By Dave Andrusko

The headline over the story by Jeff Strickler is "Her ministry is not ordinary." It appeared earlier this month in the (Minneapolis) Star-Tribune, the newspaper that I read growing up in the Twin Cities. Since you can read this lovely profile of a lovely woman, let me just say a couple of things to encourage you to go to
www.startribune.com/lifestyle/faith/81009977.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU.

Kim Ketola worked in the Minneapolis area for 30 years before moving to Atlanta. Along the way she has developed what Strickler describes as a "burgeoning ministry" to women, like herself, who've had an abortion.

She was known in the Minneapolis area primarily for her stints on some powerhouse local radio stations, but it while working on a small Christian radio station that Ketola, 55, developed "a new career," as Strickler put it. It was a two-minute segment titled "Life Redeemed."

"When she was 23, she'd had an abortion, a decision that still haunted her," Strickler writes. "Life Redeemed" was for women just like her.

The most important quotation in the story may well be this.

"A lot of these women felt that they were keeping a secret, and that made them feel isolated," she said. "Many of them didn't know that they could go to their church for help, because they felt that having had an abortion made them an enemy of the church."

That really hurt, for I know that most churches do not adopt that attitude. But some do, I would imagine, so a big task that all pro-lifers have is to make sure that their church, parish, or synagogue is extending a loving hand and a sympathetic ear to women suffering with the memory of a lost child.

Ketola is a regular speaker at the "Ruth Graham and Friends" conferences and has created a ministry called "Tell Them I Love Them," under whose auspices she travels the country.

If you have five minutes, PLEASE go to www.startribune.com/lifestyle/faith/81009977.html?elr=KArksUUUoDEy3LGDiO7aiU.

Part Three