Kay was a beautiful, petite, 17-year-old Hispanic girl who was still in high school. She was pregnant…again! Kay was already a single mother with an 18-month-old daughter. Because she was living at home with her parents, it was not surprising that they were very upset about her second pregnancy! They, along with her boyfriend, were strongly pressuring her to have an abortion. She made her way to the Community Pregancy Center (CPC) of Pasadena. She came in and met with her client advocate at the CPC, telling her, “I don’t want another baby,” and, “I am planning to have an abortion”.
At the time of her ultrasound appointment, she came with her boyfriend, but he refused to come in. She told the sonographer, me, Mikelle Challenger, a Sagemont member and registered nurse who has volunteered for CPC’s since 2006, “He already gave me money for the abortion and he says that I must choose him or he is gone.” It was obvious that she had already made up her mind and was resigned to killing her baby and ending the pregnancy! I informed her that the CPC performs what is known as limited ultrasounds to show positive proof of pregnancy. In fact, they only do three things during the ultrasound appointment: 1) observe the baby in uterus 2) observe the baby’s heartbeat and 3) take measurements of the baby, which enables them to determine the due date.
As she saw her baby for the first time, I told her, “Your baby is measuring at 12 weeks, so it is about the size of a lime. That means your baby is about two inches long and weighs a little more than an ounce. The baby’s hands now bend at the wrist. Its fingerprints and nails are just beginning to show. Thumb sucking even occurs at this point. Hair has started to grow on the baby’s head. The baby’s nerves are beginning to function. That means your baby can move spontaneously and even react if touched through the uterine wall, which means that your baby can feel pain. So, if you decide to have an abortion, your baby will suffer through that horrific experience!” As Kay saw her unborn child for the first time, she was also told, “Your baby’s organs are now all present: including kidneys, brain, spinal cord, liver, stomach, as well as the heart! It’s been beating since the 25th day from conception when it was only around ¼ of an inch long. Your baby is officially a fetus now...which means that it just needs to grow bigger so it can live outside of your womb!”
Kay smiled and laughed as she watched her baby move and heard the fast heartbeat. She even asked questions regarding its development such as whether or not it could be a boy or a girl. When I asked, “Now that you have seen your baby, what are your plans for this pregnancy?” Kay answered with tears in her eyes, “Now I know that this is a real child…that this is my child! But I am still undecided.”
She allowed me to pray with her before she left the room. It was heartbreaking to realize that she now had to make this extremely difficult, life-changing decision all by herself, with no support from those closest to her. The only thing she was armed with was the truth captured on a sonogram. The entire CPC family was notified and everyone began to pray in earnest for God to work a miracle in Kay’s life.
Bobbie Zamminer, Executive Director of the CPC, shared what had taken place a few months earlier. “I will never forget that Thursday morning in February of 2012; I was getting ready to go away for my birthday. Mikelle came into my office and said to me, ‘The ultrasound machine is not turning on! There is a big blue screen and nothing is happening!’” They soon found out that this was known as the “Blue Screen of Death”. Bobbie explained the urgency of their problem, “We use the ultrasound machine here as a part of our ministry to women and teen girls who are considering abortion as a viable option. 87% of women who see their baby on the ultrasound then choose life for that child. For us to be able to show a mother her baby and to hear that heartbeat is a huge, huge tool in our ministry.” Those who spend their time serving in the pro-life movement can tell you that it does not take long to learn that counseling and ultrasound technology are nothing without truly being plugged into Jesus’ power source.
After the ultrasound machine broke down, Bobbie immediately called the manufacturers right away and was told that the 12 year old machine was no longer being made, that there were no longer parts available for it and there would never be. They did say they would come out and look at it, but it would probably cost thousands of dollars with no guarantees of it ever working again. We all began to pray, and enlisted many prayer partners to pray with us. We called everyone we knew! One of those calls was to Roy Saunders, one of the missions ministers at Sagemont Church. He explained, “We have supported numerous pregnancy centers over the years at Sagemont. One reason we have been so faithful to support the CPC of Pasadena is because of the large number of Sagemont members who volunteer there. In addition to our budget, which supports ministries like this on a monthly basis, we do our best to help when they have special needs.”
Roy and his wife Margaret joined Sagemont Church 10 years ago. After working 42 years as president and chairman of the board for three major banks in Houston, he was able to retire early. Roy felt called to serve in local missions and worked with several organizations, as well as teaching Bible classes for over 45 years. He also served as chairman of the board for the Mission Centers of Houston for 6 years. Then, 4 years ago, he was approached by Sagemont Senior Pastor, Dr. John Morgan and Sagemont’s missions minister, Roy Guel, to head up their local missions team. He graciously accepted and now the team consists of about 12 faithful Sagemont members who rotate on and off every 3 years. They are responsible for approving different levels of contributions, depending on the size and need through the financial team which approves their annual budget.
It is important to point out that the broken ultrasound machine had been originally purchased brand new by Sagemont as a replacement for another one that was ruined after a after a tornado took the roof off of the CPC’s building then located on Edgebrook. Roy recalled how Dr. Morgan shared the need to the congregation on a Wednesday night and that love offering of $20,000 given in two worship services purchased the much needed machine that was used for the past 12 years to show the unborn to their undecided mothers. Roy explained, “Bobbie called me and told me their predicament. Now, this time, the machine just wore out!”
Sagemont was in the midst of a major five-year campaign for the Living Proof Project. Roy added, “I told Bobbie that we would do the best we could to help. I brought it to our team at the very next monthly meeting. Paul Candelaria made the motion to give $10,000 toward the machine. It was approved and we immediately sent the check to her.”
Bobbie and all those at the CPC were thrilled to receive the gracious gift from Sagemont! She recalled that moment, “I began to look at ultrasound machines while we were waiting on grant applications and approvals and things like that. I found that the cost of machines ranged anywhere from $5,000 to $500,000. I felt like I could sink our CPC with this purchase, or with God’s help, we could be totally blessed. I remember just asking God to please lift up someone who can walk this path with me...someone that we could trust who was knowledgeable and fair.”
Bobbie laughed when she remembered the phone call she received the next morning after praying that prayer. It was from a man in Florida who is a pro-life ultrasound provider. She said, “He told me that he doesn’t give ultrasound machines to just any group except those who are pro-life organizations or pro-life doctors. He said to me, ‘My name is Jack McAuliffe and I am with SONODEPOT and I would like to help you. What is the problem?’ To me I just knew that God had just dropped this person from heaven and said to me, ‘This is the person that you have prayed for!’”
Over the next month, Bobbie spent hours on phone calls with Jack and a local technician from Zion Lutheran Church named Harold. They worked long and hard to get their machine diagnosed, parts purchased, installed and ultimately working again. Bobbie was happy to have the machine working, but knew it was not over yet. She said, “We weren’t guaranteed anything and we knew that it could work just one week or another 12 years. Then, I knew we had to start an ultrasound fund. Still, through this whole experience, I had complete peace...I also believed that the machine would run as long as we needed it to run, but that we needed to get a newer, more dependable one.”
No ultrasounds were performed during the months of February or March, but then in April, the machine was fixed and the CPC was able to resume showing mothers their unborn babies. Bobbie shared what happened next, “I was getting ready to go out of town in August, I was packing up my desk and opening the last of my mail…praise God, praise God who can believe this? We were given an anonymous check for $14,000 from a pro-life organization to use as we needed. I knew that the ultrasound is where it needed to go, that was exactly the amount we needed!” After calling members of the CPC family and sharing the good news, Bobbie made the call to Jack giving him the go-ahead to find a machine that would fit the needs, space and budget.
Jack immediately called one of his suppliers who told him that a pre-used ultrasound machine had just come in and that it was a “top of the line, state of the art” 2006 model with only 10 hours of use on it! Jack told him that the CPC wanted that one, but the supplier quoted an amount that was way too high and then refused to budge on the price. It was about a week later that the supplier called back and said, “If they still want it, I will let them have it for that low price”! Bobbie said, “I have no idea what happened to change that supplier’s mind, but I do know that God had to have worked on him that week!”
The entire CPC family was thrilled when Jack arrived with the new machine at the end of August. Bobbie described it this way, “It is practically brand new! It has a high definition screen versus just a computer monitor which we had before. We can put the girls’ ultrasounds on a DVD so they can take pictures home and print sonograms. It has external memory to save our information onto, so we are totally in-line with HIPPA confidentiality laws.”
There was even enough money left over to purchase a large flat screen TV that Jack helped to mount in the Ultrasound Room. So, now with the big screen up on the wall, the mothers can bring family and friends with them to see their tiny, unborn baby. Bobbie explained, “Up on that big screen, that little 8 week baby…that tiny kidney bean looks pretty big! It’s mounted at the perfect height on the wall so that you can just pack that room to overflowing and see that little gift from God’s heartbeat and those little arms and toes.”
As for the old ultrasound machine that was repaired, Bobbie had been praying all along that we would be able to give it to a facility that would offer ultrasounds to women who would never have the opportunity to see their babies before they were born. She said, “It was right after we got the $14,000 check that a lady came into our center. She said that her brother-in-law, who was a gynecologist in Mexico, does not do abortions. He desperately needed a tool to provide good, sound medical care to those women who would come to his clinic. So, our old machine is going south of the border to Mexico! The lady is planning to drive it down there in the large wooden box that our new machine came in!”
Bobbie summarized last years’ experience by saying, “It was so exciting to watch God work through this entire change of events. We are just so grateful to all the people who prayed for us and gave unto the Lord on our behalf. Sagemont Church really heralded the effort to bring our new ultrasound machine into the center. They prayed along with us and God gifted us through their generous hearts. Sagemont has always encouraged their members to support us in all of our efforts and fundraisers. We are very, very blessed that they are a huge part of our CPC family!”
Now, back to Kay. She was one of the very first clients to benefit from the new ultrasound machine! It had arrived just days prior to her seeing her unborn child for the very first time. I followed up with her and am happy to report that Kay is now in her third trimester of pregnancy! She is under a doctor’s care and has reconciled with her parents. When asked what helped her choose life for her unborn child, she simply said, “I just could not get the image of my precious baby out of my mind!” Thank you Sagemont Church family for being a huge part of making that image a reality for Kay and the many others to come!
Visit CPC of Pasadena at www.cpcsupporter.org.