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Alvaro and Veronica’s Story

One of the very first babies that was saved as a direct result of Passion Life’s work on the island of Cuba was a little boy named Matthew. Now, our first trip to Cuba was in November of 2016. Cuba, if you are not aware, has the highest abortion rate of all countries in the world with a population of 10 million people or more. They are the world’s leader in abortion. I noticed Alvero on my first day there. Alvaro was an 18 year old young man, very good looking and obviously a leader among his peers, his family was a part of the church where we were first teaching our training on our four questions, or our biblical training, on the value of human life while we were there. Alvero, as an 18 year old, was one of the vocal leaders on the worship team at the church. Now, there were not a lot of young people who came to that first conference that we did on abortion and the implications on abortion have on the way that Christians are to treat human life, including life in the womb. But because Alvero was on the worship team, which was leading songs throughout the entirety of the day that we were teaching, he stayed and he listened to the entire event.

We did not know it at the time, but Alvero had been dating another girl from the church. Her name was Veronica. They had been together for about a year and not too long after we left Cuba from that first trip and returned to the United States, Veronica discovered that she was pregnant. Veronica and Alvero were both in their teens at this time, and both of them had parents who were very prominent members of that church. In that community, which was a small island town where everybody knew everybody, everybody was in each other’s business. It was Veronica’s father who made the decree that this baby was going to be aborted. Veronica’s father had no intention of suffering the embarrassment of everyone in that town finding out that his daughter was pregnant outside of wedlock. So he resolved to deal with it quickly and quietly by arranging the abortion himself. But it was Alvero, the 18 year old father of the baby, never wavered in his moral clarity on understanding what was at stake. He was listening during the biblical training that Passion Life presented at his church just weeks before, and Alvero knew without any question that human rights begin at the moment of conception. He had been convinced by both the Bible and the science that proves life begins at conception. Therefore, human rights, human dignity, and human value also begin at conception.

Each human life is made in the image of God and has intrinsic, equal, exceptional, and eternal value from the earliest moments of pregnancy. Alvero had also become solidly convinced that the shedding of innocent blood, or what we call murder, is a preeminently offensive sin to God, specifically because it intentionally takes the life of an innocent human being created in God’s image. Murder provokes God to justifiable anger because allowing harm to any one of his created human beings is like an assault on the image of God himself or on God himself. So, in other words, we can not murder human beings nor can we stand idly by when harm is being inflicted on other human beings because they are made in the image of God. We have to do something to intervene in these situations.

In his words, Alvaro had become convinced that abortion is murder because it intentionally takes the life of an innocent member of the human family. A human being with inherent value, human life that was endowed by the Creator with an alienable, human rights, the first among which is the basic right to life. So it was Alvero who went to Veronica’s father. He confessed that he was wrong to be sleeping with his daughter out of wedlock. He took full responsibility for the fact that she was pregnant with his child and he informed the father that he would never approve of the abortion of this baby. He would do whatever it took to stand in the gap for the life of his son. And as a first step, he immediately proposed marriage to Veronica. Veronica accepted that marriage proposal. They were engaged and the two of them went immediately before the church to tell their story. They confessed that they had been wrong. Alvero, incidentally, resigned his position on the worship team that day. They asked the church to forgive them, restore them, and to support them as they entered into marriage and parenthood which the church did, with rejoicing. Nine months later, baby Matthew was born healthy and happy, and that was the first baby that was saved on the island of Cuba as a direct result of the Ministry of Passion Life in that nation.

Since then, hundreds of babies have been saved from abortion from one end of the island to the other with scores of volunteer leaders who have been trained and raised up to defend human life, teaching others to do the same. Not only that, but the stories of the Cuban people have gone around the world as the Cubans have stood up against the cultural tide of abortion in their nation. We, Passion Life, have been traveling around the world to dozens of other countries telling their stories. When we do that, the Christians in Kazakhstan, Vietnam, and Ethiopia stand up with one voice and they say, “God, make us like the Christians of Cuba, Christians who stand in the gap for the defense of human life at its most vulnerable stage.”

We are blessed to have been called by God to travel the world and to teach Christians about the biblical and moral implications that are involved in the issue of abortion. Just as Alvero and Veronica stood with moral clarity on this issue, we cannot continue to go nor can we continue to grow this ministry without people like you praying for us and giving to the work that we do. When a baby is saved, by people willing to take a stand to the glory of God, you will share in that victory celebration with us. We are no more significant in this ministry than you are for making it possible for us to go by praying and giving to the work. It takes you and us working together.

We are asking you to be a part of stories like those of Alvero’s and Veronica’s, go to the passionlife.org website right now and make a donation to keep sending us out. While you are there, sign up for the Passion Life Newsletter so that you can keep hearing the encouraging stories that are coming in from around the world of the impact that your gift is making.