But there is one snapshot I want to share with you that has remained with me forever.

It was about ten years ago. Our children were still all very young. We decided to go caroling one Christmas, as a family, just around our short cul-de-sac. The children were particularly excited because they each got to take a turn carrying the tall candle as we walked. Their faces shone by the glow of the candlelight. The air was crisp and cold, their noses red and dripping. Wearing scarves and mittens, hats and bulky coats, they trudged through the snowy street, leaving tiny bootprints in the snow. We walked up to the first door, rang the bell and began to sing. Awkwardly at first and a bit shy. But we were warmly received.

We soon discovered there was great sorrow behind every single door. One woman was fighting a losing battle with cancer. She had four children and was frightened out of her mind. Standing at the door with a scarf loosely wrapped around her bald head, thin and frail, tears flowed down her cheeks. Our singing seemed to soothe her for a few moments. We offered to pray for her, too. She accepted, and we did pray. Hopefully, we lightened her heavy burden if only for a little while. She died about seven months later, leaving a despondent teenaged boy and three grown children to wrestle with the whys and what ifs and to mourn, desperate and alone. Her husband, Ibrahim, left for work each morning after that with slumping shoulders. We might never have known.

At the next house, we learned that the smiling single mom we occasionally greeted with a wave while getting the mail had been struggling, too. Her older son had started dealing drugs. She knew all about it but was unable to persuade him to turn his life around. Her younger son, only 14 years old, was now following in his big brother’s footsteps. She was devastated. The pit bull that all the neighbors complained about was really her son’s dog — he used the ferocious beast to keep him safe from an occasional deal gone bad. But that wasn’t all. This dear woman had been dating our mailman for several months. Things were getting serious. He was supposed to come for dinner one night shortly before Christmas, but he didn’t show up. After a couple of days of worrying and heartbreak, she phoned the police. Her new love had dropped dead of a heart attack while still at home. She was beside herself with grief. Not only was she brokenhearted, she worried that there would be no father figure for her sons now. We stayed in her home, listening to her and praying for her for so long that our youngest son fell asleep on the floor while he waited for us to finish. Why hadn’t we visited her sooner? How could we live so near one another, yet never know the depth of one another’s pain?

Across the street, three children were about to be removed from their parents and placed in foster care. They were suffering from neglect. I had seen their son climb onto the roof on several different occasions. I didn’t realize he had also punched holes in the walls inside the house out of anger and frustration or that the dog had defecated everywhere and no one had cleaned it up. I knew they had head lice because once the little daughter had come to our house with an itching scalp. Instead of offering to help, I shuttled her home to her mom as quickly as I could, scowling about the amount of laundry I would have on my hands if my children got lice from these unkempt neighbor kids.

We had lived in that house for seven years before we ventured out to the eight other homes with our candles and Christmas carols. In all that time, we never knew the heartbreak that was unfolding around us. We were not there with love and support, nor did we offer shoulders for them to cry on, and we were living within a few feet of their pain.

This should not be so.

No matter what your religion, race, political affiliation, or favorite flavor of ice cream, with a deep breath and a little courage, you, too, can reach out with a helping hand — even if it’s only to grip the desperate hand of a neighbor whose problems you are powerless to solve.

God bless you and have a safe and happy week!

Megan and Steve

May God richly bless your day!

Steve and Megan

Steve and I were talking about how to move forward over a marvelous cappuccino Sunday morning when it occurred to us that we are not as interested in making another hard-hitting pro-life television series as we are in touching people’s souls with the basic truth that we are all connected, via our shared humanity, to one another and to the earth and to God. We can learn from one another, share our cultural heritages, come to a place of understanding regarding issues we hold strong opinions on like abortion and euthanasia and gun control and war and healthcare reform and religion and politics and life. Or not. We can celebrate life with all its frailties or we can decide not to. We can close our hearts and minds to the needs, desires, hopes, dreams, and deeply held beliefs of those around us or we can open our arms and embrace them as brothers and sisters while we all celebrate life!

We believe life is a sacred trust, a holy gift from God. But even if you don’t agree with us on the issue of abortion, I hope you will consider what we believe about the value of life lived to the fullest.

Back to Steve and me and the marvelous cappuccino…

While we were hashing out ideas for the show, we realized what we want to do is celebrate life, not talk about it, not peddle a certain political ideology, or bash people over the head with our views. We want to make a show that celebrates life. So being the age we are, we started dancing around the room and singing this old song by Rare Earth called “I Just Want to Celebrate.” We found it on youtube, so I’ll share it with you here. This is what we’re all about. This is why we need every pro-life American to click on the link above and donate $10 or so to help us make the show. We want to celebrate!

After a long, heart-wrenching season of struggles, dozens of late night talks with our children, massive amounts of prayer and soul-searching, and several daylong brainstorm sessions, we’ve come to the realization that if ever we are to motivate people to really think about life and the consequences of living it carelessly, without treating each person as precious and valuable, we are going to have to leap off the precipice and do something drastic.

We are going to sell everything we can and move to Malta for at least as long as our visas will allow. We want to explore the culture, learn how a two party system works when both labor and big business are pro-life. Ultimately, we want to show America that despite its surprises, its traumas and tragedies, life can be enormously special.

We’ve added a donation button to the blog so that those of you who want to help us get this reality series off the ground can donate via credit card through paypal. Just click the button and paypal will walk you through the process. This is a very grassroots production, but our producer is no stranger to television. He recently produced two shows that are both airing internationally. You can see a sample of his work here. He’s also my husband, Steven Hoyt, so I’m kind of partial to him.

As you scroll through this blog and see what we’re all about, I hope you’ll decide to join us in one more ambitious project. We want to write a letter to the Maltese Prime Minister — a letter of support signed by thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands, of pro-life Americans. The letter will be up as soon as we can figure out how to create something with an automatic electronic signature page for you to sign. We are doing this as a family project, so please be patient with us. As soon as we get the letter up, get the signatures, and gather enough in donations to create a pilot, we’ll put it online at youtube so you can show your friends and help us share our message virally through Facebook, Twitter, and everywhere else we can think of. Until then, I will be blogging and sharing what I can to inspire you as you travel down life’s twisting, bumpy road.

One thing we want to mention is that this is not a religious issue for us. We believe human rights issues are global and universal. We welcome support from anyone who shares our belief that a beating heart should not be silenced. God bless you and may this be the best day, week, month, and year of your life!

Megan Hoyt
mom, freelance writer, friend of children, all ages, all stages
blogging quietly in Charlotte, NC

Steven Hoyt
dad, television producer/director, friend of children, all ages all stages
making great tv worldwide

Love Your Life!

One thing you might consider doing to bond as a family is volunteer to be walk-ons in an opera. The proper term for this is supernumerary. Supers don’t get paid, but they also don’t have to audition or even sing opera. And you get the extra benefit of bonding with your family (in our case, even the dog dove into the fray when a local company performed Puccini’s La Boheme. She played Musetta’s fancy, prancy pooch!)

Okay, now that I got that off my chest, I’d like to also mention that those republicans who stand against abortion are often in favor of the death penalty and want people to retain their right to bear arms, concealed or not. It’s really odd. As a Christian environmentalist who does not believe in the death penalty and is in favor of gun control, I guess I’m an anomaly in today’s world. But maybe in the future things will change. Until then… Enjoy!