Walk for Breast Cancer

Maggie was a volunteer counselor for Lois' Lodge for several years. Her husband, Brad was a pastor at Matthews United Methodist Church prior to the family moving to Boone. Since moving they have added a beautiful daughter to their family. Maggie will always be a special friend of the ministry of Lois' Lodge.

I'm doing it again! The Avon Walk for Breast Cancer is in Charlotte this year, October 21 & 22. My team and I will be walking a total of 39 miles over 2 days all around Charlotte in order to raise awareness and money to support breast cancer research, education, and treatment. All of us have been affected by breast cancer- in our own families and in our circle of friends. A new diagnosis of breast cancer is made every 3 seconds..... and imagine how many women (AND men!) don't even know they have it because of the lack of medical resources or awareness! Something you can easily do is save http://www.thebreastcancersite.org/ as one of your web favorites and visit it daily- just click and money is donated to provide free mammograms to women in need.

To learn more about our team's fundraising efforts- please visit http://www.teamtaboob.com/ on a regular basis as well as it will continually be updated with new events, information, and opportunities for you to be involved in this year's Avon Walk for Breast Cancer! You can connect to our team avon site through that website or to go directly to my fundraising site, visit http://info.avonfoundation.org/site/TR?px=1583168&pg=personal&fr_id=1281.

It's not too late to join the team- if you've ever even thought about walking, it is SO worth it! Each walker is required to raise a minimum of $1800 and it's an amazing weekend of walking with survivors, women still battling breast cancer, family and friends that have lost loved ones, and other men and women determined to help spread the word about breast cancer and fund finding a cure!

I walk in honor of my strong survivor mom, the women I know battling cancer now, friends I have lost to the disease, and so that my daughter never has to lose her mother or her own life to breast cancer.

~Maggie

Lifetime Movie

Girl, Positive This Monday on Lifetime On Monday, June 25 at 9pm ET/PT

Lifetime Television will air an original movie, Girl, Positive, starring Andrea Bowen (Desperate Housewives) and Jennie Garth (Beverly Hills 90210). Rachel is a typical high school senior when she tests positive for HIV and her world is turned upside down. As she copes with the news, she finds comfort and support from a substitute teacher who has secretly lived with HIV for years. But gossip, like disease, can spread quickly, and no one is immune to its effects. To learn more, visit LifetimeTV.com.

Best bet would be to record this movie and watch first before having your kids watch, just in case this delicate subject is not handled in a manner that supports your family's values. Watching the movie together as a family may generate some good discussion with your kids.

5 Things Parents Should Know

Preventing Teen Pregnancy: Five Things Parents Should Know

Parenting is one of life's most rewarding and challenging responsibilities. As parents make clear, however, helping young people navigate the passage to adulthood can be daunting. The good news is that research makes clear-and teens themselves underscore-that parents can do much to help. Here are five things that parents should know about how they can help their children avoid too-early pregnancy and parenthood.
1. You're more influential than you think. Teens continue to say that parents most influence their decisions about sex. Not the media. Not their friends. Not their boyfriend or girlfriend. Parents, however, mistakenly believe that peers and popular culture matter more. As teens frequently say, "we really care what you think, even if we don't always act like it."
2. Forget "the talk." Start talking with your kids about sex, love, and relationships when they're young and keep the conversation going as your kids get older. Realize also that simply talking with your teens about the risks of early sex without being more deeply involved in their lives and close to them is unlikely to decrease the risk of teen pregnancy.
3. Teens need you just as much as toddlers. Teens are not independent operators. New research on adolescent development makes clear that teens need guidance, supervision, and love just as much as toddlers do. Don't underestimate the great need that children of all ages feel for their parents' guidance, approval, and support.
4. Your teens are watching. Behave honorably in your own adult relationships. Children and teenagers observe what you do very carefully-action speaks louder than words.
5. Relationships matter. Teens who are close to their parents and feel supported by them are more likely to wait until they are older to begin having sex, have fewer sexual partners, and use contraception more consistently when they do become sexually active.

The National Campaign To Prevent Teen Pregnancy

1776 Massachusetts Ave., NW, Suite 200, Washington, DC 20036. ph: (202) 478-8500. fax: (202) 478-8588. email: campaign@teenpregnancy.org CFC #1976

Keynote Speaker Banquet

3rd Annual Fundraising Banquet

November 8th, 2007

Keynote Speaker

Sharon Jaynes

Sharon Jaynes in an international speaker at women's conference and the author of over ten books. Her book, Your Scars are Beautiful to God was nominated for the Retailer's Choice Award in 2007. Sharon's books have been translated into several languages and have a great impact in the Latino community. For ten years, Sharon served as Vice President and radio co-host of Proverbs 31 Ministries. She is the co- founder of

Girlfriends in God, a conference and on-online ministry, and is a popular guest on television and radio stations both home and abroad. Sharon has been married to Steve Jaynes for 26 years and they have one grown son, Steven.

To learn more about Sharon check out her website:

http://www.sharonjaynes.com/

Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters

BreakPoint Commentaries

By Mark Earley

'Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters'

Note: This commentary was delivered by Prison Fellowship President Mark Earley.

On Friday I discussed the sexual and spiritual wasteland where so many of our kids have ended up. And they don’t even know how they got there or how to get out. Today I want to talk about how parents—and especially dads—can combat that culture.
The truth is, contrary to what the media tells you, dads do matter.
As Dr. Meg Meeker puts it in her new book, Strong Fathers, Strong Daughters, “Most of you out there are good men . . . but you are good men who have been derided by a culture that does not care for you, that . . . has ridiculed your authority, denied your importance, and tried to fill you with confusion about your role. But I can tell you that fathers change lives, as my father changed mine.”

Well, Meeker is right.

Obviously dads are crucial to both their sons and their daughters, but Meeker focuses on daughters here. Like the journalist Laura Sessions Stepp, whom I mentioned on Friday, Meeker has seen a lot of girls stranded in the sexual wasteland. In her medical practice, Meeker has treated far too many of these young girls for sexually transmitted diseases, depression, eating disorders, and underage pregnancy.

And time and again, this doctor has found that the girls involved in damaging behaviors are the girls who don’t feel loved and valued by their fathers.

Fathers can ensure that their daughters grow up with healthy ideas about sexuality, Meeker writes. “If you as a father saw what I see every week in my medical practice, you would know what to do and you would succeed.”

You don’t have to be an expert on STDs, or anything else, to guide your daughter away from this wasteland. You just have to do your job as a dad. Talk to her, even when she doesn’t seem to be listening. Teach her about the God who loves her and made her. Set boundaries for her. Spend time with her. Listen to her. Maybe it doesn’t seem like a big deal to us, but you wouldn’t believe the difference it makes to them.

One 16-year-old girl told Meeker that, when on the verge of sleeping with her boyfriend, she saw a ring on her hand that her father had given her, and that alone caused her to stop.
And a father’s influence has that kind of power, not just when it comes to sexual values, but in all areas of life. One young woman in the book started taking drugs and ran away at 16. It was only her father’s patient, persistent reaching out to her that finally brought her back home and turned her life around.

Hang in there and keep doing your job, Meeker urges fathers, even when your lot seems thankless. And in this culture, where dads are ignored, mocked, and even told they’re not needed, a dad’s role is bound to seem thankless sometimes.

But for our families’ sakes, we can’t let that deter us. Plug your ears against the culture and remember this: You matter.

Your children may not tell you that now, but their lives will always be a reflection of your love and commitment. You can take that to the bank.

Reasons to Donate to Lois' Lodge

30 Reasons to donate to Lois’ Lodge

1. Lois’ Lodge is a life affirming ministry offering an alternative to the choice of abortion.


2. Lois’ Lodge is a ministry that believes that the sanctity of human life involves more than a decision not to abort but extends to a commitment to lovingly nurture and care for families.


3. Lois’ Lodge is a ministry that believes that demonstrating the love of Christ in practical ways, while seeking truth from God’s Word, offers the best hope of touching and transforming the lives of the families we serve.


4. Lois’ Lodge is a life-transforming ministry - stopping destructive cycles and turning hearts toward God.


5. Lois’ Lodge clients attend church weekly and participate in regular Bible Studies and devotions. They are provided with an opportunity to experience the Gospel of Jesus Christ.


6. Lois’ Lodge provides practical long term assistance in order to come alongside mothers to assure that their babies are well cared for during the prenatal and the postnatal period.


7. Lois’ Lodge is a residential setting that offers family style living in a safe and healthy environment.


8. Lois’ Lodge employs a houseparent couple to model a healthy Christian marriage and family.


9. Lois’ Lodge provides housing, food and healthcare in order to enable our clients to work and save for their future or to pursue educational and career opportunities.


10. Lois’ Lodge provides learning opportunities to help moms to prepare for the future for themselves and their baby. Subjects covered include household management skills, prenatal care and nutrition, childbirth, parenting, adoption, decision making, employment skills, financial planning and budgeting, personal goal setting and building healthy relationships.


11. Lois’ Lodge clients gain life-skills that equip them for successful reintegration into society.


12. Lois’ Lodge clients receive weekly counseling and information on both parenting and adoption options.


13. Lois’ Lodge desires for mothers to be able to make a knowledgeable decisions about the best opportunities for their child.


14. Lois’ Lodge does not encourage or suggest a particular option for parenting after the birth of the baby.


15. Lois’ Lodge believes that parenting oneself or having someone else parent their child through adoption is a personal decision.


16. Lois' Lodge promotes adoption as a positive and healthy choice in some circumstances.


17. Lois’ Lodge is not an adoption agency, however we will refer clients to adoption agencies for assistance.


18. Lois’ Lodge serves the whole network surrounding the client- pregnant moms, fathers, grandparents, support systems.


19. Lois’ Lodge interventions can have generational effects.


20. Lois' Lodge’s aftercare program provides clients with a residential opportunity beyond the maternity home.


21. Lois’ Lodge clients are from different cultures, ages, races and economic status.


22. Lois’ Lodge loves the “unlovable” -those society may sometimes shun.


23. Lois’ Lodge provides services at no cost to the client. Financial support from families is welcomed and appreciated.


24. Lois’ Lodge is an independent organization, not affiliated with any single church, organization or denomination.


25. Lois’ Lodge employs professional staff that participates in ongoing training processes to assure that our clients are served with excellence.


26. Lois’ Lodge is licensed by the State of North Carolina and maintains standards set forth by the state.


27. Lois’ Lodge does not compromise regarding our faith based mission statement.


28. Lois‘ Lodge participates in an annual audit process to assure that our financial systems are managed and operated with excellence, and that we are good stewards of God‘s provision.


29. Lois’ Lodge relies on the Lord's provision through His people to supply for all our needs.


30. Lois’ Lodge provides quality opportunities for community members to get involved in serving others.
    Lois’ Lodge volunteers are trained and supported by staff specifically designated to coordinate volunteer opportunities.