Faith and Hope in NYC

On Mondays I work in Manhattan on Park Avenue in a pro-life Dr.'s office. It's wonderful and generally very busy, most of all the females I meet come in wanting an abortion. Tania was one of these women. She arrived very early for her appointment and waited anxiously for me to call her name. She had to wait through my first appointment so her discomfort was mounting. Later I found out that she'd been through this before, she told me it was a dreadful experience that she NEVER wanted to experience again but that she saw no other option. We began talking and she told me that she's been raising her three children alone and for the last year has been coming home to Brooklyn after work to a putrid smelling apartment, perhaps the result of rat infestation, rat poison and,...the obvious. Loneliness and hopelessness seemed to be pushing her to choose abortion, her loneliness was made worse by the fact that she has a large family living here in the US, including her Mother, that she never sees nor speaks with. Her Mother was physically abusive most of her life, so life for Tania has long been tainted with pain, bitterness, anger and pessimism.
Tania told me that she couldn't imagine bringing another baby to the laundromat. Besides the terrible smell in her apartment, most daunting to Tania was the idea of laundry! Let me explain to those of you who might have (like myself) grown up with the convenience of having a washer and dryer in your home. In NYC even doing laundry is an ordeal and very expensive, a mother of 3 or 4 could spend $60 a month and 3 hours a week in the laundromat, not to mention the work it takes to bring the laundry up and down the steps of a 5th floor walk-up apartment and to a laundromat 2 blocks away with her kids in tow, only to find herself scrambling to keep her children occupied and out of trouble once there. I couldn't imagine the faith necessary to choose life in Tania's situation, but I know that God is good always ("O taste and see that the Lord is good" Psalm 34:8) and that He uses people to touch others' lives ("Two are better than one, woe to him that is alone when he falleth; for he hath not another to help him up" Ecclesiastes 4:9,10). So, I called the Sisters of Life who live only a few blocks away and dug some Metrocards out of my bag for Tania. She arrived 15 minutes later to hot chocolate, sandwiches and a lot of love, reassurance and comfort. The Sisters tell me that she is doing very well and leaning towards choosing life for her baby, she agreed to allow a Spanish speaking female friend of the Sisters to come to her home periodically to assist her in any way possible throughout her pregnancy and beyond, and... they are working on getting her out of that apartment!!