Announcing North Dakota's 2025 Annual Pro-Life Conference!
Please mark your calendars for Wed. January 22nd, 2025, and join us at 9am at the Heritage Center in Bismarck as we celebrate North Dakota’s annual Right-To-Life Day! We’ll have life-affirming messages from several speakers, a delicious lunch, and fellowship as we give thanks for God’s precious gift of life! You can purchase tickets for $25 here.
We’re excited to welcome Melissa Ohden as our keynote speaker this year. She is the Founder and Director of The Abortion Survivors Network, the only healing and advocacy organization for abortion survivors and their families. She will share her profound experiences as an abortion survivor.
Melissa Ohden is the survivor of a failed saline infusion abortion. Despite the initial concerns regarding Melissa’s future after surviving the attempt to end her life at approximately seven months gestation, she has not only survived but thrived. She is a Master’s level prepared Social Worker and the author of two books: You Carried Me: A Daughter’s Memoir and Abortion Survivors Break Their Silence. Melissa speaks at events around the world, inspiring audiences with her powerful life story, and she is a sought-after expert on abortion survivors.
We’ll also be privileged to hear from several other impactful speakers including:
Dr. Patti Giebink, MD, is an OB/GYN physician who has over 30 years’ experience delivering babies here and in hospitals overseas. While working in her private practice in Sioux Falls, SD, she began working part-time performing abortions at Planned Parenthood, the only abortion clinic in South Dakota. After shifting to full-time at Planned Parenthood she eventually left September 1997 and has not performed any abortions since. Her book, Unexpected Choice – An Abortion Doctor’s Journey To Pro-Life chronicles her career, and her transformation, and gives readers insight into both sides of this divisive issue.
*Bridget Turbide, Executive Director of North Dakota Right To Life
*Dr. David Tamisiea, Executive Director of North Dakota Catholic Conference
*Nadia Smetana, RN, BSN, Clinic Director at Dakota Hope Clinics
*Senator Janne Myrdal, Chair of the ND Legislative Pro-Life Caucus
Tickets will be $25 and can be purchased here or they can be purchased at a group rate by calling 701-355-6425. We hope to see you on Wed. January 22nd as we seek to reaffirm the dignity and value of every human being!
Legislative Organizational Session Highlights
The halls of the Capitol are relatively quiet today, but earlier this week it was quite different. The first three days of this week, excitement permeated the Capitol as legislators gathered to prepare for the 2025 session. North Dakota Family Alliance Legislative Action was right there with them, on the ground doing prep work before session started. It was a bit like returning to school after a long summer. Old friends reconnected, new friendships began, seats and tasks were assigned, and a foundation was laid for the important work that officially begins in January. One thing was quite obvious – we are blessed to have many strong Christian legislators and many nonprofit allies who will stand with us on critical issues relating to faith, family, and freedom.
We had the opportunity this week to discuss some upcoming legislation and strategize with our allies. Several significant topics will be on the agenda for us including human trafficking, life, school choice, pornography, and protecting our God-given freedoms. We participated in a Pro-Life Caucus meeting and are extremely thankful for the passionate support for life that exists within our North Dakota government. We’ll continue to fight for those precious lives who don’t yet have a voice themselves!
Finally, I’m happy to report that we plan to have three staff working as lobbyists at the Capitol and doing background research this session! With the addition of a third staff member, we can provide more support to legislators and increase our influence in defending your deeply held beliefs. Thank you for any financial support you may be able to contribute to underwrite our growing presence during the legislative session.
Please be in prayer for the upcoming session and our legislators. May we all glorify God in our legislative work, and always seek to do what is best for North Dakota.
Construction Paper Trees
Thanksgiving is here and it officially kicks off the holiday season. It’s a time of excitement, long “to do” lists, and family gatherings. I love Thanksgiving and the fact that it is front and center as we begin our holidays.
Many years ago, my wife proposed a “thankfulness tree” for our family. Call me a grinch, but I’m not a big fan of homemade construction paper decorations adorning our walls during the holidays or frankly any time of year. Nevertheless, the thankfulness tree idea was implemented, and I had to deal with it (this should provide a life lesson for all you husbands out there).
A construction paper tree was created and pinned to our kitchen wall. It was supplemented by a pile of multicolored leaves on which each of us needed to write things for which we were thankful and then pin them to the tree. I was more concerned about all the pinholes in the wall I’d have to spackle after Thanksgiving. Don’t get me wrong, I’m thankful for many things, but really wasn’t into the spirit of the whole thing.
Days went by and my wife and kids started populating the tree with leaves. They pinned up leaves that said “family”, “warm home”, “friends”, and many other wonderful things. I sat. I watched. I started to feel guilty.
It was a few days before Thanksgiving and I finally filled out my first leaf and pinned it to the tree. Do you know what happened next? A second leaf went up, then a third, and before I knew it, I was on a roll. Like the grinch, my heart began growing “three sizes” larger. I became happier with each new leaf and started to focus more on how blessed I and my family were. While still not a fan of construction paper art, I finally got it.
We are entering a season that focuses on thanking God for his blessings and sharing those with others. I have lots of ideas for leaves. I am thankful for Godly men and women who serve us in the state legislature and Congress. I am thankful for our Legislative Academy that helps train new legislators on how to best integrate their faith and values into their political life. I am thankful for a loving wife, amazing kids, and even our questionably useful dog Annie. They are the best family I could ever ask for.
However, this year I’m also going to pin a leaf up there for you, our ministry partners. You are the foundation of everything we do. You represent North Dakotans who value life, family, religious liberty, and other biblical values. You are the source of the “biblical citizenship” to which we often refer. You support NDFA in many ways: voting, prayers, responding to our Call to Action Alerts, and financial support. Thank you for all you do for us at NDFA, and we hope you have a wonderful Thanksgiving with friends and loved ones.
Parenting is crucial to family success!
NDFA always likes to highlight resources that can help strengthen families. Recently, we’ve had several of you reach out to us for recommendations about in-person parenting classes available in our state. These types of classes are difficult to find in ND, so our first Resource Highlight has information provided by RezilientKidz about their parenting program that is being successfully utilized in other states and could fill an important need right here in ND.*
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The Raising Highly Capable Kids Program
Raquel, a single mother of five, heard about the Raising Highly Capable Kids (RHCK) parenting program through her local rescue mission. She was taking the classes as part of her rehabilitation program. For Raquel, RHCK made a huge difference in her life. “This morning, I asked my 8-year-old son to get some water from the dispenser in the hallway. When I realized he wasn’t back, I got up to check on him. When I came into the hallway, I found him lying on the floor crying. I asked him, ‘Why are you crying and why are you on the floor?’ Without looking at me, he said in a fearful voice, ‘I spilled the water, and I know you will get so mad at me.’ For the first time in my life, I realized I had been too aggressive with my children. I sat on the floor with him and said, ‘It’s okay. It’s just water. I’m not mad, and I will help you clean it up.’ My son was shocked. ‘Mommy, you’ve changed,’ he said, ‘and I really like it.’ I’m genuinely thankful for the Raising Highly Capable Kids program because it has changed me forever. I want to be a better and more patient mother to all my children.”
RezilientKidz, an educational nonprofit founded in 2011, provides the Raising Highly Capable Kids curriculum to schools, churches, nonprofits, court systems, and any other group who wants to help parents get better at parenting. Based on the 40 Developmental Assets, RHCK is a 13-week, evidence based, parent engagement program that provides parents with the essential tools to nurture healthy, caring, and responsible children. Parents listen to presentations, hold discussions, and engage in activities to help them apply what they learn in their own homes.
First proposed by Search Institute, the 40 Developmental Assets include building blocks like support, empowerment, boundaries and expectations, wise use of time, positive identity, and a commitment to learning. Since 1958, Search has done research on more than 6 million children and each study finds that the more Assets a child has in their life, the stronger and more resilient they are. Through the RHCK course, parents add Assets into their own lives, and as a result, their children begin to emulate their behavior. This course has now been taken by more than 42,000 parents nationwide, helping them devise strategies for instilling these characteristics in their children.
Organizations can either purchase the training and materials through the RezilientKidz store or they can apply for a grant which covers the cost of training those who will facilitate the program and all the Leader and Participant Guides they need for free for the first 18 months. Results of the digital post-course survey find that 95% of participants say the RHCK course has strengthened their relationship with their children. They also consistently see increased GPAs in areas where it has been implemented.
If you want to help families in your community learn the skills they need to raise positive, strong, confident kids, please reach out to team@rezilientkidz.com, or for more information, visit rezilientkidz.com.
Here is a link to a brief testimonial –
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M5ojy405ISo
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We hope that the RHCK program can become another tool to help North Dakota parents strengthen their families!