Part One: Before the journey begins
“That is, that you and I may be mutually encouraged by each other’s faith.”
Romans 1:12 NIV
Today, I’m setting out on a road trip through the Northeast, and I’m genuinely excited about what the next several days may hold.
I have wanted to do something like this for a while. Over the course of this week, I’ll be visiting pregnancy help organizations in Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, and Massachusetts before joining leaders for our Northeast Regional Retreat later this week. Some of the organizations are Heartbeat affiliates and some are not. They are different sizes, serve different communities, and are likely facing different opportunities and challenges.
But every one of them has a story, and I want to hear it.
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Before joining Heartbeat International, I served as the Executive Director of a pregnancy center and adoption agency in Syracuse, New York. I know what it is like to carry the responsibility of leading a ministry like this. There is so much joy in the work, but there are also hard days. Executive Directors and their teams are caring for clients, leading volunteers, working with boards, raising funds, responding to community needs, and trying to plan for the future. Often, they are doing all of that at the same time.
I also understand the unique challenges of serving in the Northeast because I have lived and worked in this region. The culture can be difficult, resources can feel limited, and leaders may sometimes wonder whether anyone else truly understands what it is like to do this work here.
That is one of the reasons this trip matters so much to me.
I don’t want to know these organizations only by their names, websites, or statistics. I want to walk through their doors, meet their teams, and see the communities they serve. I want to hear what brought them to this work and what keeps them going. I want to learn what they are seeing among their clients and how those needs may be changing.
I’m especially interested in hearing about the things that are working. What new ideas are they trying? What community relationships are they building? How are they reaching women who may never think to contact a pregnancy help organization? What are they doing to care for their staff and volunteers? Sometimes the most helpful ideas are not big or expensive. They are practical things one organization has learned through experience that could encourage or help another.
I also want to hear about the hard things. I want leaders to be able to share where they feel stretched, what concerns them, and where they need support. I want to understand what they wish others knew about serving in their particular community. Most importantly, I want to ask how Heartbeat can serve them better.
These visits are not evaluations, and I’m not arriving with a checklist. I really just want to listen, learn, encourage, and pray with the people who are doing this work every day. I hope each team I visit knows that what they are doing matters and that they are not alone.
Tweet This: I hope each team I visit knows that what they are doing matters and that they are not alone - Heartbeat International's Kathy Jerman
Romans 1:12 expresses so well what I hope will happen throughout this journey. I want the people I meet to feel encouraged, but I also know their faith, perseverance, and stories will encourage me. That is the beauty of taking the time to sit together, listen to one another, and remember that we share this calling.
I believe there is so much we can learn from one another. An idea that is working in Maine may encourage a center in New York. A creative partnership in Connecticut may spark something new in another state. A leader’s honest story about walking through a difficult season may be exactly what someone else needs to hear.
There are things we can learn from reports and numbers, but there are other things we can only learn by sitting across from someone and listening to their story.
More than anything, I hope to see God’s faithfulness throughout this trip. I expect to hear stories of lives changed, prayers answered, and needs met at just the right time. I want to notice the things that may never appear in an annual report, like the warmth a client feels when she enters a center, the way a team supports one another, or the quiet faithfulness of a volunteer who has been showing up for years.
This trip is really about connection. Whether an organization is affiliated with Heartbeat or not, we share a desire to see women and men supported, babies protected, families strengthened, and lives transformed by the Gospel. We may serve in different communities and have different names on our buildings, but we are part of the same pregnancy help movement.
As I begin this journey, my prayer is that I will listen well and be fully present at each stop. I want to receive what every organization has to teach me and recognize what God is already doing across the Northeast.
In the coming weeks, I hope to share some of the people, ideas, stories, and challenges I encounter along the way. I don’t know yet exactly what those stories will be. That is part of what I am looking forward to most.
The car is packed, the route is planned, and it is time to go.
Let the pregnancy help road trip begin!
Editor's note: Kathy Jerman is Director of Affiliate Services for Heartbeat International, which manages Pregnancy Help News. Jerman recently visited 10 pregnancy help centers in four Northeast U.S. states in three days and is chronicling her trip.
