A rural Texas pregnancy center discovered new uses for a mobile unit purchased three years ago, and now the team reaches hundreds of youths every year, helping them understand the truth of life.
The Open Door Pregnancy Center of Cisco, Texas, wasn’t having good client traffic with the mobile unit they purchased, so, the organization looked for new opportunities to use the vehicle.
“It really wasn’t working for us in this rural area we work in,” said center Director Shannon Thompson. “So, we began to adapt to make it work for us,”
“We really didn’t want to just give up on the mobile unit,” she said. “When God gives you something, He’s got a plan for it.”
Helping other centers and community moms
Thompson and her team began to brainstorm other options for using the mobile unit. Located 125 miles east of Dallas and 45 miles north of Tyler, Open Door serves several small communities, as do other rural Texas pregnancy centers. One idea, to help those other centers, took root.
“We began doing outreach to other pregnancy resource centers that didn’t have the capability to do ultrasound. We would be their ultrasound,” Thompson said. “We would go in and they’d have women already lined up … that began to light a fire.”
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The staff also reached out to various moms’ groups on Facebook.
“It triggered a lot of interest,” Thompson said.
This endeavor brought additional supporters to the ministry, and people began promoting Open Door’s services, she said.
Another idea for using the mobile unit sprouted: reach young people before they experience an unplanned pregnancy.
“We really wanted to be proactive and not reactive,” Thompson said. “If we’re really going to be effective in helping women understand they can choose life for their baby – and should choose life for their baby – we have to get to these folks before they’re in a crisis situation because they may not even make that phone call to come to a pregnancy resource center.”
Youth outreach
Thompson and her team envisioned “taking our mobile unit into the places where the young people are.”
An outreach to schools, church camps, and youth groups began. Starting with one school in 2020, Open Door staff and volunteers now reach students in nine counties with live ultrasound.
“We do live scans so they can see life in the womb and hear the heartbeat,” Thompson said. “It is amazing to see and hear how these young people, from junior high age through seniors in high school, react to that image and to the sound of that heartbeat.”
The youth also meet the volunteer upon whom the ultrasound is performed.
“It’s not just a video of an ultrasound,” Thompson said. “They (the students) make the connection of ‘This is Susie Jones, and she’s this many months pregnant, and we’re going to show you a picture of her baby today.’”
She believes these demonstrations make a strong impact.
“The whole time the nurse is doing the ultrasound, our mobile manager is explaining what they are seeing and what they’re hearing,” Thompson said. “We allow them to communicate and talk and ask questions about those things. It has become very, very powerful.”
Making end roads into the schools involved connecting with educators as well as administrators.
“Relationship, relationship, relationship,” Thompson said. “We partnered with the health, science and technology teachers – that was the best gateway we had to get in.”
After one school agreed to have Open Door make presentations and show the live ultrasounds, Thompson said other schools followed suit because the organization had a reference. The organization’s programs tie into education on the reproductive system, healthy pregnancy discussions, sex education, and presentations about the different technologies used in healthcare of pregnant women.
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There are several benefits to the outreach, Thompson said.
“We find by doing this we are helping young people understand the importance of abstinence and waiting until marriage,” she said. “And we are hoping that if they do find themselves in an unplanned pregnancy situation, that they remember the image they saw … and that they recognize that abortion is not the option that they want to choose for the living being inside of them.”
Additional benefits of mobile unit outreach
Church youth groups and Christian camps are other places Open Door uses the mobile unit. That outreach began last year. The mobile unit returns to a youth camp this summer.
“We decided we wanted to put on a pro-life Christian camp, and we used the mobile unit in that process,” Thompson said. “It was such a huge hit that the camp asked us to come back every year.”
Additional benefits are also evident.
“I see that we are dispelling the myth society is trying to cram into these kids that this baby is not a baby,” Thompson said. “We are being allowed to show them first-hand and in real time, truth, of a living human being in the womb with a heartbeat and really, already with a personality.”
“It helps young people recognize that the pro-life movement isn’t just about one person – it’s about a mother and a child,” she said.
Open Door hasn’t received any pushback from their presentations, she added.
“We teach the facts, and science backs the facts,” Thompson said.
Re-sale store grand opening
The center’s redirecting of the mobile unit is not the only success the center has seen of late.
Earlier this year Open Door launched a re-sale store. Thompson and her staff and volunteers recently hosted a grand opening which brought many people and produced significant sales. More than $1,000 worth of items sold that day, and representatives from two Chambers of Commerce attended the ceremony, Thompson said.
“It was one of the largest ribbon-cuttings and openings in this area,” she said. “We had a great turnout as far as people leaving donations as well as coming to shop.”
One of Open Door’s clients, employed as an intern, works in the store.
“One of the goals is to help clients gain job skills to be more employable and to provide better for their families,” Thompson said.
The store is open five days a week, Tuesday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and on Saturdays from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. The community and surrounding area have embraced the re-sale store and the ministry, Thompson said.
“Things are going very well. I think it’s beginning to be known as being open and having quality items for sale. It’s going great, and we’re super excited about it!” she said.
