A Womans Concern

Today we are proud to include A Woman's Concern in our group of supported organizations!

AWC Pregnancy Resource Centers exist to offer life-affirming counsel and support to women and couples facing an unexpected pregnancy. They hold a strong belief in the value of life and work to meet the needs of mothers and families while bringing a healthy new baby into the world. Even after the baby is born AWC is there to support and help the new mom. They supply clothes, diapers, bath needs and other necessities along with counseling and options for church families if they would like to join a church.

I was privileged to be able to attend AWC's 20th anniversary celebration last year and was so blessed to be  to meet and talk with a woman who had seen her baby welcomed into the world through the love and support of this organization. Her daughter is her greatest joy and had it not been for the work of AWC she never would have known her.

 In the twenty years that ACW has been serving Massachusetts they have saved over 1500 babies from abortion and helped as many women and families find the value and joy of a new life. 

  The services AWC provides include lab quality pregnancy testing, limited obstetrical ultrasounds, pregnancy options counseling, and material assistance. They are working to get three mobile ultrasound units on the road so they can reach even more women needing support and advice. I am hoping to be a part of making that happen

As with my other charities, I encourage you to support them on your own. The work they are doing is phenomenal and all the support and financial help they can get will go towards making a difference in the lives of women, families and, most of all, the beautiful children waiting to be born.

http://www.awcprc.org

Our first Sponcered Charity: Amirah House

I wanted to be able to really share the wonderful work each of our charities and missions so I decided to write a separate post for each one. Let's start with Amirah house...

For those of you who do not know about Amirah House, it is a Massachusetts safe-house for women rescued from the sexual slave trade; and Yes, there is a need for one. There is, in fact, a great need for many.

Until I went to their awareness/fundraising dinner I had no idea this kind of thing went on in America to such a great extent. That people were kidnapped and sold, forced into drug addictions and kept jailed up until they were sold for use. You hear about this sort of thing in other countries, but here? 

Several women told their stories at this dinner. Heart breaking stories from all different kinds of women who had been trapped and helpless. Some were only children being sold by thier families, some were full grown women with children of their own.

One speaker was a police detective form Connecticut who told about a teenage girl who had been brought into the station for drugs and prostitution. She was supposed to be held until morning but she kept saying that she had been kidnapped so they assigned this detective to her case to look into it. The speaker said that she originally didn't believe the girl because she was strung out and people said all kinds of things to get out of trouble. However she had to look into it and found that She was in fact telling the truth. The Girl was from New Hampshire, had been taken off the street near her home and brought to Connecticut. She had been force to write to her parents telling them that she was Ok and had run away to try life on her own. The kidnappers had turned her into an addict against her will so she wouldn't run away from them and forced her into prostitution. 

When they found all this out, they went to release her but found there was no where to send her. With all that she had been through, there was no where safe she could go where her kidnappers could not find her. She needed infinitely more care then could be given her at a drug rehab center but no such place existed. They couldn't legally keep her any more than three days and so at the end of that time they released her. 

I don't know what happened to her... hopefully she made it back to her parents and her home... but the point is that these thing really do happen, right here in our country, in our towns,  and these women need help!

That is where Amirah House comes in. These wonderful people have built a home for women to go and heal. They provide everything from life skills to physiological help. they train them for holding a job and for holding their heads high. They show them how valued and loved they are. The home itself is lovingly designed by caring hands. Each room is put sponsored and put together with every care to make it just right for a particular woman, just like she were one of the family (as she is!). It is whole person healing for such a desperate wound as is caused by sexual slavery.

As it stands right now, they have one home with room for 18 women.  They intend to build more as money allows. You and I both know that 18 beds are wonderful but not enough!

ReDress is honored to be a part of this organization that help women heal and regain their lives. Thank you for joining with me. Let's see to it that they are able to build more homes and reach more women!

For more information about what Amirah House is doing and to hear more stories of women who have survived please visit their website at http://www.amirahboston.org/  and please give what you can to help them save lives!