Eva at her desk, July 2024
After nearly 19 years serving as JFA’s office manager, Eva Heath is retiring at the end of this month.
Members of the JFA team gathered to celebrate her work last week, and as we were going through old photos, we were all amazed when Eva recalled with crystal clarity the substance of a conversation that took place on open mic in 2006.
Eva remembered what one woman said on the mic and then reflected that although she hadn’t planned to say anything that day so publicly, she felt she just had to respond from her own story. So we went back and found the audio recording. Here’s a portion of the dialogue:
Woman: ...this two-year-old is like...I would have rather not been aborted...my life’s probably gonna suck, but...what do you do?... all these people who are out here saying that abortion is wrong, do all of you have foster children currently in your home? Are you trying to take care of these children who are unwanted? ...
Eva (right) joins the open mic at Wichita State University (August 2006).
Eva: Hi, I was listening, and I just wanted to say that I was born in 1959. At that time there was a Rubella outbreak and my mother had Rubella first trimester. Statistically speaking, if you are in utero in the first trimester, affected by Rubella you are born completely deaf, completely blind, stillborn, or with gross facial disfigurations or with microcephalus or hydrocephalus.
I was not born with any of those except that I’m deaf in my right ear. Now I also want to add to that, that now medical doctors who do perform abortions would often tell the mother (as my mother) you know there’s this option, you can abort your baby. Of course they won’t say you can kill your baby. You can abort your baby, it sounds so much better, so much more politically correct. Now I’m here to testify that life is good. However, life was not good as a child.
I was one of those foster children. When you spoke [of] the Vietnam veteran [and foster care], I said I’ve got to speak because I was one of those foster children. I was neglected, I was abused, there was just terrible, terrible things that happened to me as a child, but as I grew up and saw that there was life out there, and I will say that, yes, like the gentlemen said, life is hard. But there is hope. I was human in my mother’s utero. I am still human now, so bottom line in my mind: Is it ever okay to kill a human? Like, was it ever okay for slavery to be legal? To me, if we look at the whole bottom line of that issue, Is it ever okay to kill a human?
Eva felt prompted to say that even though many heartbreaking things happen, she herself was a testimony to what God had done and what God can do for anyone confronting difficult circumstances. We should hope, she said, but regardless of outcomes, the more fundamental question is, “Is it okay to kill a human?”
Postlude: Introduction to the Impact Report Printable Version
This month we report on a different kind of impact that God has created through JFA, specifically through the work of our office manager, Eva Heath.
This is the story of the impact God produces through human beings many have written off because of their circumstances or disabilities. It’s also the story of one woman’s testimony that even if we can’t see the good that God is bringing from difficulties right now, we must hope in Him, loving every human being precisely because each person is made in the image of God.
We bid a fond farewell to you this month, Eva, and we trust God will care for you in the new chapter of your retirement! - Steve Wagner, Executive Director