What if there was a way to save 9 children a day...
15-25 children a week...
800 children a year?
What if there was a way to help expecting mothers...
not by threatening threatening them...
but by just informing them?
What if there was a way to solve a need that women have
not by beating them over the head with the Law...
but by caring for them with the Gospel?
There is a way.
“We don’t want to intimidate anyone. We don’t want to force anyone. We just want to serve.” Dave is the Local Director for Save the Storks... “No one is offended by our activism,” he says. “We’re delivering a loving message in a strong way.”
Here’s what happens: a woman is walking up to an abortion clinic. She is approached by Dave or Daryl or another member of Save the Storks.
“Hi, how are you? Would you like a free ultrasound?”
This is the approach. There is no dangling rosary, no graphic pamphlet, no doom-and-gloom. Just an offer of free help from a non-threatening, friendly, smiling young person.
And then there is the Stork bus.
The stork was chosen as the mascot because of its comforting, unoffensive, nostalgic connection to motherhood and pregnancy. We can all remember old cartoons where a smiling stork would fly in a window and lay a swaddled baby in a crib.
What Dave and the others weren’t aware of until later is the text of Job 39:13-17.
The wings of the ostrich flap joyfully, but are her feathers and plumage like the stork’s?
[The stork cares for its young with the ostrich,]She abandons her eggs on the ground...
She forgets that a foot may crush them or that some wild animal may trample them.
She treats her young harshly, as if they were not her own,
with no fear that her labor may have been in vain.For God has deprived her of wisdom; He has not endowed her with understanding.
The Stork bus... is a bright, lovely blue on the outside, and the inside is clean and free of clutter, with a welcoming but no-nonsense clinical feel. There is a little couch for the mother to sit on and speak to a counselor, and a padded bench where she can lie comfortably.
The ultrasound machine pulls out from underneath the bench... operated only by a licensed sonographer... It isn’t the slightest bit cramped or unpleasant; these mothers get only the best. The completed bus with the ultrasound machine was paid for by private donations to the tune of about $140,000.
The Stork bus is by no means the first mobile ultrasound vehicle — it was Chris Slattery’s mobile sonogram bus that inspired Dave and Joe in the first place — but it may be the smallest, lightest, and most practical. It doesn’t require a permit or special permission to park. It will fit in a parking space or even at a meter...
So now this woman, who was going to go into an abortion clinic, is able to have a pregnancy test and a sonogram without ever reaching its doors...
Unlike the abortion clinic, the Storks and the pregnancy centers are in it for the long haul. They are going to get her what she needs to take care of herself and her baby, body and soul...
“The heart of this ministry is the Gospel... There are two causes every Christian should take up: orphans and widows. This encompasses both.”
It is part of Save the Storks’ mission that every woman who steps on the bus hears the Gospel message. While this may seem off-putting to some, to the Storks it is an essential aspect of caring for the mother that goes along with the physical support and counseling she will receive through the pregnancy center.
“She is just as important as that child... We aim to improve her quality of life… The major issue here is the devaluation of life, and the answer to every injustice on earth is the church of Jesus Christ.”
For more of this article, CLICK HERE.
For the Save The Storks website, CLICK HERE.
For their Facebook, CLICK HERE.
$7 a week saves a child.
The least you could do is by one of their awesome T-shirts.
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