Happy New Year!
To our generous supporters,
As we step into a new year, I wanted to take a few minutes and tell you thank you for your support of this ministry. You may be a faithful contributor or a brand new donor. You may be an adoptive family, a birth family, or someone who simply believes in the work God has called us to do and you want to be a part. Each of you holds the conviction that the ministry work of New Life Adoptions is valuable and needed. You continue to pour out your hearts for us in prayer and generously give to support the work we are doing. New Life is, at its core, is a ministry to women in unintended pregnancies. The staff and I sat down before Christmas, and tried to put some statistics to what God has done over the last year alone. Although each statistic represents a precious client, we know numbers are important to share with you, and believe that you will see God at work here as we do.
This past year, we have taken 60 inquiries from expectant mothers, we have supported 27 of those women with options counseling and practical support. The practical support may be transportation, help with rent or cell phone payments, food, doctor visits, housing. In 2016, we traveled over 11,000 miles , spent countless hours in counseling, and used $34,800 ministry dollars to support these women. Of those 27 women, 8 chose to make an adoption plan for their child in 2016.
New Life also partners with pregnancy centers and other ministries to offer our expertise in counseling women in unplanned pregnancies. In 2016, we made 12 visits to pregnancy centers, 15 outreach visits to other ministry partners, trained 149 volunteers on how to talk about adoption, and adoption services in general, and sent 203 information packets to various Christ centered ministries in Houston and surrounding areas.
Our adoptive family fees cover the cost of an average adoption, but as you can see, our ministry related fees , (program expenses) are not covered by adoptive families. We need your support to help us continue to serve women in unplanned pregnancies, counseling them to choose life for their child, and providing them either the resources they need to parent, or offering them the choice of adoption.
We also need your support to continue to educate the public on the choice of adoption. As Christians, we believe in the sanctity of life. We need to put that talk into action by supporting women in crisis pregnancies with counseling, practical support, and spiritual guidance during and after their pregnancies.
As we prepare to move our ministry into a new building that God has graciously provided through the generosity of our donors, you may be asking what are we raising money for now? Well, that is a great question, and the answer is this… we have much more work to do in 2017. We want to reach more birth moms, we want to train more volunteers, we want to connect to more pregnancy centers, and be Jesus to more pregnant women struggling with a decision…that takes ministry dollars. Thank you for supporting us in 2016, and we pray that the Lord will continue to use you to partner with us in our effort to reach more and teach more in 2017!
God’s richest blessings for the New Year,
Sandi Picket
Executive Director, New Life Adoptions