Beth Moore program gives boost to Highland Lakes Pregnancy Center

DANIEL CLIFTON • PICAYUNE EDITOR

BURNET — Highland Lakes women can enjoy a motivational and inspirational day with Beth Moore on Sept. 14, all while helping a group of women facing unknown futures.

Hill Country Fellowship Church, 200 Houston Clinton Drive, is hosting the Beth Moore Living Proof Live simulcast 8 a.m.-3:15 p.m. The cost is $20 per person with proceeds going to the Highland Lakes Pregnancy Resource Center in Kingsland.

The center provides peer counseling, pregnancy testing, material assistance, educational information and community referrals.

“Last year, Hill Country Fellowship sponsored the event and donated the funds to us,” said Joan Blalock of the pregnancy center. “We had about 600 women last year, but we’re hoping for more this year.”

Moore is an internationally known Christian speaker and author. She conducts Living Proof Live programs across the country and around the world. She’ll actually be in Charleston, W.Va., on Sept. 14, but, thanks to technology, Highland Lakes women only need to drive to Burnet to enjoy the day-long seminar and program.

“She’s a very exciting storyteller,” Blalock said. “She puts on a dynamic presentation. Even though it goes all day, she does such a tremendous job that you don’t even realize you’ve been there the whole time. It’s a great women’s retreat.”

Travis Cottrell, the worship pastor for Englewood Baptist Church in Jackson, Tenn., will join Moore as the worship leader for the program.

Blalock said the actual topic of Moore’s program isn’t usually revealed until the event. But, Blalock added, it’s always something from which women can learn and be inspired.

The pregnancy center, 226 Nob Hill in Kingsland, serves as a place women with questions about pregnancy can go for answers and support. Often, the women, and even girls, head to the center because they have no place else to go.

“They come in with all sorts of circumstances,” Blalock said. “Some are single. Some have husbands. We try to provide emotional support for them no matter what their circumstances.”

The center’s peer counselors help the women with those circumstances. Blalock said it sometimes means assisting them with the adoption process or setting up Medicaid and the WIC (Women, Infants and Children) supplemental nutrition program.

The resource center offered sonogram services up until recently when the equipment broke. Blalock said women often will come in contemplating termination of an unborn child (the HLPRC doesn’t offer abortion services) but, upon seeing the sonograms, change their minds.

“Oh, that happens a lot,” she said. “So replacing our sonogram machine is important.”

In other cases, center counselors and staff try to connect women with other community resources for further assistance.

“Let’s say a young woman is thrown out of her home because she’s pregnant — and that happens,” Blalock said. “We’ll try to get them into a (center) that will give them a place to live and help them get back on their feet.”

Everything is confidential, she added.

The goal of the center is just to help and love each woman who walks through the doors.

“It’s a really, really loving atmosphere,” Blalock said. “We’ll take anybody. We don’t care where they’re from. It’s a very rewarding ministry and very much needed.”

Go to http://hlpregnancycenter.org for more information on the center and its services.

Tickets for the Beth Moore simulcast can be purchased at the Hill Country Fellowship Church; the Highland Lakes Pregnancy Center; Calvary’s Road Christian Books, 510 U.S. 281 in Marble Falls; and Fuel Coffee House, 106 E. Main St. in Llano.

daniel@thepicayune.com