New Hope’s story began when Rev. Taylor, current associate pastor at North Syracuse Baptist Church, answered God’s call to lead the Syracuse-based Evangelical Adoption and Family Services in 1979. During his tenure there, Taylor viewed John Skinner’s pre-release showing of a reel-to-reel version of the 70’s prolife movie, “Assignment Life”. The movie moved him so profoundly that he arranged to partner with Rev. Denny Burns to show it to North Syracuse Baptist Church’s combined adult Sunday School classes. The reaction was the same, with a number of church members expressing their desire to answer the call and do something.
One of these members was Roger Burdick. Having seen the ultrasound images of his own preborn child, and then viewing the movie, Burdick became convinced that abortion was an incredibly violent murder of a defenseless unborn child. He asked himself how a Christian could just sit on the sidelines while babies were being murdered through abortion. Having heard of Burn’s and Taylor’s consideration of opening a crisis pregnancy center, Burdick answered the call and approached them with his deep concern. He joined a number of other men to form what would become a brand new ministry, New Hope Pregnancy Aid Center later to become New Hope Family Services. Burdick stated, “We chose the name New Hope because we wanted ladies to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ, so that the ‘new hope’ would not only be to see a child brought into this world, but to see a mom have the opportunity to come to know Christ as their Savior. The only hope that we have, ‘New Hope’.”
Efforts began to find a home for the growing ministry. Wes Skinner, owner of Sacred Melody Plaza, answered the call by remodeling significant office space at no charge, and rented it out to them at a great rate. Burdick, Burns, Taylor and other key players began soliciting support from churches and individuals all over Central New York, experiencing a very positive response.
By the grace of God, New Hope became a reality, opening its doors in the spring of 1986. Joanie Derrenbacker, wife of New Hope co-planner Bob Derrenbacker, agreed to come on board in an interim capacity as the ministry’s first director. She was followed by Diane Olsen, Larry Taylor, Judy Geyer and current director, Martha Raub.
The evening’s highlight came when David Bereit, National Director and co-founder of 40 Days for Life, delivered a dynamic prolife message. God has wonderfully used Bereit to build a prolife campaign of fasting and prayer that has gone international, with hundreds of cities around the world participating in its campaigns. The movement has been miraculously used by God to save 11,796 babie's lives, shut down 75 Planned Parenthood facilities, and witness scores of Planned Parenthood employees resigning from the nation-leading abortion provider.
Bereit opened with a challenging scenario of a mom and her baby falling overboard and in peril of drowning in a Lake Ontario storm. Dismissing such ineffective solutions as forming a committee or calling elected officials to legislate new laws requiring boaters to wear life jackets, Bereit emphasized the obvious need of immediate intervention to save the mother and child. Only that kind of action would save that endangered family. He used this illustration to personalize one’s necessity to “answer the call” to come to the rescue of mothers and babies from the horrific death and destruction of abortion.
Bereit boldly followed with, “Here’s the tough question we have to ask ourselves if we’re going to be intellectually honest. How is that scenario any different from what we do face every single day right here in these United States of America? Because every single day women and children are falling overboard at abortion facilities right here in New York, right here in Central New York. Since the Roe v. Wade decision in 1973, more than 57 million children have perished, women have been wounded. They have fallen overboard. Another one million every single year. And to bring it a little closer to home, in the last reported year in New York State, 93,299 lives were lost to abortion. 93,299 mothers were scarred, some physically, but many more emotionally, spiritually and psychologically. Last year in Onondaga County your Health Department reported 1,291 women and children fell overboard to abortion. If you divide that by 365 days in the year, you realize that every single day on average three more women and three more children fall overboard right here in your community, on your watch, and they’re calling out to you and me for help.
“The question is, what do we do about it? Do we simply say a prayer on Sanctity of Life Sunday, but do nothing else about it? Do we curse the darkness and say, ‘It’s really tragic but I’m glad it’s not as bad here as it is in New York City’? Do we worry what other people would think if we were to try and help? Do we take opinion polls? Do we (say), ‘Well I can’t put my money into that because I can’t afford to squander money, the economy’s tight right now’? Do we just form a committee and talk about the problem? Do we just wait for elected officials and our politicians to fix this for us? Or do we just throw up our hands and say, ‘Hey, I’m a mechanic. Hey, I’m a mechanic. Hey, I’m a student. Hey, I’m an engineer. That’s not my responsibility, that’s my pastor’s responsibility’, or ‘that’s New Hope’s responsibility’?
“Are any of those responses enough? No! You and I are called to reach out and to act. To pull out every mother and every child that we possibly can back from the brink of disaster, back to life. And that is exactly what New Hope Family Services has been doing and is doing every single day, saving lives, changing hearts, impacting eternal souls. You literally have a ministry that is meeting this need for these mothers and for these children if each of us (is) willing to do a little more to help, if we are willing, as Martha Raub said, to answer the call.”
Bereit went on to recount the people and events that led him to leave a rewarding career in the pharmaceutical industry to launch what has become the most effective prolife movement in American history. He initially struggled with committing to the cause of life, then gradually experienced a deepening conviction that he needed to do something ‘for such a time as this’.
After two years of unproductive prolife efforts, the light dawned. Under the advisement of close friend David Araby, Bereit and his team prayerfully decided to adopt a 40 day, 24-hours-a-day fasting, prayer, vigil and sidewalk counseling strategy in front of the local Planned Parenthood in College Station, Texas.
The strategy was so incredibly effective that over 1,000 people became involved and the abortion numbers dropped in College Station that year by 28%. The local PP was eventually shut down, and College Station was labeled “the most anti-choice place in the nation” by Planned Parenthood! The idea caught fire across the nation, resulting in the first national 40 Days campaign in 2007. Eighty-nine cities across thirty-three states joined in that first campaign! Since then it has exponentially grown to campaigns conducted across 636 U.S. cities, all 50 states, and campaigns in 36 nations, even including a campaign in Moscow, Russia! 11,796 lives have been saved that the organization can actually confirm, not counting lives saved that were never reported.
The secret to this phenomenal success isn’t limited to fasting and prayer. The 40 Days staff advises each group in each city to quickly connect with CPC’s (Crisis Pregnancy Centers) like New Hope in their area to provide a place for the expecting mother to secure much needed support and services.
It wasn’t until many years later that Bereit learned what led his friend David Araby (who proposed the fasting and prayer idea) to care about abortion. Araby’s father, while on his deathbed, repeatedly asked him to pray for the end of abortion with tear-filled eyes. After complying day after day, with the father clearly in his last days, the son refused to continue praying for abortion when he could be praying for his recovery or for pain relief. Then the father explained that, as a young man he had become very angry with his girlfriend for not following through with an abortion he’d paid for in advance. Weeks later he and the girlfriend were shamed into getting married. The father quietly revealed to the son, “That woman I was so angry with that morning outside that abortion center was your mom. And that child I wanted to throw away to cover up my own sin was you. Little did I know that morning that the only person I was trying to get rid of in the whole world would be the person standing by my side as I lay here dying. Would you please pray with me to end abortion?”
Bereit explained, “David Araby was forever changed. All of a sudden (abortion) wasn’t just an issue. It became personal. It was life and death. And because it was personal, he started to pray and say, ‘God, show me what I can do’. And he came up with an idea. He shared it with other people who laughed at him before sharing it with me, and I was foolish enough to believe it could work. And that idea that he had he launched what has now spread into a worldwide movement of 700,000 people, with nearly 12,000 lives saved, 75 abortion centers closed, because of one man making it personal. WE need to make it personal. WE need to answer that call.”
Bereit listed all kinds of ways the audience could answer the call, including attending a 40 Days for Life National Bus Tour stop in Syracuse this Friday at Planned Parenthood on East Genesee Street at 6:00 P.M.
MC duties were rendered by the always capable Lacey Leonardi from Time Warner Cable. Music was provided by the Burn 24/7 Worship Team. A special treat was an intensely messaged “human video” presentation by the Remnant Youth Group from the Grace Assembly of God. Sound was provided by Visual Technologies Corporation. Deaf interpreters included Amy Lynne and Pamela Newton (Empire Interpreting Service), with Pastor Mike Kelly from Grace Baptist Church doing the honors of closing the evening in prayer.
More info at www.newhopefamilyservices.com , or by calling (315) 437-8300.
