March brings with it great promise, the promise of Spring, of Easter, forgiveness, and of new life. We are blessed beyond human understanding to be given this gift year after year. When reflecting on all this one word comes to mind: HOPE.
There have been so many monthly letters and they all speak about our gratitude for each of you and for your financial and prayerful support of our Center and of its work. Honestly, if it had not been for you, we would not have the privilege of
writing this March 2023 letter. Our Board of Directors, Dr Gramlich, our volunteer staff and I have held on to the HOPE that your generosity has afforded us. Literally, hundreds of women/couples have benefitted from your selflessness. We know that God always hears us, and He always answers. We must realize that God knows the best answers and when to give them.
Over the last 3 months, God did answer our prayers about keeping this work going. It has been a big concern of mine, due to my advancing age and eye/mobility problems that we needed to work on finding my replacement. I so want this work to continue when I am no longer able to do so. We have discovered that in order to do this, we need to be able to guarantee a salary to this person. This work needs young, dedicated women/men to help it to succeed. We have had many young women come through our Education Program who became very enthusiastic Practitioners. As they moved on in life, they got married and began to have their families. Soon enough, they would find the need to earn a consistent income. They leave the work of the Practitioner behind because they are unable to financially provide for their growing family. We are very small as far as clinics go and almost everything that we were able to bring in dollar-wise, went back into paying rent and buying the necessary supplies. We have never been able to offer a salaried position.
Late in 2022, one of our loyal financial supporters presented our St. Gianna Center with a sizeable donation. It seems that our supporter had neighbors who had approached with a request that she and her husband become the executors
of their estate. They had no children, and they wanted their estate to be divided among charities. This childless couple, through our friend made a sizable donation to our St. Gianna’s Center and now we can truly move forward! Please pray for the eternal rest of this generous husband and wife. Please also pray for us as we plan our next steps. We are planning to move into a new office which will be more easily accessible and more prominently identify as our Center. Our financial officer and the chairman of the Board are working on our goals and objectives and our five-year plan. We are going to move forward with our search for a new Center Director with the hope that this person will be or will plan to be a Creighton Model Practitioner. This will be a paid position!
Additionally, Dr. Gramlich is taking a position with My Catholic Doctor. This is extremely exciting as it will allow her to continue her tremendous work with our Center and she will be able to bill insurance for those services. This move will also benefit the Practitioners, since, it seems that they, too, will be able to bill insurance for their services. If this does happen, those that go through the arduous education and training to become Practitioners will be able to make it a paying profession. They will practice instead of leaving the practice.
My heart sings. Praise God and thank each of you again and again for all of the HOPE that you have always provided for us. Please continue to support us with your prayers and donations.
We are also asking prayers for one of our clients who is a young mother of six children and is fighting for her life because of a breast cancer diagnosis which has spread to her chest and bones. Her youngest child is not yet a year old.
We also are keeping in prayer three of our clients who suffered miscarriages in January.
We give great thanks for baby Savannah and baby Amilia who are home with their loving parents and thriving!
