is that the norm?
[00:36:01] Speaker A: Yes. I actually, I was the first center director at the north side when we opened. And so we had a groundbreaking service, and my husband went to the groundbreaking service with me, and there were all these pastors there, and my husband, you know, most men are not very emotional. My husband was weepy because he was like, I can't believe this many churches are supporting you guys. You know, he's like, as a. As your husband, it makes me so proud and it feels so good that you have such beautiful church support. And so that's. We have. We're so blessed. We have two to 300 churches that are supporting us in some way, shape or form.
Our churches is where we get our volunteers. Our second largest baby bottle fundraising campaign is the baby bottle campaign. So this past year, we raised $260,000 in baby bottles. Just. That's a lot of coin, and that's.
[00:36:54] Speaker B: Kids could do that with couch change, all that.
[00:36:58] Speaker A: So churches are the ones who are facilitating that baby bottle campaign. So the churches are our biggest supporter, our biggest advocate.
In 2025, we started having our staff meetings at churches. And so it's an opportunity for us to the staff to get to know some of the supporting churches and for the staff to get to know us. And then we usually have a word of encouragement by one of the pastors and some worship. And so it's, It's. We. We try to make it a true partnership where it's not like we're just coming to you asking for some money or volunteer, but we're. We're truly together.
[00:37:34] Speaker B: I remember back you pick up little things from your heroes and your mentors along the way. And so At a distance, R.C. sproul over in Orlando, in Sanford, Florida, was a. Was a mentor at a distance just from his preaching and teaching ministry. And he does media as well.
[00:37:50] Speaker A: Did.
[00:37:52] Speaker B: We went to his church.
And so there's a lot of things you don't get to hear. Like maybe on the Internet now you see the full service, but back in the day, you would just hear the radio clipped portion of the sermon. Right. So you didn't Hear how he shepherded his people before or after the sermon?
And this was at the end of the sermon. Sermon had been preached. They're about to do the doxology, and he's gonna go back to the back of the church, and he says, you know, this next Sunday, we're doing our big fundraiser for Right to Life Pro Life Sunday, whatever day it was.
And he said, if you notice, back there in the vestibule of our church, we have a trophy. And he says, that trophy goes to the church that gives the most money toward whatever the local clinic was in their area. And he said, I sure don't want to give that trophy away. We've carried that trophy for the last. And he was kind of. Well, you know, he's leading. He's leading his people to show them the joy and the pride that he took in being the number one supporter in that area of that particular clinic.
And so that just as a young pastor that showed me how to lead my people, that we want to be the church that comes alongside the warriors who are out there fighting these battles, that I may never have that conversation. The girls. I'm usually the last resort. Like, if a couple's going through marriage trouble, they've tried everything else. It's like right before they throw in the towel, they come to the preacher. It's like going to the principal's office, I guess, you know? And so I'm kind of the last resort, sadly. Hopefully, there's other ministers that are further down the line, but senior pastors, the last one they talk to. So you guys are kind of the first resort.
You're the first exit route off the interstate, you know, for someone that's going the wrong direction many times. And so I think it's beautiful to see the church come alongside and fund and help volunteer in all of those ways.
[00:39:50] Speaker A: Yeah. And it's funny.
I was a center director before I was in this role. And the volunteers, we get together when we pray before each shift. And so it was such a beautiful picture because, you know, when you get involved in your denomination or your church and you kind of know your circle, and that's it, you know, and then you can even have these perceptions of different denominations and kind of feel kind of icky and, like, competitive and. And you have this circle of people that are a cross section of different denominations and different beliefs. Like, we all have. We all agree to a core values and statement of faith, so we all agree to Israel.
[00:40:25] Speaker B: It's one of those things that most of us can agree on.
[00:40:27] Speaker A: Yes, yes.
[00:40:28] Speaker B: You know, conservative evangelicals or conservative Catholics, mainline. Either way, this pro life is something that can really bring us all together in a beautiful way.
I remember Jerry Falwell used to say, I'll let anybody help me kill a snake.
You know, and so if we're trying to kill a snake, it's like, I'm not. I don't care what denomination you're from.
Let's lock arms and kill that thing. You know, so this is. There are very few of those items in the. In the kingdom that we can all just say, yeah, we don't have a. We don't differ greatly on that. You know, I'm interested in the tech side of it because I did not consider that my wife was on the board for Hadassah's Hope down in Jacksonville. And so I didn't realize the tech side of that ministry, that most of those things happen online before they happen in real life.
And so, you know, we think of it as a church. It used to be you want a really good curb appeal because before they enter your church, they're gonna drive by it.
[00:41:35] Speaker C: Correct.
[00:41:36] Speaker B: So today it's on the cell phone or the laptop. They're gonna visit you online before they visit you in real life. So it's so important the way you present yourself in that way.
Do you have any idea from a CEO perspective how much of the budget goes toward upkeep, SEO, advertising online? Do you have any idea of that? I may be throwing a curve ball at you.
[00:42:00] Speaker A: It's a pretty big number that we invest in. It has to be in the marketing. We just actually, the board. Last board meeting just approved us doubling our spend in the marketing because we are so much competing with the abortion industry. And so it's a big chunk of our budget. I mean, I want to say it's about $400,000 that we're investing in marketing in some way, shape or form, because you're spending money on. And it's an investment. You're spending money on getting her there. So if she types in those keywords, you want be one of the first people that she sees. And so because First Coast Women's services, we have six locations, three in Duval, one in St. John's one in Baker, one in Clay. So we're encompassing all of Northeast Florida. We have girls that do come from Nassau county to our north side Center. So you're. So it's a broad reach that we're reaching. And so we're also navigating AI right now, which is impacting. If she finds Us. And so how can we get ahead of it? How can we make sure that we're doing all the things that we can do to get ahead of AI? So, I mean, I was on a conversation with someone yesterday who specializes in AI to see how we can relook at our websites, to make sure that our websites are written in such a way that they find us. Because it used to be back in the day that Google and those keywords was king and SEO fell below that. Right. And so now it's the same. So us having positive Google reviews, all of those things make an impact of whether she's going to find us or she's going to find someone else. So you're constantly having to be ahead of the game and saying, yeah, maybe I may not have a marketing degree, but I'm going to hire someone who's really smart in that space and I'm going to learn everything that I can learn to make sure that we're ahead of the game because it's so important. And honestly, it used to be the look of the website, the branding, all that matters. And that does to her. But if she's going to come up in an AI search, AI doesn't care what the branding looks like. AI wants to make sure your content is relevant to her. So it's a constant struggle.
[00:44:08] Speaker B: And Janice and I have talked about it offline.
It was when I think Jeff Dalrymple reached out and connected us and he said, you need to have these ladies on code red and talk about what they're doing.
And so I go and I search. Well, there's two websites, correct. And so that when we first discovered that, we're like, okay, I'm not sure that they're doing what we thought they were doing because it's really, you have a, you have a website facing the abortion minded mother that does look a little more like a physician's clinic.
And then you've got one that kind of connects with churches better. And that's the reasoning for it.
[00:44:50] Speaker A: Correct.
[00:44:51] Speaker B: Because AI is sending them to a place that they're open to receiving it.
That's something I never considered before. I never thought about that.
But we've got people watching this program in our churches who are savants when it comes to understanding how AI works. And they've got a place in the kingdom that they could be of great services for organizations like yours and churches and helping us to understand those things, that it's just the reality of what we're dealing with and what we used to say. Google became A verb. You just go Google it. Well, now they're talking to GBT or whatever, you know, they're. They're. They're getting those answers in other ways.
And I'm thankful that you guys are thinking about that and advertising in it.
I think Ted Turner said recently was passed. He said, you know, late to bed, early to rise, work like a dog and advertise. He said that was the key to his success.
[00:45:51] Speaker A: You're not wrong.
[00:45:53] Speaker B: You got to work hard and you got to be. But you gotta be there because, you know, who was it, Jay Strack that said, whoever wants the next generation the most will get them?
And if you're going after those young ladies, the enemy is.
He's going after them.
So you gotta, you know, you've gotta go after them. We've gotta be there to help you.
Things like coming on this program, this will reach an audience. We average somewhere around a couple hundred thousand views per episode.
And so we push that, we market it, because we don't bring people on that we don't think, you know, their message doesn't need to get out.
But you know, what used to be, back probably when I was a kid, a gospel tract, you know, if you wanted to share your faith with somebody, you would leave it in your bill when you're checking out of a restaurant. Well, that's a podcast today.
[00:46:49] Speaker A: Yes.
[00:46:50] Speaker B: You share podcasts. Did you help get the word out that way?
So, you know, I would challenge anybody who's watching.
Share this on your social media, especially in the. In the Jacksonville metro region.
Share it on your social media. Young people that you think may be wrestling with these issues, you know, just giving them another perspective to consider, it may be reinforcing something. It may just give them another point of view. But to let them know the opportunities that are out there.
If someone's watching and they say, I want to get involved, I want to support, I want to give, or I want to volunteer. What is the website that they would go to in order to learn more about that?
[00:47:33] Speaker C: Friends of first coast.org that would be the website. And you can get all kinds of wonderful information from there and just to kind of share. Anytime someone wants to volunteer, of course they'll fill out the form and we'll outreach to them, and then we'll schedule a time to interview, and they get an opportunity to then kind of see the center kind of ask questions. We kind of get to know each other. Right. And also to share exactly what that means. But they're only looking at or we're only looking at about four hours a week for volunteering. They can do more if they'd like, but we're asking for a commitment four hours a week. So and we make sure that they're fully trained, that they're very comfortable in whatever role they're going to be supporting in to be able to help. But insofar as donors or volunteers or however you want to be a blessing to us, Friends of Force coast would be the website to go to and it's a 501. Yes.
[00:48:28] Speaker B: So tax exempt.
So encourage people you know to donate.
There will be people watching this who could write your annual budget.
And you know, if we would say as a church, if God leads them to do that, it's money well spent. So thank you for what you do. Thank you for your place in the kingdom and thank you for coming on Code Red.
[00:48:49] Speaker C: Thank you so much. We appreciate it.
