From ProChoice Atheist to Pro-Life Christian - Vicky's Testimony

0:00 I Am Yours, I am yours, I am yours, s and me. Lord, I am welcome to Gospel Center pro life, the podcast where we talk about pro life issues in light of the Gospel. This episode we're going to talk with Vicki Cassi Org, who's the volunteer coordinator for cities for life. She can to share her testimony and how she got involved in the pro life movement. I felt show passish, touch your heart. Welcome to the Gospel Center pro life podcast and video. We appreciate all those who are watching and we'd shared in the previous video about what it means to be Gospel centered in pro life and kind of the ends and outs that mean. Vicky talked a little bit about that and right now we're going to talk about kind of our testimony and I really wanted to ask Vicki about her testimony and how she got involved in pro life ministry, because want you guys to understand where we come from. You know, we're people just like you. Have the struggles that you have and and, by God's grace, hold the convictions that many of you do, but we all arrive at those convictions at different places and from different places, and for different reasons, and so we wanted to share a little bit of our experience to help encourage you guys, and and so right off bad I'm just going to ask Vicki some questions about her her role within the pro life movement and then sort of how she got there.

1:27 So so how did well, first and foremost, what is your role within the pro life movement? What's your heart to to do? Kind of what has God called you to within the prolife movement? Okay, well, first and foremost, to be a sidewalk counselor to be out on their counseling mom speaking up for the unborn. I feel that I am God has clearly called me to do that. Secondly, more a specific role within cities for life is I'm the volunteer coordinator. So I helped to train the volunteers that are coming on board through we have a fairly extensive training process and we want to make sure that they feel enabled. Some of our folks have been doing this, like you, for a decade and so there's a lot of experience and you definitely can learn from the experience of others. So so I hope to train the volunteers, equip them, make sure that they have the materials that they need to be able to be effective. Make sure our side box are filled for as well as possible for the hours that that the abortion centers in Charlotte are open. Yeah, and so just for folks who don't know, who aren't familiar with what you know kind of what goes on here in Charlotte, and we speak from that perspective as sidewall counselors here in Charlotte, because that's where we're at and and that's what we involved in every day, is sidewall counseling here in Charlotte. There are three actually soon to be, unless unless something miraculous happens, for abortion centers, and Charlotte is an abortion destination

2:59 for a lot of the states here in the southeast and they do it the the main abortion clinic here in Charlotte somewhere, sometimes as many as fifty or sixty abortions a day, but on average twenty five to thirty abortions every day, six days a week. And so it's our heart to have a Christian presence there on those sidewalks every day the the doors are open, especially at that main abortion center. And so God, by His grace is raised up an army of volunteers, but it takes someone to manage that. It takes training. You don't just can't just throw people out there. I mean you can, but they won't be as effective as they possibly can be unless you put some of what you've learned into them. And I'll say, and I'll say it again, I've said it before, Vicky's probably one of the most skilled sidewalk counselors that I've ever met and it's very effective. And one of the things that we've discovered in training up volunteers and equipping volunteers is look at look at how we do it. By God's grace, we've learned a lot of stuff and kind of shadow what we're doing here and of course we're always open to learn stuff ourselves, but we feel like the Lord is given us a real good model for training and for implementing that training on the sidewalk.

4:01 And so people come and shadow Vicky and and we had this point. How many volunteers do we have within cities for life? And we've got, you know it, a hundred, probably, if not more. Actively on the sidewalk at least, probably fifty. But but I wanted to add something to you, to what we've already talked about a little bit, in that the God has called me to speak truth and and to speak it in love and so and I think that's that's part of being a gospel focused ministry, Pro Life Ministry, is we are called upon to peak speak truth. But as you kind of look through what how Jesus interacted with with those who were in sin, it's it's with truth and not with name calling or really very little anger. sear it's anger against the hypocrisy of the Pharisees. But but he has, he unabashedly shared the truth of God's word, but he always spoke with gentleness and love and and that's really a big part of why what I'm called to do, I'm very attracted to that that as a pro life model.

5:18 Yeah, I want people to come and interact with us and I I pray that their hearts are changed. I think it was you who said that if you can talk someone out of abortion, they can be talked back into abortion. So what we're doing, and my heart is that I'm not trying to talk anyone out of abortion. I'm trying to share the truth of WHO Christ is and that their heart will be, yeah, formed through that. Yeah, I remember one time you told me just a couple of it was probably maybe six months or a year ago, where you really had just come to the place where you your heart was not even or not even not just to go out and say babies, but it was like I feel called to come out here and share the Gospel. Yeah, like just to proclaim the gospel of these MOMS. It's an overwhelming and it was not something I ever recognized or realized was a gift or a calling prior to becoming a pro life counselor when I realized abortion will never change unless people's hearts are changed. And these people coming to an abortion center all need Jesus. Yeah, and and that is the answer to not only abortion but really to every question. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. The problem is sin, as we talked about last time, in the remedy is the gospel of Jesus Christ. So just want to ask you you based on your life experiences. You know, we have experiences in our past and we come to certain conclusions and we end up in

6:51 certain places in our lives, and God uses our past to really shape our future and to call us in certain ministries and to give us a burden for certain ministries and that sort of thing. So have you always been prolife? Is that always been your stance as far as the issue of abortion? Yeah, no, not at all. I was raised by parents, great parents, but they they were not spiritual and they didn't believe in God and and they were. My Dad was very conservative, my mom much more liberal. But I was raised during the time that Rov Wade was legalized and and society said this was okay, that abortion was okay. The books that I read in school, I remember one, I think I talked with you about that, I thought cider house rules by John Irving, which is as actually a very sympathetic look at an abortionist and at the the terrible so legal abortions.

7:53 That legal exactly. And so it was. It was really kind of trying to make the case for why abortion should be legal, because these women that the illegal abortionists saw, we're women and terrible circumstances and he truly believed he was serving mankind, he was doing a good thing. I did too. I read that book. John Irvin is a great writer, one of my favorites, and and I really thought, okay, I'm I I agree with this book. So so I was, you know, a product of the times, a product of the all the press at the time and still the the growing liberal press, that that a woman should have control over her body.

8:35 The science back then was nothing like I mean the science never changed, but the tools to look into the womb look at that babies development were much less advanced back in that time. So when they said it was the baby was a clump of cells, there wasn't really a whole lot of stuff out there to disprove that and I didn't bother, yeah, to discover anything else here. In that time when Rovyway long the time that Rov Wade was was handed down as a court decision, and even before that time, do you remember the debate, the the pro life pro choice debate? You remember that, like in the you know, as far as in the media? was there a lot of talk of that? You Remember? You know? Honestly, I do not. I'm but have a terrible memory there. But I'm sure there was. But I wasn't at all political. I didn't I read the comics. I don't think I read a lot of the newspaper, but I was an avid novel reader and that's why, which is actually fast forward to what I do now. I think that set the tone for I became a writer and all there. And I think part of that is because the novels that I was reading at that time were more pro choice. Yeah, and socalled pro choice. That John irvy novel really was and and that really influenced me. If someone pointed one put something in particular that swayed me to

10:09 believe abortion was okay, it was that novel. So I thought that's something that Christians, I think pro life, should pay attention to. We should not seed the culture to the liberal, demonic evil agenda. Yeah, we need to be seizing the arts back, and I'm an artist also, so that's that was very near and dear to my heart. And when I started writing I was determined that my books would always have God at the core and a pro life message. And Yeah, or yeah, so when you were younger with Tom how were you and pro life are when? Well, in seventy three movie way have been seventeen. Okay, seventeen, so you're been coming adult. I was right at the age where where that was intended to reach. Yeah, so do you do you recall was interested in this?

11:05 You recall in school having conversations people talking about abortion, talking about the issue of abortion. You call any conversations like they mean you were in you're in New York and everybody were Catholics, pretty much right. I mean, yeah, a lot of Catholics, a lot of lack of religion and honestly, I think there was a lot of cultural religion maybe, but nothing like the south. So, honestly, I don't remember. I don't remember discussions that. That doesn't mean that they didn't happen, but I remember just being very consumed with being a teenager. Yeah, and the struggles of being a teenager.

11:46 And, like I said, that one book, though, which I can't remember if it was an assigned re eating in one of my classes, it might have been, and that one book was my discussion that I recall. Okay, abortion, yeah, and so in your school, even you know, if there were women that had abortions in your high school, probably wouldn't have been talked about when the been a I don't remember. No, I don't remember a single discussion or any woman in my experience at all that I knew of. Yeah, had it that had had an abortion. Yeah, okay. And so up and coming, you know, coming into adulthood and and you know, having read the Cider House Rules Book and that being an influence to you, and your parents really never talked a whole lot about about abortions. So it wasn't like a huge topic or anything like that.

12:46 So it was always maybe like a default position, like, you know, pro choice. You know exactly, and know exactly. I was liberal, not like abortion is. That is a great thing, but it's you know, if you need a big deal, yeah, it wasn't a big deal. It was a clump of cells. I do remember that, thinking it was not a big deal. Yeah, and and so you know, and you'll probably be asking questions later on, but I'll just get into that. So when I was, you know, a very young adult with a pregnant sun planned pregnancy, didn't want did what I was not. I had big plans. One of the plans was I wanted to ride my bike across the country. But yeah, and I knew I could not do that with a baby. And so I and I was deathly ill. I had terrible morning sickness and I didn't want that baby and and I honestly, to tell you the truth, I don't think I thought twice. I didn't know the Lord as not a believer. It had never I don't recall anyone ever saying there was anything wrong with abortion. Yeah, they may have, and maybe I've blocked it, but I don't remember it. And it you know, I didn't want the baby. It's clump of cells. Anyway, it's making me really, really sick. So I had an abortion really without a moment thought yeah. And then following that, however, there was I didn't know the Lord for another decade, but during that that decade, I would have nightmares of ripping a puppy apart with my bare hands. And I was an animal lover. Funny, I was an animal lover that would never even step on

14:18 an aunt. Yeah, yet I didn't equate what I did to my own child as as wrong. So, and I think that that shows two things, the deception of the abortion movement and how it deceives women through the lies. It's why it's not a clump of cells, it's a living human being. But the deception of a heart that hasn't yielded. Yeah, Lord. So, Kenny, you kind of came from at least a nonreligious background. Your parents weren't religious and coming through high school, you kind of came to your own conclusions about the issue of abortion, right, at least you know from reading that that book. And then you've come you came to a place where you actually had an unplanned pregnancy, unplanned according to you, but of course we know the Lord's plans are not always our plans. Yeah, and yet in the midst of that, you chose to have an abortion. So you're at this point kind of yielding to the culture, what we would call the culture of death, right to maintain your life the way that you thought it should be. That's absolutely what happened. Yeah, what were the so that the decade or so after that, you said you weren't a believer yet and you were kind of continuing on the trajectory and maybe you had planned for yourself, and but still with some regrets, or at least you know, maybe subconscious, sub reconsious regret. I cannot say that in that decade I

15:48 regretted the abortion. My immediate response was just what the literature says, and which is one of the things that we need to know and guard against, because the pro choice socalled pro choice movement, will always throw this at us, that women don't regret the abortion and that statistics show, in fact, that they experience relief. Well, that's true. Based on my experience, my first response was relief. I wasn't throwing up anymore, first of all. Yeah, and and now I could go and bike across the country and I didn't have to worry about, you know, diapers, carrying diapers on my bike. So that is true, but that's the immediate response. At most of the pro life study, pro socalled pro choice studies that follow women following an abortion are not long term studies. There within the first five years I didn't recognize the severity of what I had didn't done. In those first five years I I was experiencing all kinds of terrible symptoms, bouts of crying, depression, desire to kill myself, physical problems and certainly emotional and definitely spiritual, but I had no idea it was connected to the abortion. Not till ten years later when I had a planned pregnancy my firstborn son, and and when, when he arrived and was born, my world changed. Yeah, I looked at that perfectly formed, incredible miracle of life and and was

17:22 like, what did I do? Because I think that's when it first really struck me I killed something like this miracle that I can't begin to explain how much loved him. So I was reading the Bible, not to really get to know God, but because I was a writer and Auth I had always loved writing from them from very young age and and was always taught that the best literature without the religious part of it, the best literature ever written, is the Bible. So I was reading it for the literary knowledge, but God got his hooks into me and and shortly after honder's my firstborn son was born, I came to the Lord. Yeah, and the first sin that I repented of before God was the abortion. That was the first thing that I recognized was the most grievous of all assault on God. Yeah, so would you say, would it be correct to say that you were pro life, or at least headed in that direction before or around the same time that you became a follower of Jesus? At the moment that I came to know the Lord, I think that everything changed. Yeah, everything changed for me.

18:41 I was not filled with knowledge. I did, I had read the Bible a lot, but it you know how they talked about how scales are fall from your eyes as as you grow in the Lord. That's what was happening with me. The Bible had been I was clueless what it was really saying until I came to the Lord. And and but was it was immediately revealed to me that abortion was wrong. So I would say at the moment of conversion, that was when I realized, how that I was pro life because God's pro life. Yeah, and and and that from that moment on I would not call myself an ardently pro life person. I still was not political, I didn't do anything to to help the pro life movement, but I knew in my own heart that abortion was terrible, yeah, a terrible wrong, a terrible sin. Yeah, yeah, I mean I think one of the things that happens, you know, when we're we're not connected to the Lord by being saved, we really don't see, you know, what's wrong, like what's wrong with me? I'm not there's not the wrong.

19:56 People are basically good. When we come to know the Lord, we look back and we see how, wow, I was really a monster. Really, that is so gracious and how he reveals that, because if he had revealed the full extent to now what I know about what a monster I was. Yeah, I think I would have killed myself right then and there. But he actually I think, I think it's C S Lewis that that, in one of his novels, describes that our sin is peeled back like the skin of an onion. Yeah, and he only reveals so much of WHO, yeah, truly are at a time, because none of us could see, if we saw ourselves the way God sees, the truth of who we are. I think at the moment that we come to the Lord, I do think none of us could bear it. I know I couldn't eat.

20:41 There are still even as he's still peeling back the onions, the skin with me, that I say, really, that was me and I'm horrified. Yeah. So, so it's a process. Yeah, you know, coming to the Lord. The first thing he did was say that was sin and then and then brought me, step by step to where I am. Yeah. Yeah, so, piggybacking on that statement, where you are now? Yeah, so you surrendered your life to Jesus when you when your first son, around the time when you're in your first right son was was born and you were pro life, or at least you know you agreed with what God's Word says, you see the value of human beings, that God would send his own son to die so that we could be rescued, we could be safe from our sins. So you're sort of like a lot of Christians, almost like the default position for lost people is pro choice. The default people position, for Christians maybe, is prolife. But that being the case, we know that there are a lot of Christians who claim at least pro life convictions that don't really carry those convictions through to what you would think is a natural conclusion, like every life should be protected, and I believe that God's Word is true about life. Therefore, I should go and do what the Bible says, which is speak for those who can't speak for themselves. So how did you get there? How did you get from, yeah, kind

22:12 of prolife in a nominal way to prolife in a an active way? Yeah, when I'm coming to an abortion clink, because that's crazy. Yeah, until you're saying this and I'm going through this whole story in a funny way, and I never really thought of this before. It was, again, a book that that brought me to where I am today, or a book that I wanted to write. So I homeschooled all of my children and and I was on a homeschool facebook group with Lisa Metsker, who is a second generation pro life champion. Her family has been in the pro life movement forever and and Lisa great homeschool or also with a large family, and she would post on this homeschool facebook group. I became a friend on facebook. I had never met her facetoface, but she would post about being out on the sidewalk here at latrobe and and all of these women who were coming for an abortion who would change their mind, and I was shocked. I thought for sure she was lying. Yeah, just trying to I just could not believe that this was happening. And she would talk about being there in the thunder hurricanes. I mean they were there no matter how wretched the weather was, and I thought this is a story, this is a I knew nothing about it. I was clueless. Again, you would think I you know, I'm not dumb. I don't know why I was so clueless. But so I contacted Lisa and said could I write your story? I'm an author.

23:41 I would like to write a book about Sidebook, a sidebotcount. So there could I be a fly on your wall and she said absolutely, that would be wonderful and the best way to do that would be to come to the training, the cities for life sidewalk training, and then go on the sidewalk and and see what happens out there. And and I said okay, but something in me just was terrified. I had not yet spoken of my own abortion to anyone. No one knew, and you know, that was forty years ago at that point, thirty five years ago, deep dark secret, still deep shame over it. I think I did have to fill out a volunteer form. I vaguely recall, and I think the question on it said have you ever had a I forget trauma associated with abortion, traumatic experience with abortion and the way that I was not going to outright lie, but I was not going to answer it. So I wrote well, I was raised during the time that rovy way was legalized, was passed, and and so I believed abortion was valid and a good choice and that's pretty traumatic now looking back. That's how I hedged the question and fortunately no one out will maybe not. Fortunately no one ever asked me. So I tried not to come to the training. I caught it, but ended up coming and sitting right in front of me was a deaf woman who had it an interpreter. Another fellow Sidewalk Council Rebecca, was interpreting for her and it was before the class

25:15 started. I had told Lisa I'll come to the class but I will not go in front of the abortion center. And the deaf woman signed and spoke. She could, she could actually speak very well even though she couldn't hear a sound. But she she said, how can I be of use because I can't hear what anyone saying? If I stop a car, if a woman comes to talk with me, and Rebecca said and signed, but also said because this woman could read lips. So she said, can you say please, don't kill your baby? And the deaf woman said yes, and then Rebecca said, than God will use you. And and I thought here am I, an able bodied woman who can hear and speak relatively okay, and and I'm terrified to just even go to the sidewalk to see what happens again, not even realizing my own self needed healing and that that was where that fear yes coming out of. So when she said that, I toldly saw I'll go to the sidewalk and I went and I asked a thousand questions.

26:32 I was traumatized, horrified. I could not believe when I saw all those women streaming into that place. I had no idea and and I saw. I stayed for I'd in fact, I was the last person to leave of the group and and pulled away to drive home and just started sobbing and couldn't stop crying so hard I couldn't see to drive and pulled over, cried for an hour and then called lease and said, what day do you need me? It was a Monday. was when they needed me. I'm still Mondays. It's still my favorite day to be out there and started that following week. Yeah, turing, I did write the book eventually, not about Lisa's life but about sidewalk counting and actually my first right, the forward to that, but didn't the singing in the darkness. Yeah, right, seeing it singing in the dark word and and you did write then the Ford of the forward and have and they have since written many, many novels about the pro life because that's what brought me full circle. Yeah, the Lord and to a recognition that abortion is one of the pivotal issues of the day in keeping people away from God and it as an example of the one of the most severe rebellions against God. Yeah, and so just with a few more minutes that we have left. How have so the Lord's obviously grown you in

28:07 so many ways. Yeah, from, you know, being a young lady who would yielded to abortion and then ultimately to a mom whose eyes are open by being a mom and come to the Lord and and then, you know, walking with God and then coming out to the sidewalk. Since you've started coming out, you started out as a volunteer on Mondays with cities for life, five years ago, right and a half. Yeah, and and now because we just like man, she's awesome and the Lord is using her in so many awesome ways. It's like man, you know, I told the the board of cities for life, like man, we should hire this lady, like we need her to train volunteers, because she can. She can train volunteers in a way that I just can't, you know, from a perspective of post aboard of woman, and also just very, very evangelistic.

28:59 You just have an evangelist call in so many ways. So how has the Lord grown you in your walk with him and those five years. And would you say that you know in those five years of being on the sidewalks that you've grown in ways that maybe you wouldn't have otherwise in the Lord? Yeah, there's just absolutely no doubt. I had never, I've never experienced the closeness to God, the sense of my purpose before God, the scent, the understanding of a calling. I did not know what that was, I really didn't. I thought it was a very faithful Christian. For those you know the past, I've been a Christian now for thirty years and I've only been out here for five and a half. I think I led maybe two people to the Lord in those thirty years and in the past five and a half I don't know how many lots. And and I I recognized that when when God calls us to do something, he first of all he equips us, he fully equips us to do whatever he's called us to do. But there is no greater joy than doing what God has called you to do, despite the fact that there is significant persecution. Yeah, on the sidewalk, sidewalk counselor's face some pretty big struggles. My whole world fell apart the year that I started sidewalk counseling and I think that is important that anyone considering that

30:30 would know Satan attacks, he hates, he hates the family and abortion is his his grown jewel. He you know, it destroys so many women, obviously, so many babies, so many families. So when, in the midst of all that persecution and all the attacks in every area of my life, including my health, I was diagnosed with bring a bring breast cancer, and and scary time and there were periods of great fear. But I will tell you there was a piece that surpasses understanding throughout that very difficult year and my happiest moments are on the side flock, because I knew God is you seeing me and and there is nothing like watching a life that was going to be destroyed make a one hundred and eighty turn from destruction and instead turn to God. Nothing, nothing compares, as you know, nothing. Nothing.

31:30 Yeah, here's with that. Yeah, it's you know, I liking it too, physical exercise. You know, it's a laborious thing to make your body do things it doesn't want to do. And the fact is, though, you're not going to your muscles aren't going to grow in ways that they need to grow unless you use them in ways that you don't normally use them. The same way. Within our spirit, you know, we have to push you know, like Paul says, the spirit is willing with the flesh is weak. Right, our flesh doesn't want to go out and share the Gospel, doesn't want to make itself uncomfortable, doesn't want to go out to the sidewalk, doesn't want to speak against things that are evil in our society. Our spirit does because it wants to do the will of God. So we have to exercise ourselves and we have to put ourselves out of our comfort zone. Yeah, and you know, I've I've seen you do that over the years and just seeing God, God use you in so many powerful ways.

32:24 But I know that it's you know from experience it's not us. It's not us that's doing the stuff, it's the Lord and we're just making ourselves available, we're just laying our bodies, as the Bible says in Romans Chapter Twelve, the living sacrifice whole in acceptable to the Lord. We put that sacrifice on the altar in the Lord, with his holy fire, comes and consumes that sacrifice and then gives us grace to give a better and more significant sacrifice. Yeah, but it starts and just those initial steps of faith when you agree and that submission of your will, and then the Holy Spirit when I see when I share the Gospel with people and I say and then the Holy Spirit when you proclaim Jesus is Lord and submit your life to him.

33:06 Here's the wonderful thing. The Holy Spirit enters and in dwells you and and that is something. If I were to name one thing that's changed the most in me since being on the sidewalk, is that recognition that I am and dwelt by the Holy Spirit and nothing that happens on that sidebook is me. Yeah, it's the Holy Spirit using me and it's a privilege and an honor to be used by him, but it's God working through me and it it's amazing. Yeah, yeah, I appreciate you sharing and appreciate you know all that the the Lord, is doing through you and all that the Lord has done in you, and we want to encourage those who are watching and those who are listening. We had to just make ourselves available to the Lord and we present ourselves a sacrifice to the Lord and the Lord will use anyone who will say, you know what, Lord, here I am, send me.

34:01 And we have in this nation a big battle to fight, and all the battle that we have to fight is not a natural battle. You know, our enemies are not flesh and blood, like the Bible says, but principalities, and so there's a spiritual battle that we're to fighting. Christians, we're called to this battle. We're also equipped to fight this battle and as in our first podcast, as we talked about, this is not a political issue, this is not just a Democrat Republican issue or whatever. This is a spiritual issue. This is a gospel issue. If you're a believer, God has equipped you by changing your life, first and foremost by the power of the Holy Spirit through the Gospel, and if you'll just make yourself available, whatever that means, that sidewalk counseling is at working at a pregnancy center?

34:49 Is that with politics, because politics certainly can do some things. Can God use you in that way maybe to spur some some folks who are not doing right, and I'm in a political realm, to do right? Whatever the Lord in your church, you know, God's calling you to to speak to your pastor, encourage him to talk about the issue of abortion, to speak to Sunday schools, whatever the Lord's calling you to to protect the lives of the unborn. He's equipped you by changing your heart through the power of the Gospel. So step out in faith and we want to continue to encourage you. So we're going to continue to be putting out podcast and putting out videos to encourage you guys, and certainly engage with any of the the podcast or videos. You can send me an email. DPARKS AT CITIES FOR LIFECOM, cities in the number four and lifecom. You can email Vicky at vcasti Org. Spell that real quick. A Seo Arg Yep, Vicki Costi Orsa v cost. You work at cities for Lifecom and we'd love to talk with you. We'd love to just encourage you. We also have a has one ministry that's design really to help people nationally who are not local here in Charlotte but are around the country and even around the world. Want to get involved with sidewalk counseling. You can go to www dot sidewalks for life. That sidewalks the number four and lifecom, and that's an equipping website that will help equip you to get involved on the sidewalks at your local abortion center, and that's just a resource that we've created for that purpose. So the Lord bless you, guys, appreciate you watch and appreciate you listening and and be blessed

36:21 as you stand for life, for love. Give me our loft for gratitude. I know it will cost me my love. Nothing's too precious in some