NRB Chronicles 2023 - Let Them Live

Oh, here we are.

It's the last day of the convention of the NRB. Always bittersweet, but I'm always excited about every corner is somebody that God is touching and doing something to build his kingdom. And of course, in order to have that, we need the next generation that's kind of critical to the situation. So we are blessed. We are to have Emily Berning with us, and she is with an organization here in Florida, actually. And you can tell by the logo on her shirt, which shows a beautiful mother with her baby in her womb there. And you can't see the woman, you just see that she looks pregnant. But anyway, she is with a group called Right, Let Them Live.

Let Them Live. And I was telling her as she sat down that I'm so glad my mom did. And you should be I mean, like, right, like everybody's mom had whatever choices at whatever point in time, as I heard from the stage this morning about a poor man that his mother attempted to, you know, do a manual abortion back before it was even legal. You know, those things were always available. Always there. Yeah. And somebody let us live.

That's true. That's what we're called to do. And so Emily, tell us your story. How did you get involved with Let Them Live? Yeah, so I am the president and co founder. The other co founder is my husband. Oh, wow. Yeah. And we actually started Let Them Live.

We became a nonprofit about four years ago. And prior to this, we actually were just married. And Nathan came across a girl on Facebook in a pro-life group. And she was saying that her cousin had an abortion scheduled, but she didn't know what to do or how to like what to say to her. So Nathan started asking her questions and said, Hey, why does your cousin have an abortion scheduled? And it turns out that she was evicted. It was the middle of the winter. So it was freezing, and she lost her job. She was living in her car, and she was pregnant. And this just really did not sit well with my husband. And so after some back and forth, he offered to just give her all of the money that we had in our bank account. And this is at like three in the morning, and I'm fast asleep.

So I don't know any of this is happening. And all I remember is Nathan nudging me awake and saying, Hey, Emily, do you want to save a life from abortion? And I was like, Yeah, of course, you know, he's like, Okay, we got to give her all of our money. And I was like, Okay, okay, you know, and all that it was like, it was like $1,200 came from our wedding guests, because we had just gotten married. And we got her back into her apartment, and she canceled her abortion and chose life. And she sent us an ultrasound. And it was in that moment that we just had, I just had an epiphany. And I started doing research, and I found that 73% of women in the United States have abortions because of financial burden.

And there wasn't any organization that was specifically trying to solve that problem. And so right then and there, we knew that that's what we were going to be doing. And ever since we've raised almost $10 million to pay bills for moms so that they can choose life and cancel their abortions. Oh, my what a story. You know, I, I am so encouraged on so many levels. I gotta tell you there.

Just, I think it was last week, I was talking to a good friend who does hope for the caregiver. It's a podcast radio show that we do here with the Truth Network. And he said this, and you can write this down, you can use it from right down right now. You need to write it down, because this everybody needs to hear this and realize it is so true.

It says it is God's will, he will foot the bill. Yes, I love that. That's amazing. I'm writing it down right now. Right?

And so as I hear your story, I mean, if you don't hear that, I, you know, clearly, like here, they had $1200. Right? And it was God's will that that child, and have you seen that child? Yes. Yeah.

And what, what tell us about it? It's just, when you see a life that you've saved from abortion, you realize just how priceless it is. And that child is now living their life. He's, he's alive.

He's existing. I don't know how else to describe it. You know, he's celebrating birthdays and every single Let Them Live baby. I mean, we just had our big gala on Saturday, last Saturday, and we had a bunch of Let Them Live babies all in one room. And they're all running around and chasing each other.

And they're three years old and two years old. And, and it's just, it's amazing because we get to celebrate these milestones with them. And like you said, if it's God's will, he's going to foot the bill. And there've been many times where I'm like, all right, God, like, how are we going to make this happen?

I'm not really sure, but it's every single time without fail, we've been able to make it work. Wow. And, and, and see, it's so beautiful.

I mean, it really, really is. And here's a completely practical, I mean, you know, yes, we need people in Congress fighting for this. Yes, we need all these different things.

But also, let's just hit the real deal is that, you know, even before abortion wasn't legal, people, because of financial harm, hardship, hardships, we're breaking the law in order to make this happen. And so, as usual, you know, God has all the resources to take care of making sure that somebody lives. And I love that God gave you guys that vision. But I also would point out a couple other things that I think are important, um, that you guys invested $1,200 in that life. But think of the return on investment for your lives, right? It gave you a ministry, it gave you a purpose. You know, in other words, I, I don't know how it all fits in your world. But what an investment, like, your husband was obedient.

I hold your husband at the time he makes this decision. Let's see. Okay, so I was 23.

He would have been 25. Oh, my gosh. Yeah. Isn't that, isn't that amazing? Yeah, no, it's, it's amazing. And it really is that, that obedience. And, you know, it, like you said, it's an investment.

We didn't know everything that would happen years later. I'm also curious about, well, see, I have a ministry, you don't know that, that is called the Jesus Labor of Love. And so I'm the Christian car guy. And I became aware quite soon after I became the Christian car guy that almost all my calls didn't come from guys trying to fix cars. It came from women, specifically single women, right? Moms, you know, divorced moms and widows because they had no guy in their life to help them, right? And so we started a ministry called the Jesus Labor of Love to help single moms and widows across the country. Same exact deal.

I got no money. I don't know how we're going to make this happen. And almost every time somebody comes to us, we're in the exact same, what do we do? We pray. And God has provided for all these same kind of thing, right?

And it's a very practical thing because guess what? These people, they're, they're, they're struggling. Sure. They're lost, but they, you know, it's cool that you can actually be the hands and feet of God and show them that he loves them in their crisis. Absolutely.

It's such a simple thing. You know, it's such a, I've always wondered, like, why haven't we thought about this before? Long ago, you know, and then I'm reminded my favorite Bible verses, perhaps you were born for such a time as this.

Yeah. And I'm realized, I realized and I remember that I was born at a time and this mission was, you know, given to us for a reason. And, and we, that's what we're called to do is be his hands and feet. And it's, it's been amazing. I mean, my life has purpose now. It really does. Before Let Them Live, I was, I remember I would wake up with night terrors, just afraid of death, like deathly afraid of death.

Um, like I would wake up sweating, just panting, just overwhelmed. And then when we started Let Them Live, I realized that it would be okay if I died because I would leave something behind, you know, and I would be, I would have fulfilled what I was supposed to fulfill on this earth and generations will exist long after I'm gone. And that's the type of legacy that we have to be leaving. Isn't that amazing?

And so I'm very curious also, because I'm guessing there was other fruit. Yes. Right.

That this mom is going, where do these people come from that would give me this money? Right. Yeah. And so have you seen some people, you know, grow in their faith as a result of?

Absolutely. We've seen people grow in their faith. We've seen these moms take a complete 180. There's actually one mom that was staying at our house this weekend for our gala.

Her name is Etoria and she actually has a really special story. Um, my husband and I, we actually counseled her directly. That's when we first started Let Them Live. Um, and it was just the two of us. Now we have over 50 staff, so it's grown quite a bit.

Oh really? How many years ago was that? Um, we, so the first mom we helped was December of 2018. So we officially became a nonprofit in 2019. So four or five years ago.

So God has really blessed us here. And Etoria was a mom who, um, she had a two day abortion scheduled living in her car, um, about 20 weeks pregnant and just so depressed. She didn't want to live anymore. So she had this plan to have this abortion and then jump off a parking garage and we got in touch with her. And after a lot of back and forth, she finally allowed us to try and talk to her and help her. Um, and then she said, you know what, sorry guys, I'm just going to have this abortion. So Nathan and I got on the next slide out to California and we were living in Indiana at the time and we said, just give us a chance. Um, and so when she saw us in person, she's like, okay, I'm doing this, I'm choosing life. And then a few months later she invited us both to be in the delivery room with her when she gave birth, um, to Chiari, her son. And that was three years ago.

So he was at the gala running around three years old. And I tell the story of Etoria because she was in the darkest place I think a human could be. Um, and now to see her, it's a complete 180. Her faith is, is so deep. Um, she, you know, goes to church, she's in a healthy relationship. She's actually teaching her kids about, you know, her faith and, and about God and Jesus.

Like it's beautiful to see. And so not only did we save her and her baby now, now she's got her faith that she's passing along. And we also have pro-choice donors, which I, that's like a curve ball I always love to throw in there because we're actually changing people's minds about abortion and it's, it's kind of passive. It's just an extra bonus that we didn't think would happen with Let Them Live because helping women isn't, you know, just pro-life. It should be people helping people.

And so lots of, lots of different fruits that have come from Let Them Live. How spectacular. How amazing. You know, and so when this phone call came that night, was that in Indiana? We were in Michigan. We were just north of Detroit.

We were at, uh, my husband's family's house for like a Christmas party, but we were usually anywhere in the world. So. Wow.

I lived in Michigan at the time too. So, um, wow. How, so Let Them Live, obviously now at this point in time, a national organization, we heard about California, Michigan, Indiana, and of course Florida, cause that's where we are. How do people reach you, get you? What, what's the, what's, what are their steps?

Yeah. So, um, if, if, you know, there's a mom in a crisis pregnancy, we partner with pregnancy centers, sidewalk counselors. So a lot of pregnancy centers may not have the financial ability to cover the cost of, you know, the bills that a mom is struggling with. So we partner with them. Um, and then, you know, we also have moms find us, and donors, uh, through Instagram, social media. We have, um, I think like two, over 200,000 followers just on all of our platforms. So we're growing super quickly.

Oh yes we are. Let Them Live. Let Them Live and then letthemlive.org. Um, and we run weekly campaigns for moms that are coming to us needing support. So there's always tons of ways to donate, volunteer, get involved.

I mean, we're all called to, to do something to help these moms. Emily, God bless you. Thank you. Amazing. Thank you. You're so wonderful. So great to have you on today. Thank you so much.