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In this episode of The Defender Podcast, hosts Herbie Newell and Dr. Rick Morton provide a mid-year update on Lifeline Children's Services' ministry efforts in 2024, celebrating the impact and stories behind the statistics. They discuss nearly 100 children finding forever families through adoption and the ongoing need for more missional families, especially in the face of stricter abortion laws leading to increased foster care needs. The conversation highlights Lifeline's unique mission to uphold the gospel while caring for vulnerable children, the evolving landscape of adoption and foster care, and the church's crucial role in advocating for these children and supporting women in unplanned pregnancies.
HOST
HOST
Herbie Newell is the President & Executive Director of Lifeline Children’s Services and its ministry arms.
CO-HOST
Dr. Rick Morton is the Vice President of Engagement at Lifeline Children's Services.
R(un) FOR ONE
Hey everyone, we're excited to announce Lifeline's upcoming R(un) for One 5K and Fun Run on Saturday, September 7, 2024. The run brings together Lifeline alumni families, friends, advocates, and community partners to raise awareness and funding for our international orphan care ministry, (un)adopted®.
Can’t make it to Alabama? No problem! You can also RUN WHERE YOU ARE! Gather your friends and family to run in your local area.
LIFELINE CHILDREN'S SERVICES
The mission of Lifeline Children’s Services is to equip the Body of Christ to manifest the gospel to vulnerable children. Our vision is for vulnerable children and their communities to be transformed by the gospel and to make disciples.
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Creators & Guests
Host
Herbie Newell
Herbie Newell serves as the President & Executive Director of Lifeline Children’s Services, holds an MBA in Accounting from Samford University and brings years of experience from his work as an independent auditor at WAKM Companies, LLC. Serving as Lifeline's Executive Director since 2003, Herbie has significantly expanded international outreach, obtained licensure in 17 states, and led the establishment of the foster care arm. A passionate advocate, he co-founded (un)adopted in 2009, focusing on equipping orphaned children with life skills for community transformation. Herbie, also the author of "Image Bearers: Shifting from Pro-birth to Pro-Life," emphasizes that being pro-life extends beyond opposing abortion, urging a broader ethic that includes fighting for racial equality and embracing every individual with the love of Christ. Herbie and his wife, Ashley, reside in Birmingham, Alabama, and are the parents to three children.
Host
Rick Morton
As Vice President of Engagement, Rick Morton shepherds the ministry’s outreach to individual, church, and organizational ministry partners as well as the ministry’s commitment to publishing resources that aid families and churches in discipling orphans and vulnerable children. Prior to Lifeline, Rick served for 15 years as a college and seminary professor, and he also served local churches in Tennessee, Louisiana, and Mississippi. He is an accomplished writer and sought after speaker. Most notably, Rick is the co-author of the popular Orphanology: Awakening to Gospel-centered Adoption and Orphan Care and the author of KnowOrphans: Mobilizing the Church for Global Orphanology. Rick and his lovely wife Denise have been married for over 32 years, and they have 3 children, all of whom joined their family through international adoption. God has continued to grow their family, and he now enjoys the role of “Doc” to his precious granddaughter!
What is The Defender Podcast?
The Defender Podcast is a ministry of Lifeline Children's Services where we seek to equip the body of Christ to manifest the gospel to vulnerable children and families. We hope this podcast will provide encouragement, inspiration, and ways to connect with others who have a heart for the orphan.
Welcome to the defender podcast, a resource to help mobilize and equip the body of Christ to manifest the gospel to orphans and vulnerable children. This podcast is a ministry of Lifeline Children Services, and I'm your host, Herbie Newell. It's Wednesday, August 14, 2024, and doctor Rick and I are coming to you from Birmingham, Alabama. Well, today, we wanted to take an opportunity, a little bit late, but to give a mid year report on all of the many things that have happened here so far in the 1st several months of ministry at Lifeline. We are grateful, to be able to report not just statistics, but the stories behind the statistics, as well as the many things that we've already seen so far in 2024.
Herbie Newell:So we hope you will enjoy this time as we celebrate what the Lord has done, as we look forward to what the Lord will do, and of course, as always, as doctor Rick pontificates on all the things that he's experienced. So before we do bring on the venerable doctor Rick, I wanna remind you about the Run for 1. We're so excited, about Lifeline's upcoming Run for 1 5 k and fun run, which will be held September 7th 2024. That's a Saturday morning. The run brings together Lifeline alumni families, friends, advocates, and community partners to raise awareness and funding for our International Orphan Care Ministry Unadopted.
Herbie Newell:If you can't make it to a run, a physical run location, no problem. You can run where you are, and we would love to be able to fill out all 50 states with with families and supporters that are running where you are in your home state. So gather your family and your friends and run-in your local area. To sign up or to find out more information, visit lifelinechild.org backslash run. Again, that's lifelinechild.org backslash 1, or you can go to run for one five k dot org, or as always, you can visit our show notes.
Herbie Newell:Well, it's that time of the podcast where we do bring on the silver haired and silver tongued one, doctor Rick, the venerable doctor Rick, the one that people line up for, for for for autographs for. Doctor Rick, So grateful that we've made it through half of the year and have so much that we can celebrate.
Rick Morton:Man, can you believe it? That we're we're like past the halfway point in the year? It's crazy to me that, and I think I identify with what my parents used to say about I think the years do speed up a little bit the longer we go. But, yeah, Herbie, it's been a really, really fruitful year. There's been a lot that's going on.
Rick Morton:The Lord is accomplishing a lot of things. I think it's been a little bit of a tough year too. I think we and just being really honest here that we in an election year, it feels like things are like they're pretty strong headwinds in a lot of ways. And I know you and I have had the opportunity to be a lot of places with a lot of different people over the course of this year and with a lot of our church partners and with a lot of our global partners. And we've spent time at the SBC and the PCA General Assembly and we've gone to policy conferences in states and Washington and all places.
Rick Morton:And the truth is that everybody is talking in terms of waiting to see what's going to happen and about the things that are facing us. And we've just tried to remind ourselves in the middle of all that, that the guy is still on his throne. And what we've been called to, we've still been called to. And no matter what the certainties or the uncertainties are in the world around us, God's called us to a mission and he's given us a directive. And, you know, here at Lifeline, in in the midst of that, we we're just continuing to try to press in and to come alongside churches and and to see the the people that are in churches, folks like you that are listening to us today, that that you're put in a place where you can put the glory of God on display and you can testify to the gospel and to the goodness of Jesus because of the way that you're, that you're living and ultimately the way that you're caring for vulnerable people, for vulnerable kids and for the families that are around them, including the vulnerable ones.
Rick Morton:And so, in that spirit, there's a lot to celebrate in the midst of what we've seen the Lord do up to this point. And so right now, as we hit that midyear point, we have almost 60 families that have received adoptive placements this year. And so, 60 families that have some of them little ones, some of them not so little ones into their families. And so, that's 60 more families that even through just the makeup of their family and who they are, their story of their family is testifying to adoption and has 60 more families that are kicking the door wide open to being able to tell the gospel and are putting the gospel on display in their communities and in their families around them and in their churches and in their schools and all the places that they go because because they're doing something that's like what God has done for us and for what Christ has provided for us in adoption. And I don't ever want to lose that.
Rick Morton:In the midst of a world where adoption may be getting harder in some respects, international adoption is certainly is more challenging. Just because it's challenging, we don't need to stop doing it. As a matter of fact, as believers, maybe when it's more challenging, we need to press into it because because we can go into it with a perspective of knowing that we have the grace of God and we have the power of God. But we also have the assurance of God's presence and His provision for us. And so this has been a year where, you know, we've gotten an opportunity to to be in a lot of places and in churches and conferences and things like that to to say to people, let's, you know, let's let's in the church be about adoption.
Rick Morton:Let's don't in let's don't forget about that. And I think also in the Christian community, in the churches that we're a part of, to also remember in this environment that we're working in, that our engagement with women and unplanned pregnancies that that we're we're called into something that is perceived as a political fight by a lot of people. But for us, this isn't a political issue. It's a it's a life issue and it's a God issue. And that And that we really part of what we want to remind folks of, even at this mid year is that our engagement in the lives of women who are in need and children who are in vulnerability in the womb, that are concerned for adoption is part of that as well.
Rick Morton:And so, we saw after Dobbs the fact that there were more women that were placed in for adoption. There was a need for more adoption. Well, that may be waning a bit now. And so, how do we have to be concerned about that? We need to be concerned about the fact that the enemy is still on the march, that Satan is still active, and that in a world where chemical abortions are becoming more common and there's all kind of work around that we've seen in the legal protections for unborn children that we're in a world that's always trying to buy to undo those protections.
Rick Morton:And that in the church, we need to be mindful that we still need to be active. We need to let our voices be active with our representatives and our senators and speak about the legal consequences of those things. But we all seem to need to be active. And using our voice and our presence and our relationship with women in our community to be able to encourage them toward life, but also to to be positive voices to talk about adoption as a really real and beautiful option for women. And that's not that's not somebody else's crisis.
Rick Morton:That's ours. And so, we're getting the opportunity to do that. But we you know, quite frankly, the conflict has gotten more complex and it's gotten more difficult. And it also is requiring more time and more resource in order for us to be able to dig into it. And so we want to ask you as well to advocate for us in speaking to people about the work that Lifeline does and about the way we come alongside women, the way we come alongside adoptive families.
Rick Morton:Because what Lifeline is doing is really different and it's really unique. But we need the resources of people to help us to be able to do this because we're not relying on state funding, because we're not relying on you know, other other folks to to come around to underpin that work because we wanna make sure that we can maintain the freedom of the gospel and that we can be free to tell and point people toward Jesus. And so I think that's something early to celebrate that we've seen not only 57 families that have been enhanced or made through adoption, but but we also have the opportunity also to continue to to advocate for a culture, a life and a culture for adoption. And Lifeline's looking to find ways to enhance that in in every church and in every relationship that we have.
Herbie Newell:Yeah. 100%. And so certainly, we're we praise the lord for the 57 children who have come home, both through domestic and international adoption. Of course, this number was was earlier. We've seen almost now a 100 kids come home this year.
Herbie Newell:And so we're grateful for every life knowing that these lives are precious to the Lord. And it's a huge thing, in this day and age to to see families, missional families wrap around children in need. And it's important, and it's something that we need to continue. And certainly, as as as doctor Rick was pontificating earlier, we have seen what was initially a resurgence or a surge in women choosing adoption and and choosing life post Dobbs, we certainly are now seeing the war on life and the war on life in the womb become even more apparent in these latter days past stops. And and even in the midst of a campaign season where there's so much rhetoric from both sides as to what they will and will not do, what we do know is that that life is is essential to a democracy.
Herbie Newell:If if we continue to take life away, we continue to allow abortion to be the law of the land, then we're not going we're going to have a Social Security problem. So both sides can talk about what they're going to do to help solve Social Security. Well, if if we continue to kill children in the womb, well, beloved, we're not going to have a future generation that's large enough to support our Social Security needs. And so there's so many things, so many needs that are real and apparent today, that that really validating and signing up and caring for life is so essential, and and ultimately, we we need more families who who have a heart for caring for kids, who want to be missional families to give homes to kids, and and to show these women that that there are options for their children to live a life and to live a better life. But, you know, we also look at at foster care, and certainly one of the things that we know is, is a is a result of a more strict abortion policy in several states.
Herbie Newell:And, of course, doctor Rick and I are coming to you from Birmingham, Alabama where, abortion is completely unavailable, especially medical abortion in the state of Alabama, we're going to see more kids enter into foster care, and we need families that are going to sign up to be foster families. And so we've had over 40 new foster and foster care adopted families this last year, and and we need more. We've got 450,000 kids in US foster care. I think the stat that I saw recently, is we have over a 1000000 children come in and out of the foster care system each and every year. That 450,000 number are those that are in long term foster care that that that are counted on any given day, but it doesn't count the number of kids that come in and come out.
Herbie Newell:It also doesn't count the number of kids who have open cases with DHR. They may be living with their biological mom or dad or or biological parents, but but they have an open investigation in case by by DHR or by Child Protective Services. We need missional families to continue to step out and not just be foster and foster to adopt families, but also that will will stand in the the line for these families through programs that Lifeline has like Harbor Families and Families Count and Heritage Builders that are helping reunite families, they're helping kids that are aging out of foster care, and that are really standing in the the gap to help these women and children. And and doctor Rick, I know that that our church partnerships team works very diligently in these programs. I I'd love just to hear some of the fruit that you've seen from these programs in the last year.
Rick Morton:Well, Hurry, I heard a great story just this week about a church partner that, that heard about the opportunity to be able to work with kids that are aging out of the foster care system. And they're a church that's already engaged in raising up foster families. And so, so they have a wraparound ministry where they're wrapping around families and loving on them well. But there's really been a culture of as the culture of life has taken on that idea of all lives and whole life. They wanted to do something else and wanted to do more and had a burden for kids to rage and out of the foster care system.
Rick Morton:So Lifeline was able to connect with them and and to train them to to begin the program, our program Heritage Builders, which is connecting with their local CPS to work with kids that are aging out of the foster care system, kids that are on independent living plans from the state. And the church is essentially teaching life skills and job skills and and coming alongside to invest in, mentorship relationships, discipling relationships with these kids. Well, this church and here's the thing, like, they're at the very beginning of the race. They're they're just getting started. They have a healthy relationship with with their local CPS office because they're already a foster care church and have foster care families that are invested.
Rick Morton:So they made the call to their church. They got trained and then they put the call out to their church and they said, hey, if you if you're interested in walking with a child, a a a teenager, a young adult that's that's moving toward independence, but moving toward independence without benefit of a family, come to a meeting. They had 50 people that showed up to a meeting. 50 people put their yes on the table and said, I wanna come and and do and do something. And and the truth is out of that 50 people, they're gonna be able to raise up, people that are gonna be able to take what they do every day in their job and bring it to relevance to those kids.
Rick Morton:They're gonna be able to to raise up people that are able to teach things like cooking and budgeting and and and things that are just practical skills that you and I teach to our kids. Things that we do in our parenting that's just part of the part of the normal course of how you know, how we prepare our kids for adulthood. Well, these kids don't have families in in that are intentionally doing those things with them. So the church is gonna raise up people to do that. And and while they're doing it, while they're building those relationships, they're in they're investing, you know, they're investing the story of the gospel.
Rick Morton:And and they're living it. They're living the fruit of it. And they're living the goodness of who Jesus is in front of these kids. And and I think that's, you know, that's such a beautiful picture. But it's also a reminder that you don't have to be an adoptive family.
Rick Morton:And you don't have to be a foster family. I know a lot of the people who listen to this podcast are. And so we're kind of talking to the home team a little bit. But just the reminder that you can get your church engaged and maybe maybe your church is not ready to dive headlong into, foster care and to, you know, to raising up foster families and supporting them. Well, if you're not, if they're not, you know, maybe you could have a conversation with leadership in your church about how could we get maybe engaged in the lives of families in our community that are at risk, that are part of that statistic that Irby talked about, that are those families that have an open plan, but they don't you know, like their kids aren't yet in foster care.
Rick Morton:Or maybe they're trying to be reunified out of foster care. Or maybe it's kids that are aging out of the system. We have all kinds of ways to be able to come alongside your church and and we and we want to do that. That's why we're here. That's why we exist in in order to be able to mobilize churches to do this.
Rick Morton:I think I think the other thing that, you know, Herbie, I love about being part of this ministry. And so I'm going to lob another, you know, kind of another one of those midyear statistics out here. But it's part of a greater reality of who we want to be and coming alongside the church. You you said something to me years ago when when we were talking about, you know, who does Lifeline who do we want to be? And and how do we want to how do we want to come alongside the church?
Rick Morton:And and the thing you said, and we've used it a lot is, you know, I remember the first time you said to me, we wanna be a bridesmaid to the bride of Christ. That we we want to, you know, we want to be a ministry that comes alongside and helps and attends to. And part of that is it is providing things that your church is gonna struggle to provide for itself. And so, it may be easy for you to raise up mentors or it may be easy. It may even be easy for you to raise up foster families or people to wrap around them.
Rick Morton:But there are some things that we provide specialized services that we're able to come alongside and do for families and and to do it in a way that that we bring an experience and a professional expertise to, like counseling, like our parent coaching services, like our educational therapy services, like there there's so many things that we do like that. And so one of the things that mid year we've we've now had this year, we're approaching 2,000 counseling sessions that that we've done with children and families over the course of this year. And so what that means is that's almost 2,000 sessions where children and families have been served with counseling and counsel that comes from a biblical perspective. That comes from a biblical worldview. That's centered not just on what, you know, the best psychological advice is.
Rick Morton:It's not it's not based on the best cultural advice. It's it's taken the best of what psychology has to offer. It's taken the best therapeutic techniques that we can identify, but it's filtering through a a biblical worldview. And it's it's giving families the opportunity to be able to work with someone that they can trust that's pulling in the same direction that they are. Because the heart of that counselor is to help them to get to the heart of their child.
Rick Morton:To get through trauma, to get through neglect, to get through all the stuff that they've been. And so I get excited, man. I get fired up when I when I see that we've been able to come alongside and do that. And we wanna be able to do that more. You know, we we now have counselors in multiple sites in Alabama.
Rick Morton:We have counselors in Georgia. We have counselors in Louisiana. We have counselors in North Carolina. We have counselors all over the country that are doing this kind of work. And we have the potential and the opportunity to expand that.
Rick Morton:We have a counseling network where we're working with therapists that are not our own therapists. And that's not included in that 2000 hours, by the way. We don't count the people that are not our people, but we're serving therapists all over the country, helping them to form a good biblical worldview and then also helping them to have the therapeutic techniques. And and we're helping to bring our experience to bear to help them get better faster at at helping families like the families that we serve. And so, I mean, I just think that's to be celebrated.
Rick Morton:And, you know, in a few years ago, this was this was a a very small part of what Lifeline did and and was, was something we had a huge heart to do because we wanted to serve the families that we were engaged in their lives. But by God's grace, it's been able to grow. And we've had the we've had the blessing of seeing it flourish. But man, I can't believe we're sitting here at the middle of the year and we've been able to see that kind of impact. Yeah.
Rick Morton:And I think too, just to back up and certainly the the reality and the stories are great. But just to look at some
Herbie Newell:of the impact of the church partners that we've seen, Families Count, which, of course, is Lifeline's program of of seeing kids reunited with their families. It's a 6 week training through the local church. Local church puts it on. Just in the last 3 months, we've seen 250 families graduate from Families Count. So you look at that large number of children that are impacted, daily by foster care, that's 250 families are being equipped to bring their children home and to get out of the foster care system.
Herbie Newell:That's that's huge, and that's just in the last 3 months. We're we're we're well on track this year to see almost a 1000 graduates from Families Count. Now there's still a lot of work to be done. And and as doctor Rick has pontificated, we we need to do more work. But to see and to celebrate, how many families have graduated.
Herbie Newell:And that's currently, we have a 117 licensed churches in 17 states. They're active in Families Count. So if you're a member of a church that's not participating in Families Count, but you think there's something that you could do or or a way that you could get engaged, wow. We would love to talk to you about getting engaged in families. Counting them.
Herbie Newell:Heritage builder builders, which doctor Rick touched on, is the the program whereby we're seeing kids that are aging out of foster care learn life skills, job skills to be put into a mentorship relationship where they can see, not just what they have to look forward to, but they can have people in their life that will help them be able to to integrate outside of foster care once they age out. Currently, right now, we have 11 licensed churches in 7 states, but we've seen already a 115 teens participate. So when you know that a huge reality is not just kids spending time in foster care, but not ever being reunified with their family or adopted. This is huge to see a 115 teens being matched with mentors to see a better hope and a better future for them on the other side of of foster care. And then also, just through our church engagement, we're able to help connect churches with real needs of of vulnerable women, of vulnerable children, of children in foster care.
Herbie Newell:And even this last year, in the states of Alabama and Mississippi, we've been able to serve 250 kids by by meeting needs that they have, by meeting the needs of their families, to help them to to get the things they need to be able to be be successful. And so we're helping match resources with kids in need. We're helping to match churches with with those community needs in foster care, that that that need to be met, and so as well as birth parents. So that's just a great opportunity to see, needs met. And and and even just this year, let's celebrate almost $215,000 of economic impact have been made in the states of Alabama and Mississippi.
Herbie Newell:215,000 by connecting churches directly with the needs that they have. And and and even as doctor Rick has also talked about the foster care, we also know there's a global, global orphan care pandemic around the world, and already this year, our unadopted global orphan care partners have impacted over 16,000 yes, 16,000, not 1600 16,000 orphans through our Global Orphan Care Programs. That could be schooling. That could be helping kids that are aging out. That could be life skills and job skills.
Herbie Newell:That's camps. Right now, even as we are speaking here in Birmingham, Alabama, we have several of our partners who are Ukraine, in some of the war torn areas of Ukraine, actually on the eastern part of Ukraine, where some of the the Russian occupation is taken, where they're doing camps for orphans. They're they're training orphans. They're helping kids in those areas. Right now as we speak, your generous donations actually help bring a a generator to bear because a lot of these areas have been so decimated.
Herbie Newell:They don't have the power that they need. And and we've been able to to give that power so that these camps can happen and the gospel can be preached to orphans on the eastern part of Ukraine. But also, in Romania and Bulgaria, we have our partners who are actively caring for orphans and vulnerable children, even as the summer ends through camp programs, through discipleship programs. So already this year, 16,000 kids, have been reached by our global partners in over 31 different nations. And doctor Rick, I know that you enjoyed our time in Dubai.
Herbie Newell:You wanna give a little bit of a report about our second ever global conference for our Global Orphan Care Partners?
Rick Morton:Yeah. Well, what an incredible dream, like realization of a dream for us to be able to gather believers from all over the world together to talk about how we're caring for vulnerable children and caring for vulnerable families, but how we're doing that with the gospel at the center of it. And and I think, you know, one of the things that we've that we've really kind of struggled with over the years, honestly, is that a lot of the a lot of the places and gatherings and and and reasons for doing orphan care that we've been connected to, really don't put the gospel at the center. And and there's there's a sense in which it it's hard to stay focused sometimes on on keeping gospel mission at the center when when there's so much tangible need around us. And so I'm just incredibly proud of our partners and the people that we're able to serve with.
Rick Morton:And so, there were so we had this incredible gathering in Dubai to be able to bring partners together. The only continent that was not, that was or the only area that was not represented was Oceania. So, we have a goal in the future to be able to have an orphan care partner from Oceania, but no New Zealand and Australia. But other than that, there was the whole world, was really represented there. And I mean, the stories of life change and transformation and engagement on the part of churches that are engaging in communities around the world.
Rick Morton:And there are stories that just stick out to me of things that we saw and things that we experienced with our partners. One of the stories that was something that was really powerful that you and I experienced together It was in a prayer gathering that we had with the men that came as a part of that group. And we had women were praying in one place, men were praying in another. And that was just to give ladies from a culture where they might not feel comfortable speaking up in a setting where women and men are together. The ladies went so that they could be before the Lord together by themselves.
Rick Morton:But but with the men, we, we had a guided prayer time. And you and I kind of led them through a guided prayer time. And and we were at a point of supplication. Right? We were at a point of of praying, for for the for the needs of others.
Rick Morton:And you spontaneously call our brothers together that we're under persecution and that are experiencing threat for their life, for their well-being, for the well-being of their family. And we had an opportunity to be able to pray with them and to pray over them. 1 of the brothers that was a part of that prayer was then going to lead our, you know, our prayer supplication. And one of those powerful things that I think I've ever experienced in my life, that brother from a country in the Middle East, and Asia, in a heavily Islamic area, under intense persecution, began to pray for the people that are persecuting him and his family, began to pray for their souls, began to pray for their well-being, began to pray for God's goodness to fall upon them. And such an incredible charity, you know, charitable begging of God that he did on their behalf.
Rick Morton:And man, it was just a just a powerful testimony in the midst of a world where we have a tendency sometimes to complain about the circumstances that we're that we're in. We we have a tendency to complain about the toughness and the difficulty. And and so those were those were examples of the hearts of people that we got to see from, you know, from Central America and South America and and people from, you know, from all over Africa and Central Europe and Asia. Like, it's the whole world you know, really came together, you know, in this gathering. And I I think, probably the coolest thing that I, you know, I I visited with one of our global orphan care team earlier this week.
Rick Morton:And probably the coolest thing that has come even after our time in Dubai is realizing how many more people, how many more ministries are beginning to pop up and want in on being a part of our global orphan care network. They wanna be a part of a gathering of people where their brothers and sisters from all over the world are gonna help them to get better in what they do in ministry. But that there's going to be an accountability and an encouragement to stay faith to the gospel and make sure that we keep Jesus at the center of everything that we do. And so literally, we you know, it's it's the influence is growing. I think in an area where where we had, 4 partners that were at our gathering, but, you know, between, between a couple she she showed me a list of 15 partners that want to become a part of, you know, the the global network that wanna be served by Lifeline Resources, you know, coming to them and helping them do what they do and and and for us to be able to encourage them.
Rick Morton:And so I just want people to know that that the resources that they contribute are are literally going around the world to make impact, for Jesus in in the lives of vulnerable children and vulnerable families. And it's happening through the church. And so the purposes of God are are are being accomplished by the work that we're able to do around the globe.
Herbie Newell:Amen. We're grateful for that. And we're grateful to see how the lord is just really expanding that. And then certainly, you know, we've we've touched on it. And and so I say last, but certainly not least, we also wanna consider the women that we are ministering to on a daily basis, caring for women going through crisis, unplanned pregnancies.
Herbie Newell:We wanna help these women see the love of Christ, experience the love of Christ, and, ultimately, to know that they're cared for, that they are precious in his sight. And so this last year, already, we've been able to connect with 3,000 800 plus women served online through our online, counseling, by being able to connect them to the services that we have. And such a such a big way to see our team really be able to care for and to connect with, and to to to see life giving counsel being made to women, helping them understand that abortion is not the only option that they have. And that is that is so important that a woman knows that that she has other options, that that there there are things that she can do, on behalf of her child, to care for her child and to show life for her child. Well, Doctor.
Herbie Newell:Rick, you know, certainly the Lord has done a lot and we have just really, in a sense, barely touched on all the many things that the Lord has accomplished. As we close out, is there are there any last words or pontifications that you would like to make? Man, I
Rick Morton:I could, you know, I could talk forever. And and I think that's, you know, that that's what you allude to through this. But but I I think, you know, we don't need to talk. It's There's still work to be done. There are still families to be served.
Rick Morton:There are still kids that are in need and peril. There are still families to be raised up to dive into the foster care system, to engage in adoption. There are still opportunities that are out there for us to serve churches around the world. And and just Herbie, I'm just gonna say it really boldly. We need we need the help of our listeners.
Rick Morton:We need the help of people around us. We need folks to, you know, to come alongside. We need people to join us in the work and and, you know, and get their hands dirty and to serve. And and we, you know, fundamentally, we want you to volunteer with your church. We want you to engage with your church and to do this ministry.
Rick Morton:But but LifeLine wants to help you as you do that. And then we want you to give. We want you to give to support the work. And summer is a difficult time for ministries like ours. And that's because while we're all distracted and running on vacation and things like that, sometimes folks drift and don't pay attention to the things that are happening.
Rick Morton:And so we just want to ask folks to dig in and dig deep and to give. And so, you can go to lifelinechild.org right now. You can point somebody else to lifelinechild.org right now. And there's a donate button there. And we'd love for you to, you know, to to to do something to help us celebrate and support the things that the Lord's done.
Rick Morton:And we also wanna say to folks out there that if if you know someone that would really love to hear the story of what we do as a ministry here and somebody who you know, might like to to invest at a higher level or to know more, all you gotta do is let us know. And we're not gonna be high pressure. We're not gonna go get in, you know, in their face and in their business. We're not going to we're not going to try to sell them anything. But what we are going to do is tell them about the great things that God's doing.
Rick Morton:And and we certainly would love to, you know, to give them an opportunity to be able to be part of this and to participate. And so, you know, Herbie, I think, you know, as we close, I I just wanna say this is something we all get to do together. And we're thankful for the folks that listen to us and the folks that support us. We need your prayers. This is this is a fight.
Rick Morton:And and the enemy doesn't like what we do. The enemy hates what we do. And and so therefore, sometimes it can be hard. And and there can it can be fraught with difficulty. And so we need the provision of the Lord to be able to do the things that God's called us to do.
Rick Morton:And so we're really thankful for you. We're thankful for your your listening, for your support, for your continued, labor with us, for your giving and your provision. And, and we just want to say as we get to this midyear point that we're turning back around and looking at the things that God's done, that that we praise the Lord, we thank the Lord, and we can't wait to get to the end of this year. And to be able to to to look back and celebrate even more that God's done on behalf of the vulnerable in the name of Jesus. And so thanks for listening.
Rick Morton:Thanks for being with us. Thanks for being a part of the Defender Podcast. And we'll see you back right here, next week again for for another great episode, to talk about how God's people are defending the fatherless in his name.
Herbie Newell:Thanks for listening to the Defender Podcast. If you enjoy making this podcast a part of your weekly routine, we'd love for you to take a moment to subscribe, rate, and review the Defender Podcast to make it easier for more people to find. For more information on how you and your church can partner with Lifeline, visit us at lifelinechild.org. If you want to connect with me, please visit herbynewell.com. Follow us at Lifeline on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter by searching for Lifeline Child.
Herbie Newell:You can email us directly at info at lifelinechild.org. Beloved, will you allow god to use the gospel to you to impact the life of a child? Please contact us because we are here to defend the fatherless. We'll see you again next week for the Defender podcast.