New Beginnings: A Home for Mothers

In 1992, WELS Lutherans for Life (now known as Christian Life Resources) opened up a home for single mothers who are pregnant. Many of the women it would serve had considered abortion, but now would have a chance to bear the child to term and either have the child adopted or raise it herself. In the meantime the mother would continue schooling, learn parenting skills, and learn about finances as a parent.

I believed this was long overdue. Pro-choice advocates had always challenged pro-lifers to care for "unwanted" children. But New Beginnings, what the new home was named, wasn't a novel concept at all. It seems that many pro-life groups had been doing this for some time. One young lady I know went to one such home in Tennessee until she had her child (an open adoption).

New Beginnings. Often one finds parenthood to be a new beginning. A friend of mine married a single mother who confided to me that having her daughter forced her to re-evaluate her life and the responsibility she now was given. There is also a new life beginning in the womb, an individual person growing inside the mother's womb. If anyone feels that the baby in the womb is just a piece of tissue in a woman's body, let me ask you this: ask any mother who has given birth to more than one child if her pregnancies were identical. They are always different-different because there are different people involved. Each child is an individual from conception.

New Beginnings was incorporated in October 1992 in Denver, Colorado. House parents began their duties in September 1993 and the first resident arrived the following month. By 1998 New beginnings relocated to new quarters-certainly a sign of God's blessing. The facility can handle ten mothers.

New Beginnings offers a chance at independence. Mothers have private furnished apartments complete with a kitchen, bathroom, living room, and bedroom. Yet the mothers interact as they eat a meal together in the Commons. Each mother takes a turn at preparing this meal. This family setting allows an informal way to share and discuss problems, challenges, joys, fears, and triumphs.

Mothers are also encouraged to nurture their spirituality. Though the home is run by a Lutheran group, a mother need not be Lutheran to reside at the home. The mother is also taught parenting skills. The mothers are invited to stay up to a year after the child's birth to aid in the adjustment of having a new baby. Financial skills are also taught. Special savings accounts build up during the mothers' stays at New Beginnings. Budgets are also taught to mothers. And mothers are also involved in education, either in completing high school or getting a GED or going on to vocational training. Train one to fish, and they'll eat for a lifetime.

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