New clinic takes a stand for life

At last year’s IBSA Annual Meeting, Denny Hydrick announced Baptist Children’s Home and Family Services was planning and praying toward a new ministry endeavor—a pregnancy resource clinic. “We believe this is a vital need and a public way to express God’s value of human life,” Hydrick said then, committing to messengers that BCHFS would stand its ground on issues of life.

“I said those words to you not knowing what 2020 was going to bring,” Hydrick said in Decatur. But despite the year’s challenges, BCHFS launched GraceHaven pregnancy resource clinic to offer testing, ultrasounds, and prenatal and parenting education. The mission is to provide resources that allow clients to choose life for their unborn children. In Illinois, Hydrick said, 116 pregnancies are terminated every day.

In his annual report, Hydrick noted BCHFS’s other ministries have also made pivots to continue to serve people in need. The agency served 1,130 people during the year through maternity care, residential services, counseling, and adoption.

Angels’ Cove Maternity Center, BCHFS’s long-standing ministry to pregnant women and their children, had to close for a few weeks earlier in the year. But the facility is open again and offering services tailored to each client, including a place to live for those who need it, prenatal care, parental education, counseling, and family care. And one Angels’ Cove client came to know Christ in 2020, Hydrick said. The agency’s Faith Adoptions service is continuing to grow, striving to place children with loving, Christian parents across the region. Since March, BCHFS has worked with five birth moms, three of whom placed their children for adoption through the agency.

Pathways Counseling had to make one of the most significant shifts, Hydrick said, pivoting to a telehealth service so counselors in 13 locations across the state can continue to offer counseling to their clients.

At the Children’s Home in Carmi, BCHFS offers residential care for teens with behavioral challenges, often interceding before legal or state involvement becomes necessary. In 2020, Children’s Home staff had to quickly shift to a homeschooling model for their residents after schools shut down due to COVID-19.

“Because we’ve been spending a lot of extra time with our kids,” Hydrick said, “we’ve seen five salvations to date from that ministry.”

BCHFS made another pivot for the annual Fall Festival, which was canceled because of the pandemic. The annual quilt auction, a popular fundraiser for the agency, went online in 2020, with even more quilts up for auction.

Throughout his report, Hydrick thanked Illinois Baptists for supporting BCHFS for more than 100 years. “It’s worth celebrating that you as Illinois Baptists give above and beyond to support a ministry that is literally saving and changing futures, and impacting generations.”

Messengers to the meeting in Decatur approved a 2021 budget of $3,877,015. BCHFS Board of Trustees officers are Chair Ron Daniels, Belle Rive Missionary Baptist Church; Vice Chair Jacob Gray, Ten Mile Missionary Baptist Church, McLeansboro; and Secretary Wes Hahn, Shiloh Baptist Church, Bridgeport.