You Were Made for More

In today's episode, we talk to our friend Graham Zeiders about why he has chosen to make the trip the National March for Life for several years and how the March has inspired him to be active in his own community since returning home from the January pro-life events last January!

Graham's dad is a Rev. in the ACNA at a church in Virginia and he is a 17 year old senior. Graham is a competitive equestrian who was born into a Christian family - since he has gotten older, he's become more active in the pro-life movement, volunteering and becoming involved with his local pregnancy center.

We encourage you to follow our website https://www.afllifesummit.org/ for all the information on our January pro-life events and plan to join us next year! There is something for EVERYONE - students, parents, youth leaders, groups, and even people who are new to learning about the pro-life movement. We'd love to have you join us!

Be sure to stay up to date with Abundant Life: You Were Made for More by visiting our blog - and if you're loving the podcast, send guest recommendations to us or leave us a star-rating/review on your favorite listening platform to spread the word about the you were made for more message.

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In today's episode of the You Were Made for More podcast, Sammie chats with husband and wife duo, John and Catherine O'Neill from Students for Life! John serves as the Diocesan and Church Outreach Coordinator at Students for Life of America, while Catherine spent a few years as the Executive Assistant to the President, Kristan Hawkins, and now works in development for SFLA while pursuing her master's degree. Both John and Catherine have different stories that led them to not only be pro-life but to commit their lives to advocating for life. John and Catherine got married this past April 15th and are expecting their first baby in March of 2024! What I love about their stories is how God has woven them together - individual and unique, but yet together and one.

We talk about how to speak up about your pro-life beliefs in today's culture - all while giving you practical resources to get equipped and go have those conversations in your own communities. 

You'll hear us say this in the episode, but we truly believe it is so much more authentic to be living the Truth than to go along with what is popular or accepted - that's our hope for you after listening to this episode - that you would feel empowered to believe the Truth and communicate it well. Each and every one of you is called to MORE.

Here are some things we mentioned in this episode:

• John's Email Address: [email protected]
• www.StudentsforLife.org/Start: This page features a step-by-step guide to starting a Students for Life group, beginning with an introductory email to [email protected].
• www.StudentsforLifeHQ.com: A digital pro-life resource library, Students for Life HQ is an excellent starting place for students and adults alike to become virtually educated on a wide range of pro-life topics. All of SFLA’s trainings, webinars, and many more videos are uploaded to this site and available by making a free account.
• www.StudentsforLifeHQ.com/FreeTraining: This is the digital form to request a free, in-person (or virtual) pro-life speaker through Students for Life.

Be sure to stay up to date with Abundant Life: You Were Made for More by visiting our blog - and if you're loving the podcast, send guest recommendations to us or leave us a star-rating/review on your favorite listening platform to spread the word about the you were made for more message.

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On this episode of the podcast, we welcome Johnston Moore, who serves at Anglicans for Life as the Adoption/Orphan Care Consultant. He joined us last year on the podcast to discuss adoption, but this year, we're going to focus more on foster care ministry.

We talk about the current state of the foster system and the heart behind why pro-life ministries and foster care should inherently be linked. We even discuss how students can become involved. 

Here are some things we mentioned in the podcast:

• Johnston's Episode 2022 
• The AFCARS Report 2021-2022

Be sure to stay up to date with Abundant Life: You Were Made for More by visiting our blog - and if you're loving the podcast, send guest recommendations to us or leave us a star-rating/review on your favorite listening platform to spread the word about the you were made for more message.

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Hey, friends and listeners - we’re so glad you’re here joining us on the You Were Made for More podcast! On today’s episode, I really wanted to pop in and tell you about our January plans this year to honor and protect Life. We’re switching it up from previous years and excited for the new opportunity that we’ve been given to partner with another pro-life organization to really understand why God Himself values life. 

This year, in conjunction with the March for Life, we’re inviting youth groups and families to join us at OneVoice D.C. on January 18, 2024 at the Westin, D.C. Downtown Hotel.  Unsure of what OneVoice D.C. is? Join us on your favorite listening platform for today's conversation and learn more about how you, your family, and your youth group can get involved with The Radiance Foundation, Anglicans for Life, and the March for Life.

Here are some things we mentioned in the podcast:

• AFL Summit Website
• The Radiance Foundation
• Dr. Christina Francis' episode of the YWMFM podcast
• OneVoice D.C.'s Facebook page 

Be sure to stay up to date with Abundant Life: You Were Made for More by visiting our blog - and if you're loving the podcast, send guest recommendations to us or leave us a star-rating/review on your favorite listening platform to spread the word about the you were made for more message.

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In today's episode of the podcast, Sammie interviews one of the creators of a pro-life club on Waynesburg University's campus about what you can do to change the landscape of your school or campus. It can take courage, boldness, and perseverance to step out into the current culture (even at a Christian university!) and stand for life, and Anna Rape has done it with grace. We're so excited to hear her testimony and about how God is using her where He has placed her!

Anna is a junior at WU who is studying psychology with a minor in biblical ministry studies. During her time at WU, she helped start the pro-life club from the ground up. She is the  one of six siblings, just got engaged to her fiance, Seth, and is passionate about loving God and loving others!

Be sure to stay up to date with Abundant Life: You Were Made for More by visiting our blog - and if you're loving the podcast, send guest recommendations to us or leave us a star-rating/review on your favorite listening platform to spread the word about the you were made for more message.

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“Dating intentionally.”

If you are a single Christian, it’s something that you’ve probably heard mentioned at some point, and held up as the right way to go about dating. But what does it mean, and how do you go about dating intentionally? Even on our podcast, we talk about that phrase a lot… because as Christians, we should be super intentional - or thoughtful - about the way we interact with others. On this episode of the podcast, we're going to take the time and dissect what it can look like to be INTENTIONAL, without being INTENSE while you're navigating dating.

Be sure to stay up to date with Abundant Life: You Were Made for More by visiting our blog - and if you're loving the podcast, send guest recommendations to us or leave us a star-rating/review on your favorite listening platform to spread the word about the you were made for more message.

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Anglicans For Life believes it is important to engage people (both students and adults) in educational opportunities that equip them to speak the truth about the Sanctity of Life in a culture that uses misinformation to mislead people about abortion. Today on the podcast, Georgette Forney, President of Anglicans for Life, is joining us to talk about where the pro-life movement is now, a year or so after the Dobbs decision marked the overturning of Roe v. Wade, and how you can get involved.

Don't forget to check out our Uprooting Lies and Planting the Truth initiative here!

Be sure to stay up to date with Abundant Life: You Were Made for More by visiting our blog - and if you're loving the podcast, send guest recommendations to us or leave us a star-rating/review on your favorite listening platform to spread the word about the you were made for more message.

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Today's episode focuses on one of our favorite topics: motherhood! 

In a culture that continually discusses motherhood as a “less than” role in society and oftentimes makes it difficult to think of motherhood as the sacred role that it is, it can be even more challenging to truly live out the pro-life ideals that you may have. One of our staff members at Anglicans for Life, Sydney, experienced this first hand as she faced an unplanned pregnancy as a teenager; here’s what she says about how becoming a mom has impacted her life and faith: 

“Patience and understanding are mercies I experience every day as a mom. Before Lydia, I had neither, but motherhood forces you to slow down and look at all angles of a situation. My kids ( Lydia and Manny) teach me something about myself every day.

(When it comes to my oldest) The Lord has blessed me with my best friend. At the time, when I found out I was pregnant, I thought my life was over. But when Lydia came into the world — everything changed for the better. She gave me a completely different perspective on life that I am genuinely grateful for. God always knows what we need, and Lydia is proof of that.”

Sydney has years of experience within the communications and digital marketing space. She has worked in various industries such as government contracting, private security, and healthcare. She has helped organizations reach their target audiences and grow their online presence through purposeful content. In her spare time she coaches girls’ soccer and enjoys spending time with her family.

Despite all of the negative aspects you’ll hear from the culture about motherhood, our goal today is to highlight some of the positives. The organization ZERO TO THREE conducted a study with 2,200 parents and found that...

1. 91% say parenting is their greatest joy.
2. 70% say they feel their life started when they became a parent.
3. 90% of dads say being a parent is their greatest joy.
4. 73% of those men say their lives began when they became a dad.

It’s completely possible to LOVE being a mom of small children. But it takes intentionality - our prayer is that this episode would convict OR  encourage you about what motherhood in today’s world is meant to look like.

Be sure to stay up to date with Abundant Life: You Were Made for More by visiting our blog - and if you're loving the podcast, send guest recommendations to us or leave us a star-rating/review on your favorite listening platform to spread the word about the you were made for more message.

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On today's episode of the podcast, Sammie sits down with her husband to talk a little bit about what it looks like to follow the Lord in a Christian marriage. While no relationship is perfect, our hope is that by sharing our story on the podcast that it will allow other couples to apply what Scripture says about marriage to their own relationships in order to create healthy communication and systems to thrive as God intended male and female to do.

This is Ephesians 22-33. It says:

“Wives, submit to your own husbands as to the Lord. For the husband is the head of the wife, even as Christ is the head of the church, his body in his himself its Savior. Now as the church submits to Christ, so also wives should submit in everything to their husbands. Husbands, love your wives as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle, or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish. In the same way, husbands should love their wives as their own bodies, he who loves his wife loves himself. For no one ever hated his own flesh, but nourishes and cherishes it just as Christ does the church, because we are members of his body. Therefore, a man shall leave his father and mother and hold fast to his wife, and the two shall become one flesh. This mystery is profound, and I’m saying that it refers to Christ and the church. However, let each one of you love his wife as himself, and let the wife see that she respects her husband.”

Be sure to stay up to date with Abundant Life: You Were Made for More by visiting our blog - and if you're loving the podcast, send guest recommendations to us or leave us a star-rating/review on your favorite listening platform to spread the word about the you were made for more message.

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"In a world where we are so polarized… We ought to be really pro-options." - Dr. John Bruchalski

Dr. John Bruchalski is the Founder of Tepeyac OB/GYN, a pro-life, faith-based practice in Fairfax, Virginia serving women in the D.C. metropolitan area for over 25 years. Tepeyac’s unique model is the first of its kind to provide patients, including those who are uninsured or low income, with quality medical care of the highest life-affirming standards.

With many patients crossing state lines to receive care from Tepeyac’s team of board-certified physicians and midwives, Dr. Bruchalski and his team at Divine Mercy Carehelped create the Pro-Women’s Healthcare Centers (PWHC) network in 2018, which now consists of 12 certtified PWHCs in the United States.

Dr. John Bruchalski received his M.D. from the University of South Alabama College of Medicine in Mobile, AL in 1987. He completed his residency in obstetrics and gynecology at Eastern Virginia Medical Center and the Jones Institute for Reproductive Medicine in Norfolk, Virginia in 1991. He received board certification in 1993.

During his training, Dr. Bruchalski performed abortions believing he was helping women. After a spiritual awakening, he realized abortion was not achieving freedom, health, and happiness for women. Dr. Bruchalski stopped performing abortions, returned to faith, and felt God’s call to start a medical practice that truly helped women.

Dr. Bruchalski’s story represents the struggle many Christian medical professionals face: the decision to go along to get along or to boldly stand out. His journey reveals the dark side of getting caught up in the OB/GYN status quo, the evils hidden in plain sight, and the dangers of remaining lukewarm in your faith. His memoir, Two Patients: My Conversion from Abortion to Life-Affirming Medicine (Ignatius Press) was released in October 2022.

Dr. Bruchalski is the proud recipient of the 2017 Life Hero Award and the 2022 Notre Dame Evangelium Vitae Medal. He now believes that there are two patients in the line of work that he does, and in our conversation we'll hear how he went from performing abortions to practicing life-affirming medicine.

Here are some things we cover in our conversation:

• What is perinatal hospice and what is its purpose? 
• How do we partner with those experiencing infant loss? 
• Resources for those seeking life-affirming OB care 

Here are some things we mentioned in the podcast:

• Benotafraid.net
• Sufficientgraceministries.org
• Perinatalhospice.org
• Embracinggraceva.org (VA residents)
• NowILayMeDownToSleep.org
• Perinatal hospice comprehensive care for the fetus with a lethal condition (Journal of Reproductive Medicine) 

Be sure to stay up to date with Abundant Life: You Were Made for More by visiting our blog - and if you're loving the podcast, send guest recommendations to us or leave us a star-rating/review on your favorite listening platform to spread the word about the you were made for more message.

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