When Mary appeared to Juan Diego in the Tepeyac Hill, she was carrying her Son Jesus in her virginal womb. Among the many signs and symbols that Our Lady used to evangelize the Aztec people, this became a sign for our times. Through it, Our Lady of Guadalupe stopped the sacrificial slaughter of men, women and children to the Serpent god and became the Patroness of the Unborn. Today, we too can look to Our Lady of Guadalupe and see the signs that will save our children from the sacrifice of abortion.

There are many ways to save unborn babies, but the most effective is the one where we can identify with the woman, meet her where she's at, fill her needs, touch her heart, give her hope and bring her closer to Jesus. That is the way chosen by Our Lady of Guadalupe to reveal the Truth to the Aztecs and that is what we must do today to reveal the Truth to mothers who would sacrifice their children because of convenience, ignorance or fear. It is with God's grace that this is being accomplished through the work of crisis pregnancy centers (CPC's).

While in the United States there are more CPC's than there are abortuaries and there are many new initiatives to help mothers in crisis pregnancies, that is not the case in Latin America where for the most part, abortion is not legal. Nevertheless, abortion is commonplace and goes unstopped by the authorities, who in many cases are too busy implementing harmful sex education programs in the schools, giving in to the UN demands for population control, and forging dangerous alliances with powerful interest groups.

Thus, Vida Humana Internacional (VHI) and Centros de Ayuda a la Mujer (CAM), an outreach of Comité Nacional Pro-Vida AC of Mexico (Mexico's National Pro-Life Committee), joined efforts to create the Aid to Women Network. CAM is one of the most effective CPC outreaches in Latin America, having saved twenty-two thousand babies from abortion in eight years through the work of twenty-four centers. CAM's founder, Jorge Serrano, President of Comité Nacional, says he was motivated to open the centers after attending an HLI bilingual world conference and training sessions organized by VHI.

The purpose of the Network is to aid in the creation of new centers throughout Latin America by offering training, resources and fostering collaboration. It hopes to become a centralized source of information that will make it easier to reach and help mothers in need. The Network will also serve to lay the groundwork for a grassroots outreach for post-abortion healing and reconciliation. In the future, the Network hopes to be able to offer assistance to those wanting to help victims of domestic violence.

To this end, VHI and CAM organized the First International Hispanic Conference for Crisis Pregnancy Centers, which took place the last week of March in Mexico City. The event was held in conjunction with CAM's annual conference and it brought together over thirty participants from Latin America and the directors of the CAM centers. The training covered everything from "how to open a center" to "how to answer the phone" and "how to talk to women". VHI helped plan the program, provided tons of educational materials, and invited Dr. Jesús Arina, a Catholic psychologist from Miami, who gave an excellent talk on the reasons why women seek abortion. Magaly Llaguno, VHI's Executive Director, spoke on domestic violence, how it leads women to abortion and how to help them choose life.

As a result of these efforts, new centers will soon be opened in Nicaragua, Paraguay, Colombia and Argentina. In addition, the exchange of ideas and experience helped others who were already working in this ministry to evaluate and renovate their efforts.

The next event planned is the Second International CPC Training that will take place in July, immediately following the First International Conference for Life and Family in Paraguay. For more information, please contact Vida Humana Internacional in Miami.

Our heartfelt thanks to the pro-life movement in Mexico for being the inspiration and the driving force behind the Aid to Women Network and especially to the organizers, Lourdes Delgado and Victoria Saracho. We are also grateful to HLI's donors, without whose help this beautiful work could not be done. May the beautiful Lady of Mexico, clothed with the sun, teach us all how to bring the light of Christ to a culture of darkness and death with humility, charity and faith.

Those Crisis Pregnancy Centers that would like to affiliate themselves to the Aid to Women Network can contact the web site: http://redayudamujer.tripod.com/.