Sometimes God places you right where He needs you for such a time as this. That maxim came to life for Trinity Albertson both in terms of her traveling all the way from Germany to Columbus, Ohio, to attend Heartbeat International’s Pregnancy Help Institute and for her becoming the new executive director of a pregnancy center across the world from her native United States.
Albertson was set to take over as executive director of Hope for Life KL in Kaiserslautern, Germany, August 1. She attended the New Director Track at Heartbeat’s annual week-long intensive training in late July.
A military spouse and veteran herself, Albertson’s husband began a tour in Germany last November. They have their 14-year-old son with them there while their 19-year-old daughter attends college in the U.S.
Albertson had no pregnancy help experience but worked in ministry and also worked starting nonprofits in behavioral health, such as Christian counseling.
Going to Germany as a military spouse meant not a lot of options for employment, she said, unless you're working for the government, which she had no interest in.
“I very much wanted to work in ministry again,” she told Pregnancy Help News. “And so, it was just praying and being faithful and waiting for the opportunity to come, which came very quickly, actually.”
Her predecessor was also a military spouse whose time in Germany was coming to an end, and Alberton said she had been praying for a new director to come in for about a year. After arriving there and finding a church in the area to attend, Albertson’s family found a church, which supported Hope for Life as a mission and where prayer had been taking place for the center as well.
“The current ED was on our way out in a year and so I reached out and started volunteering right away,” Albertson said. “I got voted into serve on the board and voted into serve as associate director.”
In addition to her ministry experience and running boards, Albertson has a doctorate in education.
“There's a lot of education that comes with this role as a pregnancy resource center where we don't do any medical,” she said. “And I have a great executive director that has taught me a lot in the last five months.”
Pregnancy help has the unique element in her area in that the center serves the American military population as well as Germans and people from all over the world.
“Kaiserslautern is a very American, military-rich town in Germany,” Albertson said. “They actually call it Little America there.”
There is an established community of people who from the U.S. who have retired there from the military or otherwise immigrated and also churches founded by and for that community, Albertson said. Much of that Christian community is supportive of pregnancy help.
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Hope for Life KL is a German nonprofit, following German laws, and with the same nonprofit ministry status that a church would have there. It was established in 1997.
The German government does not oppose pregnancy help, she said, but the populace is “very pro-choice.”
“It is easier to walk into one of the American churches there or a chapel on one of the installations and talk about this than it is to even go into one of their churches and talk about pro-life,” Albertson said. “Even in their churches, they're not necessarily all pro-life. We do get yelled at.”
She recounted how when displaying material at a partner café, founded by a board member and which conducts Bible studies, patrons have picked up brochures and thrown them out the door, yelling and screaming things like, “You can't promote this. You have to have choice for everybody. You can't be pushing one thing.”
“Of course, I don't know if they understood that they were in a Christian cafe, but we've definitely gotten some pushback,” Albertson said. “Even with our social media, we have to be so careful.”
Germany's healthcare is more of socialist system, she said, and so they do have a lot of programs that the government pays for. The center assesses these programs for referral options.
“So, it's just, you really got to learn the culture,” she said. “You have to just be careful and what you say and who you say it to.”
The center’s materials are printed in both English and in German. The outgoing executive director spoke some German and was able to form a lot of relationships with German partners, Albertson said, and she is taking German. When necessary, they rely on translation tools, such as AI, Google Translate, and DeepL. Translation is more easily managed online when clients reach out via text, WhatsApp, and chats through the website.
In addition to German and English-speaking clients, the center sees a lot of refugee activity, perhaps more so than American clients, Albertson said, this traffic coming from Ukraine, Uganda, and all over. Hope for Life partners with a sex trafficking ministry as well.
“We do have exposure to the women that are being trafficked in our area,” Albertson told Pregnancy Help News. “And then we do a lot of education. So, if there's a school or a church that we can come and do sexual integrity or wellness or marriage and the sanctity of life and any type of education. We're actually going to a youth group the Tuesday after I get back to do something on STDs and sexual wellness.”
There had been a physical center up until COVID. The loss of client traffic and donors drove the hard decision to close the physical center and go into an online model.
“And so we are still in an online model, but way healthier than we were in the beginning of COVID when we lost the center, way healthier,” Albertson said. “God is providing and we're getting traction to hopefully have a center again before my tenure ends.”
Right now, much of her work is about developing community relationships and partnerships, both with the American churches and the German churches that are there. There's also the German hospitals and doctors with which they can and do establish relationships.
“Same thing with the military,” she said. “We go onto the installations, and we talk to the first sergeants and the chiefs of staff to make sure that they know that we are a resource that's there.”
There is a lot of marketing between the center’s website and social media, she added.
“And so, when either an American or a German is searching for an abortion, help or options, or a pregnancy test, we hope to pop up on their feed or on their Google search and they give us a call.”
Hope for Life has a 24-hour hotline manned by Albertson and her board.
“And we do have really crucial conversations sometimes depending on who calls in,” she said.
Without a brick-and-mortar center when it comes to things like pregnancy tests or other support they will go meet clients where they are to deliver material aid. They partner with another German ministry for storing the materials.
In-person consultations take place in a few partner churches or the Christian partner cafe. When necessary other public settings are used for the client’s convenience. Should a client wish not to meet, items are sealed and delivered to them.
Pregnancy tests are self-conducted by the client.
“They do the test, they confirm, acknowledge if it's positive or it's negative, they report back to us and then we just continue to walk alongside them with the consulting,” Albertson said.
Albertson is currently the only paid staff. She said her board is extremely active, including a nurse who assists with medical presentations and calls to the hotline.
She discussed the moment when decisions had to be made during COVID about whether the center could continue. Hope for Life had been a Heartbeat affiliate for a long time and her predecessor was in conversation about this with Heartbeat’s International Program Specialist Ellen Foell.
“And she looked at my executive director and said, “Are you going to let it die? Are you going to fight for it?’” Albertson said. “My executive director said, ‘I'm going to fight for it.’
“She did. And the Lord provided,” said Albertson. “And when she took me on and I was like, I'm all in. Train me, tell me what I need to do.”
This led to her attending Pregnancy Help Institute.
Tweet This: A new pregnancy center director has found her "why" in serving underserved areas of Germany.
Hope for Life has identified a potential property for reopening a physical center and is in contact with the landlord.
Pregnancy Help Institute was “amazing” Albertson said, and she knew she would feel a little overwhelmed with her “list of a hundred things” that she needs to implement as soon as she gets home.
“But I'm trying to take a step back and give it time and God will show me which things I have to prioritize,” she said.
“I didn't know what I was getting into when I decided to sign up for this role,” Albertson said. “And it is so hard being overseas, and there's not a lot of other pregnancy centers that are Christian in my area.”
“Abortions are plentiful, unfortunately, in my area with the Germans,” she said. “And I'd love to be able to tap into that. I want to get with Ellen (Foell) and start networking with all the other centers that are international and see what type of barriers they have.”
Because of Pregnancy Help Institute and Heartbeat, she knows she has the resources to do that now.
“So, it's not this really daunting task of, am I going to let it die? Or am I going to fight for it?” she said. “I feel like I have the tools here to fight for it.”
Albertson remarked about the presentation Foell gave during the Institute about abortion on India, and how 16% of the world’s abortions occur there while there is only a handful of pregnancy centers in the entire country.
“I did not know how many places in the world where abortions were so prevalent and how little help there is,” she said. “Hearing Ellen's story about India this morning - that motivated me.”
“This is my ‘why’,” Albertson said. “This is my ‘yes,’ I know why I said yes. Alright, God, tell me what to do.”
Editor's note: Heartbeat International manages Pregnancy Help News.
