Editor's note: The following is part of a series of articles highlighting pregnancy help legacies within families.
We never know how a seemingly trivial incident can lead us to where God intends us to be.
For Brenda Newport, agreeing to drive a young woman to a training program for a pregnancy center is how it all started.
She had no interest in pro-life issues, but the young woman's hesitation led to Brenda staying for the program, and that was the eye opener for her.
"I was a mother of four, but I didn't know anything about what they were talking about," Newport recalled.
She found herself offering to help out as a volunteer, and before long she was asked to be the assistant director of a pregnancy center in Erie, Pa.
It was a small storefront that had replaced a simple phone line answered by women at their homes.
Within a few weeks, she took over as director, and has remained with the growing Women's Care Center of Erie County for 35 years.
the Women’s Care Center pregnancy help ministry
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Meanwhile her kids at home were naturally learning the pro-life issue through dinner table chats, participating in walks and other pro-life events, and understanding the important work their mom was devoted to.
They experienced firsthand the love and support so crucial to young women in unplanned pregnancies when several of them lived with the Newport family. Son Randy Newport remembers giving up his bedroom a number of times for these guests.
Gradually Randy Newport’s own interest led him to use his social work degree to defend the unborn while supporting young mothers.
"God called me to help people and I knew He would provide," he said.
He is now the executive director of Women's Care Center, and his wife Kelly works with at the Center as well.
“She has been at the center for over 20 years,” Randy Newport said. “Her mom and grandparents actually ran a maternity home while she was growing up, she was part of the pro-life movement before we even met.”
In the early 90s, Brenda Newport, now the center's senior director of Ministry Services, was encouraged by a family court judge to start a licensed adoption agency.
Brenda Newport found that there was no mother-centered adoption agency around, with the typical adoption agency simply placing an available baby with the next waiting family.
She formed Adoption by Choice in 1993 with an emphasis on birth mother planning: choosing the family through plenty of information on potential adoptive families, deciding if there will be some contact with the child, etc.
To date, over 300 birth mothers and birth fathers have been helped with individual adoption plans. That's over 300 grateful families now raising those children.
Randy Newport emphasized trust in God in their family's pro-life endeavors.
"His blessing has been on the center ever since she (his mother) started faithfully working her heart out for Him. In all her time here at the center, she has always demonstrated the love of Christ to clients, to staff, to everyone,” he said. “She has displayed a faith that believes that God works all things out for our good and His glory. "
at Heartbeat's 2021 Annual Pregnancy Help Conference/Mark Chenoweth
Beth Diemert, Director of Affiliate Services for Heartbeat International, remarked upon Brenda Newport’s service when Brenda received both the Servant Leader award and the inaugural Pastor Andy Merritt Scholarship at Heartbeat's 2021 Annual Pregnancy Help Conference.
"As a colleague executive director in Western Pa., Brenda has always been a great example of a strong leader with a servant's heart,” Diemert said. “She has been brave, forging uncharted territory with bold faith and a "can do '' attitude, while loving and serving people, both practically and with eternal impact, always her top priority. Brenda is, and has been, a force to be reckoned with, all for God's kingdom and glory."
And now a third generation of the Newport family is carrying on the legacy.
Randy and Kelly Newport’s three children know and defend the issue at school and among friends and have even brought in clients in need of pregnancy help.
