Thanks to Knights of Columbus Chapter 13971 out of Arcola (St. Patrick’s parish), Indiana the Institute is now warmer, better looking and more safely exited!

Knights Jim Battone, Chris Sluyter and Marty Doak spent some significant time custom fitting all of the basement windows with marine grade plywood painted bright white. The building is now more airtight than it has ever been.

These fine Knights also rebuilt the rotting handicap ramp, which will allow the Institute to again host an open house after the March for Life this year!

Thank you good men, and thank you Knight Council No. 13971. Here is a link to the Knights of Columbus website.

Pictured: Chris’ truck and Marty. (Click on the van for a telephone number for a fine handyman service)

The ArchAngel Institute hosted a very special meeting today. More than a few post abortive women gathered in the ArchAngel Raphael room to pray to the Risen One in ecumenical unity and speak healing words to one another. Pro-life leaders from the community (women) were present as well. This writer was told that it was a beautiful, God-ordained time of women ministering to women.

The ArchAngel Institute thanks the God of Heaven and Earth for the privilege of being part of this healing process! All post abortive men and women are invited to call (800) 399-4620 for telephonic mentoring session (during 9:30 – 2:30 Eastern) or to drop by 827 Webster Street during the same hours.

Retta Korhman is the hostess, but many others join her in keeping the Fire of Christ’s love burning bright in the former abortion clinic. If you would like to help tend that Fire then please, by all means, come to one of the daily prayer meetings. (Details to follow during this ongoing thanksgiving series.)

Here is our post one year ago on this special date. It seems relevant to the above post. Click on Mission Criticals above for more on how the Institute celebrates true femininity.

The ArchAngel Institute owes a great debt of gratitude to this good man and the ministry that he founded more than 30 years ago.

Reverend Don Wildmon, an ecumenical pastor of United Methodist ordination directed funds and moral support to the Institute during its initial year.

Brother Don employed the Executive Director of the Institute (me, Bryan Brown) as a constitutional law attorney representing Christian activists for more than six years. During those six years we became well acquainted. I greatly respect Brother Don and have many fond memories of my years in Tupelo, Mississippi.

Thank you Don and thank you AFA.

For more on the AFA follow this link: http://www.afa.net/

Brother Don, here is a post from last Advent that we dedicate to you this year. I am certain that you appreciate Rembrandt.

Barb Budson, pictured here on the right with ArchAngel Board member Gloria Carrel (and here is Barb with Bishop John D’Arcy at the Institute last month) is great treasurer! Her countless hours of behind the scenes work in the Institute’s first year of operation and beyond has been most necessary. She is a fine lady and pro-family activist who also donates much time to the St. Vincent’s Society, to the Women’ Care Center and to her parish.

Thank you, Barb.

Also thanks to Keith Brown, the President of the ArchAngel Board. Keith is active at Blackhawk Christian School, active teaching in various capacities around the area (including college classes on management systems) and quite active in helping his Father and big brother renovate the former abortion clinic into the home of the ArchAngel Institute and other coming attractions on the second floor.

ArchAngel Institute Board President Keith Brown is caught in the act of working to transform the former abortion clinic in the picture below. (Alongside his lovely daughter, a teenage supporter of the ArchAngel Institute.)

While on the subject of Board officers, there is a vacancy on the ArchAngel Institute’s Board. If interested let us know in writing, via snail mail to 827 Webster Street, Fort Wayne, 46802 or via archangelinstitute@gmail.com. We are in need of a Board member and new secretary on the Board. Pray about it and let us know if you are interested.

Pro-aborts need not apply. (Sorry George and Susan.)

Thank you so much for being yourselves Barb and Keith. Thanks for all you have given this past year and even before that to get ArchAngel launched.

Retta Kohrman is now stationed at the ArchAngel Institute every day from 9:30 to 2:30. She is there to host daily prayers and to reach out to men and women suffering from the pain of post-abortion trauma. Retta is well positioned to reach out in loving hope to such wounded persons, for Retta is herself a wounded healer.

Pictured: Retta, prayer co-captain Dolores Torrez and Donegal Corridor principal Berenice Brown standing under an important sign donated by  Mike and Cathy Butler of Diskey Sign (thanks!!!)

Consider the following quote from Jill Carattini of Ravi Zararias International Ministries:

In the stories recounted in the gospels, it was the wounded and rejected who arguably saw Christ the clearest. In fact, the New Testament speaks pointedly about God being active—and honored—in our weakness. Of the thorn in his flesh Paul told the Corinthians, “Three times I pleaded with the Lord about this, that it should leave me. But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.’ Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me” (2 Corinthians 12:8-9). Our weakness can be the fount of our hope, our woundedness a spring of healing. Seeing our great need, we see the splendor of Christ’s ability to meet it.

Moreover, since we share a similar condition with those around us, we do well to speak of the cure. In his memorable work The Wounded Healer, Henri Nouwen writes, “Making one’s own wounds a source of healing, does not call for a sharing of superficial personal pains but for a constant willingness to see one’s own pain and suffering as rising from the depth of the human condition which all men share.” Speaking of Jesus, the Christ who would come to mend the wounds of humanity, the prophet Isaiah declared: “He was pierced for our transgressions, he was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon him, and by his wounds we are healed.”

Doctor’s are no more invincible to disease than Christians are invincible to weakness, pain, or trial. But we are under the direction of one who sees our need and hears our cries. He is the perfect Physician we seek. Christ answers our weakness with strength, our illness with mercy, our wounds with his own.

The Institute is thankful to have Retta onboard and reaching out to those who seek a wounded healer. We have such persons drop by the Institute from time to time. Here are links on such “divine appointments.” No fewer than seven such drop ins have been documented in the past year.

Retta Kohrman’s ministry at the Institute is one born of compassion and one centered on the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. Retta is very open about her Christian testimony and clearly presents Jesus Christ as the only path to hope, healing and wholeness. We hope to keep Retta officing at the Institute, but must do better at raising money for rent, utilities and her meager salary if we are to do that. Please consider supporting our Christ-centered mission. This link will give you more on Retta and her mission at the Institute.

If you are led to help support Retta and this crucial mission then you can send checks or money orders to The ArchAngel Institute, 827 Webster Street, Fort Wayne, IN 46802 or call Retta at (260) 423-1771.

Your prayers for our sustenance are always welcome. Especially when they are prayed at the Institute at 1:00 pm, which greatly encourages Retta.

Stay tuned for a brand new brochure on the ArchAngel Raphael side of the Institute. Retta is finalizing that important brochure next week.

The ArchAngel Institute would not have been able to be born in the former abortion clinic were it not for the Donegal Corridor, LLC. The Donegal Corridor, LLC bought the building when it came up for sale. The Donegal Corridor bought the (downstairs) furnace and paid for much of the upgrades necessary to render the downstairs of the building habitable. (The abortionists had been using it without a furnace, with massive leaks in the roof and foundation, with unsanitary floors and sinks and kitchenettes, with walls that were painted a hideous blue and sickening pink. Yes, blue and pink. Come see the evidence, we now have it on display in the ArchAngel Raphael Room. How sick is that, a pink and blue abortion clinic?)

Want proof? Try this, and this, and here is another link on how the building was one year ago . . .

Want to know more about how the ArchAngel Institute came to be in a former abortion clinic?

Here is more on the Donegal Corridor …

and here

John and Bernie Brown are the principals of the Donegal Corridor. They own the building, not Bryan Brown nor Wendell Brane. If Bryan or Wendell owned it then Susan Hill or George Klopfer could grab it. The abortionists cannot take 827 Webster Street from John and Bernie. This is no ruse, for John and Bernie put up the funds, and they have carried the note with almost no rents and no return on investment for a year and a half.

The Institute honors and thanks John and Bernie Brown this Thanksgiving. They have advanced the Institute in a million different kindnesses, and they are greatly appreciated by the Institute.

We love you Mom and Dad.

p.s. Make that HIll and Klopfer would try to grab it from Bryan or Wendell. Actually that would prove quite litigious and very exciting. So, please, George and Susan, do come try. We are ready to return to court on your service of process. (As I have written you both and stated clearly.) Confused? Click here for context and Click here for more context.

The Institute will spend the next several weeks thanking those who have been most instrumental in making our first year a success. But before we do that we pause to receive a thank you from a descendant of one of the Fort’s finest culture warriors.

This comment just posted to our website:

Jennifer Hoffmann Says:

November 16th, 2008 at 9:39 am Thank you for this article! Phyllis and Frank are my Grandparents. Not a day goes by that I am not proud of them. They both continue to be quite an inspiration to me, and to all of their many children and grandchildren!

You are welcome Jennifer. Your Grandparents are an inspiration to many, the Institute included. Click here for our tri-fold brochure noting that fact

Your Grandmother Phyllis is mentioned or refenced at the following places on this website:

Fly The Corridor

A soldier stolen away

A win for the Culture of Life

Her picture now hangs in one of the procedure rooms in the former abortion clinic. It is behind me (Bryan Brown) and in front of the Institute’s Operations Manager, Retta Kohrman, in the above photo. Bishop John D’Arcy was photographed blessing the room as my firstborn, Ignatius, looks on. The good Bishop took a few minutes ot pray for those who lost so much in this former abortion clinic — the very clinic from which Susan Hill sued Phyllis Avila back in the early 80’s — the very lawsuit that led to our loss of our dear Phyllis.

That history is told in the following posts:

Exposing Susan Hill

Susan Hill’s testimony

ArchAngel Raphael Division

My (Bryan Brown’s) first serious consideration of the Catholic faith took place at Phyllis’ funeral. I respected her for her stand against the Culture of Death and went to pay my respects for that reason. That was December, 1983.

Eleven years later I was received into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church. Your Grandmother’s faith first pointed the way for me, as did the testimony of very many of the faithful who lived their Catholic faith like she and Frank.

The Institute thanks God for the Avila family. I have to thank God even for Phyllis’ Funeral Mass.