Lord for them. Cindy, if you would begin, if you would tell us a little bit about the work you do with Safe Families Maine. Sure. I'm glad to have a chance to talk about Safe Families, and for once, I'm not asking for money, so I'm glad about that. Safe Families for Children has a really good website, so I would encourage you to get more information from that. A lot of what I'm going to say is from the website. Safe Families for Children is a family preservation movement motivated by radical hospitality, gracious generosity, and intentional compassion to keep families safe and to keep children safe and families together. We bring church and community together by mobilizing volunteers to advocate for vulnerable children and socially isolated families. We want to help struggling families before child abuse and neglect occur. This ministry began in 2002 in Chicago and since then has supported 15,000 families with 50,000 hostings over that period of time. There are Safe Families chapters in the U.S., the U.K., Canada, and now Hong Kong. Safe Families for Children keeps families together. Forced removal of children from their families and homes and placement in foster care is very traumatic and disruptive. Research shows that children who grow up in their own families have better outcomes in terms of a sense of identity, educational attainment, overall stability, and employment. The three objectives of Safe Families for Children are to keep children safe during a family crisis, in an effort to prevent child abuse or neglect, to support and stabilize families in crisis by surrounding them with a caring, compassionate community. and to reunite families and reduce the number of children entering the welfare system. We seek to be an alternative to foster care when that's appropriate. Some of the causes of crises include homelessness, unemployment, hospitalization of a parent, domestic violence, incarceration, and substance abuse. And as you can well imagine, this is only a partial list. You never know what somebody might, the circumstances that might arise, and you get a phone call about it. Safe Families helps in two main ways. The first is hosting children in our homes while the family stabilizes and providing supportive relationships similar to an extended family member for people. So sometimes you could look at a family friend as a grandparent or an aunt, close friend, something like that. Safe Families is a movement of the church with an emphasis on biblical hospitality or loving the stranger. This ministry is volunteer-driven and professionally supported. I'm going to share a few of the volunteer roles that are directly involved with the people being served. Host families are folks who take children into their homes to care for them while the parents address their crisis. Family friends connect with a parent or child to provide friendship and support. And I just want to elaborate a little on that one. When you're a host family, having one or two family friends that can help you buy meals, helping to take care of the kids, or transportation can make or break the host family's ability to say, yes, we can do this. That's a really crucial role. Family coaches come alongside families to help them reach their goals, monitor the children while they're in the volunteer's homes, and support host families and friends. And there's another category called resource friends, and they support families by helping with material needs or goods or services. And to be a volunteer, there is an application process, and depending on the role you want to volunteer in, there's training, background checks, and things of that nature. The training is done online, can be done online. I think it's available monthly now perhaps, but it is a lot more fun and enjoyable if you can get it in person. I thought it might be helpful to talk through what happens when we get a call on our intake line. And usually the intake line is answered by a first responder who is a trained volunteer. Peggy does that, and Adrienne White does that, and I do that once a day a week. Calls can come either from a parent or from an agency. And at that point, we gather basic information about the situation, the parent, the children, or if the parent or whoever we're talking to prefers, we can email them the forms and they can fill them out. And at that point, our intake coordinator contacts the parent and also might contact agencies or providers to get more information, to try to get a better picture. Sometimes she has to really dig to get out the true facts of the situation. At that point, if the needs are something that Safe Family can meet, She will put out a call for volunteers in the struggling families geographic area. And if there's nobody there that can help, it can go out to a wider radius. Safe Families works on a model called a circle of support. So at the center of the circle of support is the host family and the struggling family. And the host family is supported by a family friend that I just talked about. The parent in crisis is also offered a family friend to support them and to encourage them. And family coaches, they support both the host family and the placing family. They are trained to function a little bit like a case manager, and they ensure that the kids are well cared for and doing well while they're being hosted. Having their children hosted is completely voluntary on the part of the placing family. They can request to have their kids back at any time. There's no transfer of custody, anything like that. And parents are also encouraged to stay in contact with their kids while they're with the host family. And that's something that's worked out, an agreeable situation for both the host family and the placing family. A desire is that ongoing relationships will be formed with volunteers and parents, leading to opportunities to show the love of Christ and the gospel to impact hurting families. And while I was struggling over this, I was also reading Becoming Whole. It's co-written by Kelly and another man, and this quote really seemed very appropriate for this situation. All of us stand before God as the weak, the needy, the broken, the hurting. So we stand before one another, not in arrogant judgment, but as sinful humans all dependent upon the grace of God. All of this liberates us to love others well. I think Safe Family is a really wonderful and practical way to help people in need. And the organization is already there. So that's a great advantage. I feel fairly well supported by the people above me and the organization as a whole. It's challenged some of my assumptions and opened my eyes to the needs of others. We've enjoyed hosting children in our home and supporting moms. Lots of them didn't turn out to be long-term relationships. Currently, I'm family friends with a mom who it's been a joy to see her moving forward in her life, and it's a privilege to encourage her. It actually feels more like just a normal friendship now, not, you know, me necessarily being the one with all the answers. It's been a really good experience. As to challenges and frustrations, In the personal realm, it's been difficult to see parents make the same destructive choices more than once. It's frustrating when it seems like you are making a good connection, and then that just falls to the wayside. Maybe the parent wasn't really interested in a relationship, or they move away, or they just stop communicating. And, of course, it's emotionally taxing to hear the stories and bear with the pain of other people, but God does give us strength and grace for that. Without his grace, I wouldn't even be looking outside myself to do this. In a broader sense, from what I've observed as a first responder, so that gives me kind of a bigger picture of what's going on in the state. The frustrations of that are having a situation where, say, families has the scope to help, it's within our scope, but there's no volunteers. And also hearing very painful stories and terrible circumstances that are beyond safe families' ability to step in. Another hard thing is seeing a lot of time and effort spent to get help for the family. It's incredible sometimes the amount of time, but then they change their mind. And also a lot of time sometimes is spent trying to communicate. trying and trying with no response back from the person who called. On the positive side, even when hosting or a relationship doesn't actually develop, the struggling parent has had a sympathetic ear and maybe an encouraging suggestion for help from our intake coordinator, and we do pray for the people that call. In closing, I'd like to just touch a little bit on Safe Families in Maine and in our local area. Safe Families has been in Maine for about 10 years now. There are a few active volunteers. Safe Families is small but growing. in the southern part of the state, a couple in the Bethel area, mid-coast area, Waterville, and the greater Bangor area. Our state director is Robin Chamberlain, who lives in Whiting, Maine, and she came from Chicago. She was actually one of the founding people for Safe Families for Children. We do have an intake coordinator, and we've recently hired Barb Pinkham, who lives in Dedham, All three of the paid positions are part-time. And there's also a leadership council comprised of people from around the whole state. The chapter is stronger, I believe, than it was a year ago. And the calls are picking up at volume. So, prayerfully, the ability to help will continue to grow, too. And I'm done. Sure, yeah, I'd love to. Good morning. I'd like to thank Cindy, Russell, and the church, and all of you for coming today. I really appreciate that. Again, my name is William. My wife Stephanie and I have been the pastors of the Salvation Army here in Bangor for just over the last year, as we had mentioned. During some of the things I'm going to tell you, you might hear some strange terminology. So I'll give you a little bit of history about the Salvation Army. We have been a church since 1865. We were founded in London by William Booth. And while founding the Salvation Army, he needed a structure and said, well, why should we reinvent the wheel when the military has a great structure? So when I mention major or a lieutenant or a captain, these are the ranks that we're given. But we are the pastors, administrators of the church where we are located. So Bangor is the Bangor Citadel Corps. And so you might hear a few things like that. And I wanted you to understand that that's part of our history. The Salvation Army currently is located in over 130 countries around the world. And that's just a snippet if you ever want to know more about the Salvation Army. Stephanie has been part of the Salvation Army since she was eight years old, and she introduced me to the Salvation Army when we got married. Bangor itself has been a church, Salvation Army Church, since March of 1883, which surprised me when I went and looked and found that out. We have church services from 11 to 12, and we're also online. Some of our main ministries, what I call our anchor ministries in the Corps, are food security. Now, I am under no illusion that we are the food security of Bangor. There are a lot of organizations out there that assist the community in food security. We currently have a Dorothy Day Soup Kitchen, which runs five days a week currently, and we serve lunch. We also have a food pantry, which provides food to anyone who walks in the door under no restrictions. We wish to start back up. What we have is our emergency canteen. Our emergency canteen is an ambulance style canteen that goes out into the community. And before the pandemic, that would go out to some certain locations where we knew people were hanging out that may have missed a meal or under circumstances don't feel they were available to get a meal. So we provide that. So we're looking forward to that happening again. Some of the other services we provide are the basics, which you'll find around the Salvation Army. Each Salvation Army Corps might be a little bit different in the services they're able to provide, but the basis, we have utility and rent. We also try to fill niches, because we understand that there are a lot of different community services out there, a lot of agencies, and we might all be able to do some utilities or do some, What we want to do is try to find that thing that everyone doesn't necessarily get a grant for or find money for. So though we have a list of things that we provide, I make sure that our social service worker knows that we can do just about anything if someone asks. And it's not just in the Bangor area. I will try not to step on another corps' toes, like if somebody comes from Augusta, I'll say go to the Augusta Corps Church and ask for, but if you're in Maine, we're going to try to help if we can. So we're not, we're not just the Bangor area, though don't tell Portland that. I've had struggles with that before when we were stationed in Waterville. What are you doing helping them? Because they asked. So we also have Camp Sebago, which someone mentioned earlier. We try to send kids to Camp Sebago. This past year was a little unique. We usually have three sessions, a teen session, a music session, and a regular session that kids can go to and pick from whatever kind of experience they want. So we try to send kids to camp once a year through that. That is unique to the area because there are so many corps and what we call service units throughout the state that assist in locations where a corps might not be located. Kids go from all over Maine to go to Camp Sebago. As we're coming into the Christmas season, I think it's late enough in November, I can say that now, we also provide Thanksgiving and Christmas. Now, when I say that, this year, again, it will be takeout. Our soup kitchen for lunch turned into a takeout service just before I, well, actually it was just before I got there, during this pandemic. And to accommodate that, we took one of the windows in the church, and turned it into a takeout window with a slider. So we'll be doing that again for Thanksgiving and for Christmas, doing takeout meals. But that's one of the things that's a challenge right now, is we're not doing face-to-face. And that is our ministry, is face-to-face, connecting with people, learning what we can do for them, and how we can be a help and a ministry to them every day. So that's been a struggle. It comes in both sides of the aisle because a lot of volunteers don't want to come and volunteer still because they're afraid of, we each have individual fears. So that's been a struggle for Thanksgiving, for Christmas, for the soup kitchen. The core itself, the church, used to be full of volunteers every day. There was, they're telling me, five people to eight people in there doing something in the building, assisting with the ministry. And we really miss that, and we're hoping that that'll come back around. That's been a challenge. Again, the ministry to each other, the community, the connections that we make as family, as Christians, to help carry each other and to bring people into the fold. We also have our Coats for Kids, which, gratefully, this year has been going fantastic. We had a lot of coats left over, and we're burning through them, which I'm happy to say that we're not going to have leftover coats. So that's fun. Now, we do all of this ministry with a staff of four people. year-round, three of them full-time and the fourth full-time just for Christmas. So again, the volunteers, the people who come in from other agencies and from services. Just the other day we had a couple of gentlemen come in from a shelter and do some phenomenal work for us and we appreciate them very much. The kitchen is run not only by our facilities manager, soup kitchen supervisor, but by the volunteer groups. The church comes in once a month here and helps, and we're grateful for that. And we're always trying to grow that. That, of course, is the most important thing, again, is the need for community. We learn that every day in church. We are a community and a fellowship and a support for each other. Another ministry we have at the Bangor core is we have two thrift stores. We have one in Newport and one in Bangor. And the mission of those stores is to support the core, not just by helping people to get clothing or furniture if they were in a fire, but also to support financially back to the church to support all of the ministries that we have located there. I guess that's that's our core ministry right now. I would like to try to again expand our outreach through our canteen and reach those who don't feel comfortable even without the pandemic going to a location for any reason whether it's a social service or food. So in January we will continue to re-establish that ministry. Hopefully the catalytic converter won't get stolen for a third time and it'll still be available, but yeah. We've taken extreme measures to put a cage around it so they can't get to it this time. So, but yeah, that's the salvation in a nutshell. And if you have any questions, always available. For a few minutes after here, because I've got to go back to Winslow. And my wife and I currently are doing hospice care for our father-in-law. So we've been living with him for the last two and a half years. And I just commute up every day, and that's not a problem. But I'll need to get home after this. But don't feel shy to contact me at any time and ask any questions you'd want. I'm always available and willing. Do you have some examples of recently successes in ministry or your past? I'm talking in terms of seeing the fruit of the work and the desire and passion that you try to work with an individual or a group of people, but then also kind of frustrations maybe as well in the work? Well, we've started up a program that's been established for a little while with the Salvation Army called POH, and it's a It's a program that we bring a family in who wishes to come and join this program, where we help them start from where they are. And the goal is to reach what society calls, what we'll call society norm. You know, maybe a job and a place to live. Whatever it takes to get them from where they are to where they feel they need to be. And we just finished our first family. Not a very good example because they did everything perfect and met every single goal ahead of time. And it was a great success for them. And now one of the things we helped them with was we fixed their car so that they could continue to make it to their job. And now we're helping them find housing so that, again, we can consider them back in the norm, hopefully what they consider their past norm too. And we're trying to continue that program and grow that program. It's not a function just of Bangor, but of the Salvation Army at large. So it's not just restricted to what Bangor can do, because we run this through our Portland headquarters. But it's been a great success as it started off. And we're looking for families that could fit into that program, looking for So feel free, if you know somebody, to contact our social worker and see if they'll fit. We're only going to take one more family for Christmas. But after that, I'm expecting that to grow quickly. And we're looking forward to that, because it did such a great thing for the one family we just started with. So that's our POH program. Thank you. Terry? Good morning again, and thank you for this opportunity to share about what God's doing in my life and others surrounding the mansion church. I think I'll talk a little bit about how did the mansion church come about, and then talk about the outreaches that we have, and then talk about what we're doing inside the church. Back in the year 2000, the Lord got ahold of me. And I was born again at Herman Baptist Church. And I was at Herman Baptist Church for 13 years. Did a lot of ministry there, Evangelical Explosion was a part of that. We started a jail ministry there, started a prison ministry there. and what we felt called to plant a church in Bangor to help those who were incarcerated and give them a place to go to study the word and to worship because we didn't see many that would get saved in the jail or the prison, and then going to the church itself. And they had their reasons why, so we just felt very strongly about planting a church in Bangor. So that was 2013, we planted a church. We called it the Mansion Church. One of the reasons were we moved seven times in the city of Bangor. First place we went was at the Isaac Farah Mansion at the YWCA. And we just rented a room there to start a Bible study. I can remember the first night that we had a Bible study, nobody showed up, not even the guy to open up the door for us. But we shared some testimonies, and my brother was there, and we sang some songs on the porch. And then next week, we went back on a Sunday evening, and there was two people. So then from there, we've moved around, like I said, and then in 2017, Crosspoint Church, Pastor Jerry Mick had contacted me and wanted to talk to me about the ministry. And so I had lunch with him, and I thought maybe they wanted to support us somehow, financially, prayerfully, but they actually wanted to take us on as an outreach ministry from them. So we're a part of Crosspoint Church, and we're so blessed because of that. A little while after that, a lot of people remember this building. It's our church now on 96th Center Street, but it was a church originally built in 1912, and it became a flower shop for 30 years. But God gave us that building. It's all paid for. The funds all came in. To fix it up, we put over $120,000 in the building. And we did some things in the building to help the homeless or those who have addictions and things like that. So outreaches that we do at the mansion, we have a ministry at Maine State Prison. We've been down there for about 12 years now. No volunteers are going into the prison right currently because of COVID, but we do do correspondence now, more letter writing to those who are incarcerated. We also have a ministry at Penobscot County Jail, been there since 2005. I can remember when God called me to that ministry, you know what I said? No. I learned not to say no to the Lord. So I've been there since 2005 and became the chaplain at the jail four years ago. I never would have thought that at all. So through those outreaches there, we do street ministry, a lot of evangelism on the street. We preach on the street. We take meals out on the street. We meet the homeless where they're at. We know where most of them are. We'll give them sleeping bags, tents, whatever they need. to help them on the outreaches that we do. We also have a outreach from the church once a month. We just started four months ago going into the community with food, food baskets. We go out and buy food baskets and knock on doors. And a lot of the comments, probably the most common is why are you doing this? tell them that God loves them, we love them, and anything else that we can do for you, mow your lawn. I know there's another lady that we're mowing her lawn since, not now, but we have all summer long for her, that was one of her needs. Or we may help someone do a painting project, or build something, but whatever we can do to show that God loves them, and to get them to believe in God. And through that outreach, a few have come to the church. We also have, in the church, We help the homeless. That's probably the biggest ministry that we do is to help the homeless. So back when COVID hit, last, it's been a while now, right? March of 2019, no, 2020, the Main Street Shelter shut down their warming center. And a few of us prayed about that, saying, now where are they going to go now to stay warm? So we went to the city of Bangor to ask their blessing to see if we could open the building up as a warming center. And within an hour, we were approved. So God's in it. So the difficult part, that was the first three months we did that, was that we could only have 10 people. I'd have 30 to 35 people in the parking lot wanting to come in. So we had to do a triage type thing, like the elderly, anybody over 55, anybody had health problems, we would bring those in for the night. So we did that for three months when COVID first hit. Took the summer off as a warming center, and then we felt again last winter to open up the building again as a warming center. So we did it all winter long. We let them come in at 6. They are fed a hot meal. Every night we have a shower in the church, that they can take a shower. We have two wash machines, two dryers hooked up in the basement, so they can do their laundry while they're actually sleeping or whatever in the church. We have opportunities to minister to them while they're there at the warming shelter. We do Bible studies. We do prayer with them. We have a movie night, like on a Friday night. Last winter we had anywhere between 10 and 30 people on the floor of our church to stay warm. And it's a very humble experience to look out and to see so many laying on the floors and they're just there to stay warm. I know I get a little emotional sometimes about that, but I think we have to show compassion to everyone. So we're going to open it up again, November 15th. So be praying for that. Some needs that we have, you could pray about that. Pillows, blankets, sleeping bags. If you want to bring a hot meal in, love to have that. Or food. Clothing, we have another ministry. Our basement is full of clothes to give away. We give it all away. We have food that we give away. We have some really great resources. When Pastor Mick would get up in front of the church and say the mansion needs clothes, I got to get ready because it's going to be a storm of people coming with clothes. But we're so blessed to be connected with them, to be able to do that. We also have two church services on Sunday. We have Wednesday, two o'clock, we have Ladies Bible Study. Wednesday night, we have Prayer Meeting. Thursday, we have COED Bible Study. Friday nights, we have Men's Fellowship Bible Study. Saturdays is when we do the outreach. So we got a lot of stuff going on. We're actually doing more ministry because of COVID. Praise the Lord for that, right? So then, I want to maybe share some success stories in the ministry. Three of my deacons all met through the ministry, all addicts, past addicts. Two out of the three got saved at the church. Two out of the three got baptized at the church. To me, that warms my heart to see how God uses the ministry to bring those people in. And these are godly men. These men know more about the scriptures than I do. All three of them are very, very smart guys. And God has brought them into the ministry to help us. We do have a lot of volunteers that help from other churches even, Crosspoint. They send some people down. We have always done a meal every Sunday night after the church service, something we've done from day one. Actually, we did a meal way back. when God planted the church. So we're a new church. We haven't been around as long as the Salvation Army, but maybe we will be other mansions. We've actually been talking about maybe planting another Bible study in the Pittsfield area. Two of my deacons actually live in Pittsfield. So they've been trying to get a Bible study going there. And hopefully or prayerfully, we could do some more mansions. It's a challenging ministry, working with the homeless, the addicts, the drunkards, But it's really, really rewarding when you see people give their life to Christ and to see them grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. I always say I'm the most blessed man on the planet, and I still say that. And why did God choose me? I have no idea. But all I know is I'm available. I remember an evangelist coming to Herman Baptist years ago, and he said, all we gotta do is be available to the Lord, and he'll use you. So I can always use help, never turn away help. So if anything that you wanna talk to me about that, I'm on Facebook, we have a webpage, we're not too far from here. If you wanna be involved or pray for us, please, please come and be a part of this so important ministry. We work well with the police department, state police, the sheriff's department to bring people in. I might get a call at two in the morning. Do you have room for this person that's homeless? And we'll take them in. And now we don't have the restrictions on the 10, so that's even better, right? So thank you very much for this opportunity. Thank you, Terry. My name is Bruce Boyd. When Russ called me and asked me to come and speak in the middle of this last week, I wondered, here I am, one individual, I don't have an organization behind me. I've got years of experience here in the community in contacting and being with people. And I tried to find my place here on this stand. I say, I'm you. I deal with people. You deal with people. There used to be an old adage, I don't know if it's true or not, but someone coming to the Lord usually had come in contact with seven believers before they make a decision for Christ. Is that still a standard generally? And by understanding and being available and realize that the contact you have with an individual, you look at that individual and there's a soul behind that individual. You may be put off by the fact they have long hair or tattoos or this type of thing, but behind them there's a soul that reaches and desires God. And if that person sees something different in your life, that's one contact. It's interesting, when I joined the police department shortly after I was sent out to Capehart to be the community resource officer, way back before there were resource officers, back in the mid-70s. It gave me an opportunity to get out of the police department on Court Street and get out in the community and look back. I learned an awful lot about the people living in the public housing section because I worked with the school and I worked with the people in that community. What an eye-opener. And I tried to tell the guys I was working with, they said, why are you working out there? Anytime someone got arrested in Bangor, the only part of the city that said so-and-so was arrested for burglary, he's from Capehart. They would never use any other part of the city, only that. And when I was out there, I took the Bangor Daily News to task for that. You'll see that they don't do that anymore. Because there was a stigma that was put on people for living out there. Another revelation I had, and I'm going to promote a book, Tattoos on the Heart by Greg Boyle. He's dealing with the gangs in Los Angeles. His ministry has grown. He has taken them to the White House. He has industries going. You know what I learned in this book, and I have used it just the other day. Tattoos used to turn me off because of the generation I grew up in. Tattoos were connected with jail, connected with gangs, and this type of thing. There's a whole new culture in that. And the person who's wearing a tattoo wants to say something. And in this book, I realize it's okay to say, what's that story on your arm? Last night, a lady came to bail her husband out. And I said, that's an attractive tattoo. What's the story about it? And she perked right up. And she told me, and I have one over here. She had the story to tell me. And that's why they put it out there to tell you, you're breaking down barriers. They shouldn't be barriers to keep you away, but barriers are a way to reach and look at that individual and be praying before you say it. Don't say it every time you see someone with a tattoo. You have to establish a little bit of communication there. But I have them for a period of time in a little cubicle at the county jail. I set the bail for them to get out. We are not bail bondsmen. Those of you from out of state, the horror stories of bail bondsmen, we are pretty country folk here. And the horror stories you hear out there don't happen here. But I have an opportunity to set the bail, but also, especially on domestics, I require them to have a friend there. And that friend, because they can't go home, takes them to their home. And it gives them a chance to talk. I talk to them like a Dutch uncle, if any of you know what a Dutch uncle is. And really drive home the point of the danger that they're in, now that they're being held accountable for a domestic violation or a violation of law. And it's really interesting to see the connections. I'm very thankful for the years that I've been on this department, because I realize that I know a lot of people, and a lot of people know me. One kid from Cape Heart was bailing out and he said, Officer Boyd, you're as old as dirt. What are you doing here? And I said, yes, Billy. And I'm glad he felt he could say that. People have a desire to express and to talk about maybe a previous connection with you or something of this nature. Take advantage of it. The contacts are important. I can't say enough. that I am but one individual. This is the way I deal with my work, and that's the way I've always dealt my job as a police officer and also in the Air Guard, is the fact that I go up the steps of that jail, and I know that except by the grace of God, there go I. The usher in my wedding went from state police blue to orange within 24 hours. There is no temptation taking us, but just common demand. Be aware of that. You're not above it. And you need to understand whatever the fall is that person's gone through. And I talk with fathers, and they come to get their son. You've made mistakes in your life, haven't you? He said, yeah, but I don't tell my son. I said, there's come a time you've got to tell your son. We all go through making mistakes in this world. And it's by the grace of God. that I'm there and every one of you are there to share a part of your life, either in one of these organizations or where you live, work, and you have your being. Thank you. It's been very good. Thank you all for coming and sharing. It's just a little snippet, but we've got a real sense of you and the investment that you put into people. You've given us just a little taste, a little snapshot of a lifetime of giving yourselves to ministering to folks here in Bangor. I want to thank you all for your service. I have a minute. Somebody asked me earlier if they could speak. Peggy, are you okay to just, we've got a couple of minutes. You could tell us a little bit about, if you wouldn't mind. So Peggy is one of the, on the board of First Step, and there's one part of their ministry that she wanted to specifically speak about. Yes. Thank you. I appreciate your letting me tag along here. I know that most of you may know about First Step Pregnancy Resource Center, but if you don't, I wanted to make sure that you did today, because we have a vital role in this community for the poor. and not just the poor. But we do have services. We're right down the street. We have many services. All of our services are free. We're a Christian organization. We're a non-profit. And some of the major things that we do, I guess you could say, would be ultrasound for pregnancy confirmation. We are a pro-life organization. We're not afraid to tell you that, but we also are very careful that when people come to the center and have an ultrasound, that we are not doing it so that we can talk them out of an abortion. We want to present all of their options, and frankly, most women, when they see that, and it's not just women, it's their partners as well, when they see that heartbeat, over 70% nationwide, the statistics are, they change their mind if they're abortion-minded. To see that happen over and over again and to realize then that we get the opportunity to stand with them, to support them through a pregnancy, to reaffirm that not only is that a baby and a child, but it's a blessing. And oftentimes they may not be able to parent, but we can help them to go through the adoption process. We also have Just a couple of years ago, we started a new program. We offer free sexual transmitted disease testing and treatment. And that is having a huge impact for people here in our community who don't have money. I've talked with the people out at the Bangor Center, the public health clinic, and they charge money. They turn people away. And we want to not only serve these people, help them to understand that their lifestyle may be dangerous, but we also present the gospel. So I just wanted you to know that we're there. If you don't know about us, I've got information about us that I can give you today. I love what Mr. Boyd said about how many of us say that very thing, there go but I, because especially those of us who grew up through the 70s and the 60s, when abortion was really just thriving in our community, there were many of us, I think, who may have been there, but because of God's grace, weren't there. So please consider us if you want to volunteer and make a difference in the lives of women and men and children. We also offer pre-parenting classes, and we have several other services. But I don't want to take up a lot more time here. I understand that I'm just kind of pushing the limit here. But thank you for letting me speak. Thanks. Our next session starts at 11.30, so we've only got like five minutes or so, so let's have just a stretch of the legs break, move around the building a little bit, and then we'll start again about 11.30. Thank you again, everybody. Thank you.