Hear TLC director Jennifer Simpson as she joins host Pastor David Schultz to discuss the changing structure -- and name -- of TLC. Because the needs of the community have changed to include single moms up to their mid-20s, TEEN LIFE CENTER has changed its name to TWO LIVES CHANGED, reflecting the services provided to both mom and baby through crisis pregnancies. Regardless of the change in name and focus, providing both material and spiritual support through the love of Jesus Christ are still the primary roles of TLC.

The following program is sponsored by evangelical life

Ministries. Welcome to engaging truth, the manifestation of God's word and the lives of people around us. Join us each week. As we explore the impact of his message of spiritual renewal from the lesson of forgiveness forwards in the crucible of divorce, to the message of salvation by an executioner, from a condemned killer to the gift of freedom found in the rescue of victims of human trafficking. This is God's truth in action.

Welcome to engaging truth. This is your host, Dave Schultz for this evening particular program. And we have a guest, uh, with us tonight who has been with us before, because she has a precious message, um, to especially young women. And so I welcome her to the mic again, Jennifer, welcome.

Thank you for having me,

Jennifer. I understand that your organization, which used to be called teen live sitter has been changed. What in the world is it now?

Yes, I know everyone knew us as teen life center and more importantly, TLC, and we just went and changed everything all for good reason though. Teen life center is still, um, a very important part of what we do. It's one of our programs now, but we did change the name above the program to two lives changed. And the reason for this change is because during COVID we saw a need for so much more, so many more people to help. And we knew that if we just kept the name teen life center, it limited who we helped. So when we opened our group home and we knew we were gonna house older women, we thought teen life center doesn't really catch that. So we came up with two lives change, and we're very excited that it still represents TLC. So we have the same logo, but I think it's really fitting because two lives changed also suggest that we help two people at once, which is exactly what we do. Mom and baby.

We're going to talk about three things today or three things initially is a lot more that we can talk about, but what can we learn from Jennifer Simpson about FA her own personal family?

And I thought, once again, there's no way this ministry will survive my personal struggles with another child, a surprise. And also just losing my mom, who was my, my mom. Nobody could replace her, of course. But once again, God just showed me that community is very powerful and it just helped me realize how powerful community can be and helped me in the ministry realize that sometimes your biggest support is not your family. It's your friends, it's the people that care. It's your church, it's your neighbors. And so I think that God walked with me through my own struggles to help me help other people. So now I have four children, um, married, homeschooled, homeschooled, um, yes, people ask me all the time, how in the world do you do that? And I say, I block my schedule very well. I homeschool in the morning and I work in the afternoon and evenings, but I also have an incredible husband. I've been married for almost 18 years and I could not do what I do without the help of my husband. He has been very supportive. He's very much in the background of this ministry, but he is my rock.

Tell us a little bit about, well, as much as you want to do about, um, two lives change center, what do you do? How do you help people?

Well, a lot of people don't understand what we do because we're a very unique program. So my favorite way to explain what we do is this, if you think of the concept of alcoholics anonymous and a crisis pregnancy center, if those two programs got married and had a child, it would be TLC would be the name of the baby. So we're very much like the platform of AA, where we have weekly support meetings, where there's a, a community of support available for our clients. They meet every once a week and they get the support they need. We serve clients much more like a crisis pregnancy center, people in need, people going through, um, you know, the struggle of getting pregnant when they don't feel like they're ready to parent and having to make some hard choices. So I, I feel like we pull from both programs very well.

So our, our support centers, we have five of them right now. They meet weekly one night, a week. The house of course, houses adults 18 to 30. And of course they live there. So it's, it's open all the time for them. So that's basically, we're, we're just, I, the BA I can describe it is a community of support. We are unique in that. We don't have a set curriculum and check check box system where certain things have to happen. But clearly we have, we have certain focus areas. We focus in on that we're very intentional about, but most importantly, we build community and really relationship. And we share God because we believe that the only way their life is gonna get any better or make any changes through the help of Jesus Christ.

I know being a pastor that not everyone accepts that message. And of course you come across girls who accept what you do and they cherish what you do, but this message of Jesus just doesn't resonate with him, but you planted the seed. That's the big thing. You never know how the holy Spirit's gonna work. And I I've heard, like you probably have heard it goes 20, 30 years before that seed that you plant takes root. And I guess that's your prayer, is it not?

Yes. And I, I was thinking about that the other day. I'm like, that is really bittersweet that it could take that long, but then it's really quite amazing that even after that long, you can see your hard work at play. And it maybe that, you know, you only meet somebody a few times and talk about Jesus and never see them again. And then go to find out, you know, a decade later, what they're doing with their life. And you're like, Hey, maybe what I said, kind of, you know, was sat in the back of their mind. So it kind of motivates me that one, I'm not completely in charge. Thank God that it's not all on shoulders to turn them to God. I may just be the seed planter. I may just be the waterer. I may be the weed puller. And that, that frees me up to know that I just may have a small part in this life, but it also motivates me that that small part can turn into a pretty big part in their future.

Let's say a woman, a young woman finds that the relationship that she has had, um, uncomfortable probably, but she did it and she has a baby that's coming along. How does she find you? Um, who does she ask? Um, she has another option and that is abortion.

Yeah. You

Know, so how does she find

You? So the, they definitely have a choice and, and if they choose life, then we are there to help them. So basically we are found three different ways. One, we find girls in the school outside of a pandemic. We usually are in the schools visiting the teen moms. So that's one way we find them the second way we find people's word of mouth. Once you've helped, they're usually pretty eager to share what you do with others. There's bonding between women who are pregnant, much like there's bonding with anybody going through something tough where you wanna find others in your similar situation. So a lot of times these girls will be connected. Um, just with other people that are pregnant or connected virtually like online in a social media platform, one where they're in a group of young moms. So just word of mouth is big. And then social media, I mean, we can't deny the world we live in today. We're just very connected over the internet. And so, you know, we have different ways of reaching the girls. And so we'll sometimes just find girls right on the internet.

There comes a time when, uh, you have to be tough with what you say, and there are girls probably that, um, you ultimately can't take simply because of the fact there are conditions that probably does a, a great deal to breaking your heart. You know, is there a situation that you can discuss comfortably where your heart has been broken by something that you've tried so hard to, to bring closer to Christ, but it didn't happen? Well,

We, we had this girl a few years ago and we, we take our, our girls have been been with us a while and they're promoted through levels, um, which is a promotion. It's an exciting time. And this girl was at the top of our level. And we were looking at actually employing her. And we, we took our girls out on a retreat and there was a video that circulated that, um, marijuana was being smoked on our retreat. And they signed a paper saying that, you know, we don't stand for drugs and alcohol abuse and we don't. And so I, I had to bring that up to her and my heart broke. I mean, this is a girl who I loved and who worked really hard for me and the other girls really loved her, but no girl is bigger than this organization and rules are rules.

And she's a role model for the other girls with the position she held. And when she's choosing to do that at a TLC event, then the hard things have to be said, and she denied everything. And she ended up turning everything around to make the ministry look bad for a while. And it was really, really hard because I knew in my heart of hearts, that I was doing the right thing and I was following God and his commands, but it didn't make it any easier sitting there and telling that girl that she was not no longer in the position that she held. She was welcome at TLC as long as she was clean, but she was an adult. And if that the way she chose to live her life and she needed to do so outside of our organization,

What a story, I mean, what a heartbreaking story, but, uh, I know that you're prepared for that simply because the fact that your eyes are fixed upon Jesus and your eyes are fixed upon Jesus instructions whose disciples, and you didn't say this is gonna be a cake walk. Yeah. He didn't say the people that you share the word with, they're always gonna say, oh, wonderful disciples. They're gonna walk away. And I think of John chapter six, where the disciples came back to Jesus one day and they said, boy, this is what you just told is awful hard to hear. And then John records and many of his disciples walked with him no more, right. It is hard work. And, um, but yet Peter said, but where can we go? You alone have the word to eternal life. Tell me a story that brings special joy to your life. Uh, um, something that, um, um, it just never leaves your mind because of what has happened in that situation.

There's probably a lot of stories I could tell, but one of the most recent ones, and it's just, cuz I got to visit it again. Last night is during COVID when we sort of lost our way of how to do ministry. Like I think a lot of other people cuz you can't really open your buildings. We were all scared of the virus. We didn't know what to expect. We came up with this idea. We could do ministry over car through the car window. So we were still gonna give 'em the diapers and the wipes that they so very much needed. But also we were gonna pray for them. We were gonna do it a little different than a lot of organizations and actually pray for them. And so we started doing this in Rosenberg at the time, which was a brand new area of support for us.

And there was a young mom that would come every week to get diapers. And every week her prayer request would be the same for hope. She would just say hope and I never her, why do you need hope or what's wrong? I never tried to teach her how to have hope. I just said I will pray and we would stop. And I would pray for her to have hope. And over the course of about six weeks, I saw her little lighter every week, a little smiler, a little happier. And I just, I thought maybe because she know us a little bit better or her prayers are working or whatever. I don't know. But in August we finally opened up to having meetings out there. We had our first meeting in the grass of an elementary school, six feet apart. And we just did our very best not to make anybody freaked out with a virus, but we definitely wanted to get back to meetings.

And that young girl came her boyfriend and her baby. And she was very quiet and timid, but we got to know her a little bit better. And we found out that she, her baby was about six months old and that she had dropped outta high school because she had suffered from a miscarriage and it was hard. And I think she was just in a low part of her life with a pandemic. And she hadn't graduated from high school when she wasn't really sure what the future held and we just loved her through it. And she kept coming to our meetings. And do you know what that girl did? She got herself back in high school. She did some research to figure out how she could get back into high school. She finished virtually. She just now finished. She will be walking the stage, think Friday, unless it's raining.

She told me Saturday, last night we celebrated her. We celebrated her graduation. And I just thought, man, God was at work through a car window during a pandemic in a community. I did not really even know existed two years prior. And it just, it warms my heart. We promoted her to junior sister and she's gonna help us in the summer, hand out more diapers to bless more people in the summer. And I thought, what a great way to meet somebody in the middle of a pandemic that would actually bless my life. She's got such a sweet spirit. She's such a good mom. It's amazing.

So life isn't hope so life isn't isn't uh, well maybe it's gonna happen. We have confidence, you know, in the, I go back to the new Testament in that word of hope. It's really translated confidence that God will do what he promises and what, what you've done is planted through the prayers that you've offered for her, the confidence that God will do for her, what he's done for you. And for so many others, a follow up question with that one would be tell me, um, are there girls that all of a sudden when they complete what you are able to do with them there, uh, some of them just walk away and say, thank you and blow a kiss and that's it. But there are some probably that you look at and see, well, these girls could stay. We could use them. Yeah. Uh, how do you evaluate that?

Well, I think I lean on the holy spirit a lot because I don't know it. Some girls just stand out that, you know, what, they would be good to work for us. And basically what it comes down to is do they have compassion for others? Do they have a good work ethic? You know, are they coming to the meetings and a helpful, a lot of people think that people in need want to handout. And that's probably true for some people, but 13 years of ministry has taught me that a lot of times people need a hand, but they wanna turn around and be a helping hand to somebody else. And so you see some of the girls come in and, and yeah, they do need help, but they're also like, can I help? Can I help you clean up? Can I help you get the diapers? Can I, you know, whatever, can I help you hand out diapers? Can I, can I write the prayers for you? Whatever they, they see us doing, some girls will just be willing to help. And those are the kind of people I wanna work with.

Do you ever see parents of these girls come back to you and say, Jennifer, I just wanna say, thank you. We didn't know what to do. And all of a sudden you appear your organization appears.

What about that? Absolutely. I think that when we help a young girl, I like to think of it like a hub and spoke that she's very connected to a lot of people. And, and sometimes those people will come back and say, we are so thankful. We found you when a mom and a grandmother essentially find out that a young girl is pregnant. It crashes their world. They they're worried of judgment. They're worried of the, the young mom's future. They don't know what else to do with this information, but you know what as time goes by, they start to accept that they're is a new family member coming and there's yes, there is something they could do about it, but they're not going to do something about it. They're going to welcome that baby into this family. And as the nine months go on that information kind of settles down in their heart. And it actually will, a lot of times change the relationship between the mom and daughter for the positive. And we just kind of love them through all of that time. And we see that change. And I think that, although I don't know that we did a whole lot during that time. I think they're thankful that they just had somewhere to go during that time that wasn't going to judge them. Wasn't going to tell them how to do things. Just show them the love that Jesus tells us to show.

And when that happens, you show the love of Jesus. It catches on sometimes somewhere and again in ministry. When I first began so many years ago, uh, just you wanna be successful. You, you wanna accomplish something. Then you settle in after years of realizing it's not you. The you're just a messenger. The, the holy spirit is the one who creates, uh, and sustains the faith that you have planted in someone's life. I wanna get back to a couple questions for you, Jennifer, that, uh, kind of are lodged in my mind. Um, first of all, how can someone support what you do? What is your website and how can they support what you do? I know through prayer, that'd be one thing. Yeah. But how about physical support?

Well, you know, with five areas of support and a group home and a new area of support popping up, we need volunteers. We, we need committed individuals that will give us two nights a month to come into our support center and love on these girls. And you'd think that that's not a big time commitment. It's really not. But you know, with the pandemic and everyone kind of changing the way they do life, we're, we're finding that we need more help than we have in, in the recent past. So that's one way, another way is financially helping us. If you are financially blessed and you're able to give, you know, it, it costs us $1,200 a month to house one girl in her child, in our group home, oh, that's a lot of money. But look at the life change we're creating. I mean, there's so much success already in the four months we've been housing them.

It, it is just amazing. So that's definitely financial support is, is needed. And we have, we have a lot of expansion plans and we need people to walk alongside us and tell us their commitment to our organization and to the lives of these children and these moms that they're gonna support us. So the best way to get connected to us, to figure out how to take the next step with us would be our website, which is www dot two lives, change, tx.org. And the two is spelled out T w O L I V E S C H a N G E D tx.org. Or we're very active on Facebook. You can just search two lives change, and you'll find us there. If you're looking to help more of the group home, you can also search on Facebook Chrysalis, but you can also go to our website and find information there,

Jennifer, there, there are times when, um, you're deep in thought about the few future and about the, the particular women that God has a line to come into into your present into two lives center. Um, there's a girl out there probably willing as she hears your voice today to say, I need to be in contact with her. Talk to her a little bit about what she's experiencing, what you've experienced by helping others and tell her how to be in contact with you,

Man, if I could reach you this microphone and give that young girl a hug and tell her that it's gonna be okay, I wish I could do that, but I can't. But if you hear my voice and you feel like you need some help because you found yourself an unplanned pregnancy, no matter your age, as long as you're under the age of 30, 13 to 30, we are here to help you. We will build a community of support or on you. Any dream that you have, we will work our very hardest to help you get started on that. And of course, we'll help provide the ne necessities that you'll have with a baby, with diapers and wipes and a car seat and anything you may need, but much bigger than that. We will be able to give you the things that you need with Christ through the prayers of hope, the prayers of things, getting better only Jesus can fix certain things. We're just his hands and feet. We're just the vessels. All you have to do is come. It's only gonna be awkward for a few seconds, cuz you won't know anybody, but I promise by the end of our first meeting, you will be glad you can

Look around the corner with me a little bit. What does Jennifer see for the future of the two lives changed?

Man? I see big things. I'm super excited. I'm I'm just trying to follow God's footsteps. But what I see in the future and probably in the next seven years, you will see a community built somewhere around Houston. It will be called the Chrysalis community. It will be a multi-purpose center that will do so much for young people. It will house single moms, pregnant moms, married couples in various capacities. It will have G E D classes is it will have counseling. It will have all kinds of mental, physical, spiritual health available. And I believe it's going to have something that's going to allow us to disciple people to work in ministry full-time ministry. I just feel that call on my life. You know, I grew up and I, I wasn't sure what I was gonna to be, but I knew that I'd be a teacher for a short time. And, and I knew it was for a short time. I just didn't know what followed. And I now know that I didn't know that because God knew. And so here I am as a ministry leader and I know there's other people that could do the same work that I do if not better than me, but I feel like I owe it to give them a platform to do so. So we've big plans. You gotta stick with us cuz they're gonna come true.

Tell us again how people can contact you through your website.

Absolutely. The website again is www.twoliveschangedtx.org, T w O L I V E S C H a N G E D. tx.org or two lives changed on Facebook.

Jennifer, I wanna say thank you. It's always a joy to have you because you're always very responsive and you don't have to, uh, and awe about what you're gonna say. God has already planted that there. So I just wanna say thank you for your responsiveness, but more than anything, your love for Jesus and to transplant that Jesus into the lives of others. Thank you for being with us and in the listening audience. Thank you for being with us tonight. Come back to us again on engaging truths. Good night.

Thank you for listening to this broadcast of engaging truth. Be sure to join us each week at this time to help support our ministry, contact evangelical live ministries, post office box 5 68, Cypress, Texas 77, 410. Or visit our website@elmhouston.org or us on Facebook at evangelical life ministries. Thank you.