Unity of Purpose
Last week, NDFA held its 2024 Faith, Family, and Freedom Dessert Gala in Fargo, and it was incredible! Hundreds of you, our ministry partners, attended the event. You brought family members and friends. You listened to our vision for North Dakota, and were inspired and entertained by Tony Perkins, President of Family Research Council. We also had special music by Alivia Hoke. Alivia is a recent graduate from the University of Jamestown, and she gave a tremendous musical performance that evening. It was truly a wonderful event.
Among all these great features of the gala, something stands out to me personally from our time together: fellowship. There were hundreds of Christians unified in purpose and values. Instead of emphasizing the differences among us, the evening focused on the shared biblical values we all have. I had a chance to finally meet many of you, and it was great hearing your willingness to stand with us on important issues. The comradery we felt as we shared similar life experiences and challenges was very apparent. I am reminded of Psalm 133:1, where it says, “Behold, how good and pleasant it is when brothers dwell in unity.”
We all feel the attacks by those who despise our values and way of life, but at the gala, we were among friends. We had pastors in the room, business leaders, candidates for various offices, sitting legislators, and of course hundreds of you, our faithful ministry partners. They were all there because they are fighting to make North Dakota a state that fulfills our shared vision: a state where God is honored, religious freedom flourishes, families thrive, and life is cherished. Together, by the grace of God, we saw last legislative session that we can do amazing things for God’s kingdom when we work together, and we hope to do the same in the upcoming 2025 session.
I know some of you were not able to attend the gala for various reasons, even though you would have loved to be there. To you I say, there’s always next year. In the meantime, please continue to pray for the work of NDFA, respond to our action alerts during the upcoming 2025 legislative session, and consider contributing to our ministry if you value our work. I encourage you to visit our website and review our Statement of Faith and Values. I’m pretty certain they align well with your own.
We enjoyed a wonderful time at our gala, and I cherish the time we spent together. Your support and encouragement mean the world to us, and we pray God’s blessing on all of you and on our state of North Dakota.
2024 NDFA Dessert Gala Ticket Sales ending soon!
The 2024 Faith, Family, and Freedom Dessert Gala hosted by North Dakota Family Alliance is happening soon! The Gala will be on Tuesday, May 28th at 7pm at the Delta by Marriot Hotel in Fargo. Our keynote speaker for the event will be Tony Perkins, President of Family Research Council, with special music provided by Alivia Hoke!
Ticket sales are ending very soon! Get your tickets HERE.
For table sponsorships please call 701-355-6425
This event sold out last year, so get tickets while you can!
About Tony Perkins
Tony Perkins is Family Research Council's fourth and longest-serving president, joining the organization in August of 2003. Described as a legislative pioneer by the national media, Tony has established himself as an innovative pro-life and pro-family policy and political leader since first being elected to office in 1996.
Recognized as the leading conservative and pro-life voice in the Louisiana Legislature, Tony was a tireless advocate for the family. He had a significant impact on Louisiana politics as a state representative and as a candidate for the United States Senate in 2002. While in the Legislature, he authored numerous other policy initiatives, including:
First state Covenant Marriage law in 1997
State Family Impact Statement, requiring state agencies to consider the impact of rules and regulations on families.
Comprehensive Abortion Clinic regulations
Genetic Nondiscrimination Act
Public School Internet Filtering requirement
Expansion of Louisiana Department of Corrections partnership with faith-based organizations to reduce recidivism rates.
During his tenure as FRC's president, Tony has substantially deepened the organization's influence on Capitol Hill. In May 2018, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell appointed Tony to the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), where he served as both Chair and Vice Chair. Tony has also expanded the organization's reach across the nation by building a major network of pastors and churches, encouraging them to impact the culture by thinking nationally, but acting locally.
Tony is an ordained minister and remains active in Christian ministries. He is a board member of Caring to Love Ministries, one of Louisiana's largest pregnancy resource centers. Tony is the immediate past president of the Council for National Policy.
An effective communicator, Tony is the host of a daily, nationally syndicated radio show, Washington Watch with Tony Perkins. He frequently appears as a guest on national news programs and talk shows and has been a guest speaker for organizations across the country. He is the author of No Fear: Real Stories of a Courageous New Generation Standing for Truth.
A veteran of the United States Marine Corps and a former police officer, Tony brings a unique perspective to the public policy process. In addition to domestic law enforcement, he oversaw the training of hundreds of international police officers as the general manager for a Washington, D.C.-based firm contracted by the U.S. Department of State to provide training and services in anti-terrorism.
Tony holds a Bachelor of Science degree from Liberty University, a Master of Public Administration degree from Louisiana State University, and was awarded an honorary Doctorate of Divinity from Liberty University.
He and his wife Lawana have been married since 1986 and have five children.
About Alivia Hoke
Alivia Hoke is a recent graduate from the University of Jamestown where she earned her bachelor’s degree with a Major in Music Education and a Minor in Character in Leadership. Alivia is pursuing her passion for music and is teaching elementary music starting in the fall of 2024. In college, Alivia studied vocal performance and gave three recitals during her time at the University of Jamestown. She also participated and played lead roles in several of the University’s musical productions. Alivia is full of excitement for her future of sharing her love of music with others.
We look forward to welcoming Tony to North Dakota, and hope you’ll make plans to join us at the 2024 Faith, Family, and Freedom Dessert Gala!
Our next interview: Rep. Matt Heilman
We are very excited to present to you our third legislator interview. Our purpose in doing legislator interviews is so that you can better get to know the legislators representing you, from both a personal and legislative perspective.*
For our third interview, we decided to visit with Representative Matt Heilman from District 7. This past session held in early 2023 was his first year as a Representative and he is one of our youngest legislators currently serving. He served on the House Education and Political Subdivisions Committees. We know you'll enjoy learning more about why he ran, his perspective as a young legislator, and much more.
Check out the interview here.
The fight for life in North Dakota
North Dakota Family Alliance was recently served a subpoena initiated by the Red River Women's Clinic. The subpoena was part of their lawsuit opposing the ND trigger law and last session’s revisions to the Abortion Control Act portion of our Century Code. Two of our allies, the North Dakota Catholic Conference and North Dakota Right to Life also received similar subpoenas. Essentially, the subpoenas demanded access to all our confidential communications and documents related to our pro-life work since 2021, all social media posts since 2022, and all documents related to any events hosted by NDFA or even attended by NDFA since 2022. These last two categories asked for everything, even if the documents didn’t relate to the life issue.
This was obviously not a welcome development. However, looking at it slightly differently, it meant that they saw NDFA as a threat to their abortion agenda. As we've heard it said, the more of an impact you make, the more those in opposition will try to silence you.
We joined together with the North Dakota Catholic Conference and North Dakota Right to Life to fight these subpoenas. By the grace of God, and with some tireless work by our attorneys, Red River Women’s Clinic backed down and withdrew all the subpoenas. This was a tremendous victory, and reaffirmed that God is blessing NDFA’s commitment to protecting life! We ask that you continue to pray for us and our allies as we remain in the fight for life here in North Dakota.
Click here to read the statement of the North Dakota Catholic Conference which provides more detail on the situation.
Courage
It was 8:30 a.m. last week Wednesday and I was sitting in a radio studio with a microphone in my face. I was on the air with Brad Bales, general manager of KNDR (104.7 FM), an excellent Christian radio station based out of Mandan. We’ve worked with them in the past to announce upcoming events, and this was no exception. We discussed the National Day of Prayer event at the State Capitol on May 2, as well as our upcoming gala scheduled for May 28 with guest speaker Tony Perkins. We were chatting and suddenly I saw a twinkle in Brad’s eye and he said, "This is one of these on-the-spot questions, but how can our listeners pray for North Dakota Family Alliance?" It was a tremendous opportunity for his listeners to lift up our ministry in prayer and I didn’t want to "waste it."
I paused as dozens of different things raced through my head; more donations was an obvious first answer, since our existence depends entirely on generous donors. But that somehow didn’t seem correct. Perhaps asking for winning more bills next legislative session? Maybe that God sends the right person to us for help with our abundance of administrative work? For some reason, I felt that those didn’t fit either. What I finally said was, "courage."
Over the past few months, NDFA has experienced intentional attacks on who we are and what we do. From being drawn into a lawsuit defending pro-life laws (more on that in a future email), to even more threats from those opposed to us, and challenges being thrown in front of us as we launch our new Legislative Academy and Church Ambassador Network. Our staff and their families have also been under attack personally on the health front. We are used to being in the fight – it’s par for the course in our work – but the intensity of the evil we are experiencing has definitely increased.
By the same token, we’ve been very blessed in many ways over the past few weeks. We’ve had a donor step up and offer meeting space (we currently work from our homes, to keep our costs low). Others have sacrificially given toward our work. Trust me, we know that your giving comes from your heart and belief in our mission, and we truly thank you for that. There are many other things that I can’t list right now, but I can say that it’s been amazing to see God work in this way on behalf of NDFA.
Clearly, dramatic things have happened in our ministry of late, both positive and negative. However, the defining characteristic of all these is the magnitude – something I’ve never seen in the eight years I’ve been in this role. God is doing something different; the winds are changing.
I mentioned this situation to my wife and her response was, "God is preparing you for a large battle." Not the answer I was looking for. A day later I was describing our situation to a colleague at SBA Pro-life and she said, "You know what’s happening, don’t you? You are being equipped to serve the Lord in an unexpected and much larger way than you’ve ever had to before." I didn’t particularly like that answer any more than my wife’s. Over the next few days, I received basically the same message from various other people. While I’m incredibly honored that God would choose to use NDFA to serve Him in an even greater capacity, I’ll be honest and admit that there’s a part of me that’s a bit apprehensive.
If God is preparing us with this magnitude of change, I don’t know what lies ahead, but I’m pretty sure that it’s not going to be easy. Then again, NDFA has not been around for decades to tackle easy things, but to address the hard things in public policy from a biblical foundation. It is truly an honor to fight for your deeply held beliefs in the political world, and we will keep doing that, no matter what.
In the end, that’s why I asked those radio listeners to pray for courage. Courage for NDFA to stand strong, and courage for those of us who are directly involved in its ministry. I have no doubt that God will fight for us in what lies ahead. However, that does not mean we won’t have to sail through rough seas. Your continued prayers are greatly appreciated, and we truly thank you for lifting up NDFA and its ministry to the Lord, whatever lies on the horizon.