
This year, Heartbeat is offering two conferences, a live conference on March 25-27 in Cincinnati, Ohio. The live Annual Conference is preceded by an In-Depth Day on March 24, 2026. There will also be a simultaneous Virtual Conference. Details about the Virtual Conference are below. Internationals are invited to both. Registration opens October 17 here.
Internationals may also apply for a scholarship for the live Annual Conference registration. If you receive a scholarship to the live conference, you must plan to participate from the beginning of the conference, including In Depth Day (3/24) through the close of the conference (3/27 Friday evening).
Heartbeat typically provides a total of around 20 scholarships at some level to its annual conference. Demand for scholarships is generally greater than what we can provide, but Heartbeat provides as many as we possibly can, based on what the budget will allow in that conference year. Furthermore, typically, we award only one scholarship per organization. You must apply so that you can be considered for a scholarship.
Scholarships typically do not cover visa application expenses, accommodations, or transportation. Most scholarships will cover registration for the conference only. Registration includes all hotel-provided, conference-related meals. There may be one or two meals you will have to pay for independently.
Check to see if you are currently affiliated with Heartbeat directly, or with one of our Joint Affiliation Network partners (JAN). Our JANs are Pregnancy Help Network, Association for Life of Africa, Be’Ad Chaim, Pregnancy Care Canada, Centros de Ayuda para la Mujer, Movimento per la Vita, Pregnancy Help Australia, Pregnancy Support Services of Asia, ProVida, or the Balkan Network. You can check your affiliation status by asking your JAN leader, and if you are affiliated with Heartbeat directly you can log in to your account. If you find that your status is in grace or expired, you will need to reaffiliate. In that case, contact the JAN or click here to reaffiliate.
Click here to access the online application. If you cannot access it online, you will need to fill out a hard copy application and scan the completely filled-out application to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. You can download the hard copy application here. The application must be completely filled out, the information must be accurate, and the application must be received by December 15, 2025. If your application is not complete or you have not checked the correct status of your affiliation, the application will be rejected.
Details regarding the Virtual Conference will be coming soon on this page: https://www.heartbeatservices.org/conference
No. In fact, calling and emailing several times slows down the entire process. You will receive acknowledgment of receipt of your application. After that, the International Program Specialist will review and check the information submitted for each application. With few exceptions, applications are considered on a first-come, first-served basis.
It will be a hard close on December 17, 2025. That means that no more applications will be accepted. Do not delay if you want your application to be considered. Late applications will not be considered.
Decisions will be made and emails will be sent out on January 15, 2026, to individuals who have received scholarships. If you do not receive an email saying you have received a scholarship, assume you have NOT received a scholarship.
Scholarship recipients are expected to:
● Understand English at a level sufficient for keynotes and workshops;
● Accept the scholarship offer as communicated by email by February 1, 2026. If we do not hear from you, we will give the scholarship to another applicant. If you accept, you must provide evidence of your itinerary by February 28, 2026, as well.
● Attend In-Depth Day, conference workshops, and keynote sessions.
● Grant permission for the use of your pictures and stories to be used by Heartbeat.
● Following the conference, give feedback to Heartbeat’s International Program Specialist regarding your experience.
● Be able to communicate regularly via e-mail with Heartbeat’s International Program Specialist in the months and weeks prior to the conference to answer questions.
The International Program Specialist, Ellen Foell. She can be reached at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.. Please do NOT contact others at Heartbeat International. It will only slow down the processing of your application.
Click here to download a paper copy of this application.

Heartbeat International’s 2026 Annual International Conference is coming!
When: March 24, 2026 (In-Depth Day)
March 25-27, 2026 (Conference Dates)
Where: Cincinnati, Ohio
or Virtually (in your most comfortable chair)
Heartbeat International strives to assist individuals in other countries who serve in pregnancy help outreach offering alternatives to abortion. Our annual conferences provide the greatest opportunity for diverse training, broad networking, and inspirational encouragement to our international affiliates.
We offer a limited number of financial scholarships for internationals who apply and are accepted. We invite individuals such as the key leader/executive director, staff member, volunteer, counselor, and/or board member who is currently serving in an international pregnancy help organization to apply. Eligible pregnancy help organizations are life-affirming non-governmental organizations (e.g., pregnancy resource centers, medical help clinics, maternity housing, and non-profit adoption agencies) that hold values consistent with Heartbeat International. We also invite individuals demonstrating a strong and verifiable desire to open a new pregnancy help effort in their country/region and learn more about the pregnancy help ministry. All scholarship applicants must be affiliated with Heartbeat International, either directly or through a joint affiliation network partner.
Preference is given to those:
(1) affiliated with our international partners ((Pregnancy Help Network, Pregnancy Care Canada, Pregnancy Help Australia, Centro de Ayuda para la Mujer Latinomerican, Association for Life of Africa, Movimento per la Vita, ProVida, Be’Ad Chaim, the Balkan Network, and Pregnancy Support Services Asia), and
(2) those that have already accessed available local/regional training, especially those provided by our joint affiliation partners. We will verify affiliation in good standing, and attendance at trainings with these organizations, and
(3) direct affiliates in good standing with Heartbeat International. If you have received a scholarship in the last three years, please do not apply. Only one scholarship will be offered to any organization.
Each scholarship is granted with the expectation that the recipient will use the conference experience to strengthen their ministry or to lay the groundwork for a new ministry. Scholarship recipients are therefore expected to attend In-Depth Day, all keynote sessions and workshops, as well as the closing banquet. International scholarship applicants should be somewhat fluent in English. Heartbeat conferences are presented in English, and translation is generally not available. For access to the scholarship application, please click here. For more questions about the Conference, please check the website, and for specific questions related to the scholarship, please see our FAQs.
Click here to download a paper copy of this application.
Questions from outside the USA may be directed to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
Anyone in the USA should direct questions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it..
by Andrea Trudden, Vice President of Communications & Marketing
Heartbeat International
Walking through busy streets. Sleeping at a hotel with music playing in the hall. The 2022 European Pregnancy Help Leaders Summit was a very different environment from the sirens and chaos the Save a Life pregnancy help team left in Ukraine.
Alina was 39 weeks pregnant when the war started. Now, her very life was at risk and the reality that her husband could be sent to fight in the war increased the stress.
A pregnancy center director of the Zaporizhzhia Save a Life location, she knows the pressures when faced with an unexpected pregnancy. Add a war to the typical pressures a woman has in that delicate moment of her life, and Alina knew that pregnancy centers in Ukraine would be needed during wartime. And so, her work continued after being displaced from her home in Zaporizhzhia.
In the midst of the war sirens and vibrations from the blasts, Alina gave birth to her son, Mark, in a make-shift bomb shelter. It was humbling, and a great reminder of the beauty of life. This little baby boy brought a light of joy in a moment of darkness.
With her new baby, her two-year-old daughter, and husband, Alina moved West toward safety. Here, she sought out a pregnancy center to continue serving women who sought pregnancy help. Her newborn baby by her side, Alina started meeting with women — some local, some displaced from the southeastern and eastern parts of the country — to provide compassionate care and a listening ear as they discussed their futures.
She humbly told us, “Please don’t think I’m a hero. I’m not a hero. And I’m not brave because I wanted to leave. I wanted to run for the sake of my children, but I would rather die than to disobey what God has called me to, which is to stay.”
Similarly, Alla, the national director, manages seven pregnancy centers throughout Ukraine. A widow with a sixteen year old and an eleven year old at home, Alla channels her hope and energy into the centers. Under her leadership, Save a Life centers have expanded across the nation.
She acknowledges that the loss of her husband to cancer when her children were young helped motivate her to get involved with pregnancy centers to be a pillar of support for women. Today, her children help by volunteering their time at the pregnancy centers as well, bringing them together in the work to save lives.
Nadia travels between Ukraine and the United States to help raise awareness for Save a Life. In August, they hosted their annual conference in spite of the war. With more than 100 in attendance, this was an encouragement that God is at work in Ukraine through pregnancy help.
Understanding the risk of travel at this time in Ukraine, these three women joined 17 other countries at Heartbeat International’s European Pregnancy Help Summit in Bucharest, Romania. At the summit, they were able to share their experience both in living in a war zone and in serving in a war zone. As many of the European nations are serving Ukrainian refugee women, the insight Nadia, Alla, and Alina provided was timely and meaningful.
This team of women was an example of courage and strength, once again showing the world that women are capable of being mothers and accomplishing the work they are called to.
Heartbeat International invites you to the long-awaited and much-anticipated European Pregnancy Help Leaders Summit.
You are invited to Bucharest, Romania, September 15-17, 2022 for in-person networking, training, learning, and encouragement with like-minded leaders from the pregnancy help movement across Europe.
Heartbeat is offering registration and accommodations (including breakfast and hotel meals) for two persons per affiliated organization. (This offer has limited availability and registration will be first come, first served.) We look forward to hosting you.Registration includes:
The Summit registration is FREE for two team members of an affiliate. When you are filling out the registration form, at the bottom of the form, click on Affiliate Double Occupancy and the cost reflected underneath should be 0.00. Then you register your second participant. Before you hit submit, double check to make sure that the total cost is still 0.00. Your credit card will not be charged so long as you click on "Affiliate Double Occupancy" (see screenshot below).

If you want to register more than two people from your organization, at your cost, you will need to fill out a new form, registering with appropriate information and then just click on single or double occupancy. The cost reflected is per person.
Contact Ellen at This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. if you run into any technical difficulties.
Thank you for your interest in affiliating with Heartbeat International. By joining Heartbeat, you join the largest pregnancy help network in the world with more than 2,800 organizations in over 60 countries.
Affiliation for international organizations is just $70.00, and we are happy to offer you a complimentary affiliation for the first year. Whether you are a first time affiliate, or a second or fifth time affiliate you may email efoell@heartbeatinternational.
Upon affiliating, please contact username@
Your affiliation provides you with a 20% discount on all resources found in the Store as well as online courses offered in the Heartbeat Academy.
We offer leadership and development resources, in addition to a variety of other key training materials pertinent to your work. We also help to fund the regional organizations that offer direct training and assistance to individual life-affirming organizations.
>> Click here to Affiliate <<
Thank you again for your heart to serve, to reach and rescue women and their children. It is my pleasure to serve you.
Recommended Affiliate Resources Recommended to All Pregnancy Help Organizations
When a media request comes into your organization's inbox, how do you respond?
As an organization, you should have a media plan in place in order to guide you in both nurturing new media relationships and having a rapid response plan for times of negative press. Join Heartbeat International and Alliance Defending Freedom International as we discuss how to engage the media.
Date: 22 October 2020
Time: 12:45-16:15 GMT+2
Where: At Your Computer (details will be sent upon registration)
Presented by: Heartbeat International and Alliance Defending Freedom International
This forum is exclusive for Heartbeat International affiliates. There is no cost to attend, but you must register as space is limited.
If you are not a Heartbeat Affiliate and are interested in learning more about joining Heartbeat International's Pregnancy Help Network, click here.

Andreas Thonhauser serves as director of external relations for ADF International, where he is responsible for building the organization’s media presence, forming alliances with key influencers and supporters. He acts as communications liaison with ADF International’s distinguished team of allied attorneys and organizational partners, managing all aspects of public relations and development Thonhauser has spoken at institutions like the UN, the EU Parliament, and international conferences and provided comment on topics like the persecution of religious minorities, parental rights, and freedom of education for international media outlets, including both popular news publications as well as scholarly journals. He regularly provides trainings in communication strategy, leadership, reputation and social media management. Thonhauser earned an MBA from the WU Executive Academy and a Master’s degree in German Philology/Anglistics and Americanistics from the University of Vienna. Prior to joining ADF International in 2015, Thonhauser worked for a European publishing house where he focused on strategy and business development.
Pastor Woody was raised on a dairy farm in Brunswick, Maine as a Quaker. While stationed in Germany with the Air Force, he was introduced to the Gospel in a personal way, and trusted Christ in 1978. He has now pastored two churches; both of them in Germany, and both of them ministering primarily to the American military community.
Since 1997, he has been involved with the ministry of the Kaiserslautern Crisis Pregnancy Center as a board member. In order to minister to a wider community, the center was renamed Heartbeat Crisis Pregnancy Center and was moved to the city of Ramstein, where Pastor Woody has been privileged to serve as board chairman since 2008.
Ellen Foell, Esq. has been with Heartbeat International since 2012 serving first as legal counsel and now as the International Specialist. She supports the leadership team in providing research and advice on pro-life trends and issues affecting Heartbeat International and its affiliates. Her work also involves general business, organizational and nonprofit issues, as well as interfacing with other pro-life organizations and attorneys who desire to assist pro-life organizations.
Ellen is a 1982 graduate from Case Western Reserve University School of Law. She has lived overseas as a missionary in Thailand, has practiced as a law clerk, associate in a law firm, and as an associate corporate counsel. She left law firm practice to begin her work in the pro-life movement in 1989 as a defense attorney for pro-life activists. She and her husband, Phil, have four children, Deborah, Anna, Sam and Paul. Her passion is teaching the Bible and working with international students on the Ohio State campus.
Jor-El Godsey serves as President of Heartbeat International, the largest affiliation network of pregnancy help organizations in the world. Jor-El leads a staff dedicated to equipping, empowering, and encouraging the thousands of leaders serving in Heartbeat affiliated life-affirming pregnancy help centers, maternity homes, and adoption services, in the U.S. and on every inhabited continent. Jor-El oversees Heartbeat’s core mission to reach and rescue lives at-risk for abortion through far-reaching programs that include Option Line and Abortion Pill Rescue Network

Heartbeat International strives to assist individuals in other countries that seek to serve in pregnancy help ministry. Our annual conferences provide the greatest opportunity for diverse training, broad networking, and inspirational encouragement to our international affiliates.
We offer a limited number of financial scholarships for international conference participants who apply and are accepted. Scholarships vary due to demand, and scholarships may cover as much as:
We invite individuals such as the key leader/executive director, staff member, volunteer, counselor, and/or board member that is currently serving in an international pregnancy help organization to apply.
Eligible pregnancy help organizations are life-affirming non-governmental organizations (e.g. pregnancy resource center, medical help clinics, maternity housing, non-profit adoption agencies) that hold values consistent with Heartbeat International.
We also invite individuals demonstrating a strong and verifiable desire to open a new pregnancy help effort in their country/region and learn more about pregnancy help ministry. All scholarship applicants must be affiliated with Heartbeat International, either directly or through a joint affiliation partner.
Each scholarship is granted with the idea that the recipient will use the conference experience to strengthen their ministry or to lay the groundwork for a new ministry. Scholarship recipients are therefore expected to attend all keynote sessions, workshops, and in-depth day, if available. International scholarship applicants should be somewhat fluent in English. Heartbeat conferences are presented in English and translation is generally not available.
It will be a hard close on January 30, 2020. That means that no applications will be accepted after January 30, 2020. Do not delay if you want your application to be considered. Late applications will not be considered.
Please refer to the FAQs here | Click here to access the scholarship application
Most questions should be answered immediately on our FAQ page, but please feel free to direct additional questions to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.
by Ellen Foell, International Program Specialist
Heartbeat International
I recently returned from a trip to Johannesburg, South Africa, site of the 2019 Africa Cares for Life conference on "Bold Thinking, Courageous Steps." Africa Cares for Life currently has 73 member life affirming organizations stretching from Capetown at the southern tip to Pretoria in the north. With over 70 participants present at the conference, I had the incredible blessing to see how God is moving in a different country with a different historical context.
The conference had a mix of black and white South Africans. There were five nations represented. I heard English, Afrikaans, and a variety of other ethnic languages being spoken (South Africa has 34 languages with 11 official languages). But everyone at the conference was there to reach out with the Gospel of Life, to renew their communities and to rescue women, families and babies.
I had the privilege to present a keynote on Conscious Cultural Competence and three workshops on spiritual refreshment as well as mission focus.
Africa Cares for Life came into being through the faithful work of Gail Schreiner, 20 years ago. ACFL and Heartbeat have been in a formal joint affiliation partnership since 2008, a partnership which benefits and expands the reach of both organizations. Daniele Gradwell has attended several Heartbeat International annual conferences and has reciprocated with invitations to Heartbeat staff to participate at the ACFL conference.
In 2018, Africa Cares for Life significantly increased its reach and impact. In 2018 alone, they were able to provide 4,110 consulting hours, equip 600 volunteers, and provide for more than 85,000 women and men who received pregnancy help and support.
This is just a glimpse of what we can do together! Thank you for continuing to share the Gospel of Life where you are and remember that around the world, people just like you are doing this work as well. And praise God for that!
by Gayle Irwin, Guest Writer
The Caribbean island of Saint Lucia welcomed its first pregnancy center a few months ago, and with help from Heartbeat International, staff members are fulfilling an unmet need for the nation’s pregnant women.
“Women who have unplanned pregnancies in Saint Lucia live in extreme poverty,” said Cindi Boston, vice president of mission advancement for Heartbeat International. “There is a massive need. When you have a new start-up and have fewer resources, it takes time. But, they are doing very well.”
Boston took a team to the country a few years ago to work with the staff and supporters. Training included how to interact with clients, how to establish and manage a board of directors, and specific teaching to nurses and doctors on ultrasound techniques, which was taught by a Registered Diagnostic Medical Sonographer (RDMS). Just a few months ago, the Family Centre officially opened as part of the Caribbean Centre for Family and Human Rights (CARIFAM).

Tammy Stearns, RDMS, Sarah and Heartbeat Vice President Cindi Boston

Nadine, a doctor in training, Tammy Stearns, Cindi Boston, Dr. Ginny, and Shawna Charles
This organization was started in 2012 by Sarah Flood-Beaubrun, a strong pro-life advocate who was a member of the nation’s Parliament. She saw the increasing pressure upon the country to embrace abortion and decided to create a pro-life, pro-family organization to help solve the country’s social and economic problems as well as in response to attacks on fundamental human rights and the family.
Located in the West Indies, Saint Lucia is part of the Lesser Antilles. With an international outreach, Heartbeat has conducted summits and other trainings in the Caribbean, said Ellen Foell, the international program specialist at Heartbeat.
“Trying to advance the pro-life movement on an island can be isolating,” she said. “Heartbeat recognizes this and seeks to come alongside these organizations and centers.”
Nearly all pregnancy centers in the Caribbean are less than five years old, she added.
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The Family Centre is managed by a three-person volunteer team: Nadine Khodra-Jn Baptiste and her husband Mitchell Jn Baptiste and Shauna Charles.
“We share the responsibility for oversight and working within the centre on a weekly basis,” Nadine said. “The Family Centre has been operating virtually for over a year. We opened the physical doors in May 2019.”
The community has been supportive, and many attended a blessing ceremony, she added.
However, opposing groups didn’t take long to implement advertisements luring women toward abortion, Boston said.
“After the website went up, there was a quick response from the pro-choice side,” she said.
The Family Centre meets needs not addressed by abortion organizations, with services and programs to help women find courage and hope to continue their pregnancies. The center offers pregnancy testing, ultrasound, options counseling, educational classes, material needs such as supplies for the baby, and post-abortion counseling.
“In addition to lack of resources, family tensions run high when an unexpected pregnancy occurs,” Nadine said. “The mother-to-be becomes even more confused because of all the contributing factors. Hence the need! If we can support in a loving environment, provide guidance and clarity, make family interventions, et cetera. Essentially, we can greatly lessen the likelihood of an abortion.”
That took place for “Janine” in an extremely unique situation. She was referred to the Saint Lucia center from Germany, Nadine said.
“She was a St. Lucian who went to Germany to get married to a man with which she had had a long-distance relationship. The relationship became an abusive one very soon after she moved in with him,” Nadine said.
Within a few months, Janine decided she couldn’t stay in that relationship and sought to return to Saint Lucia. However, she also realized she was pregnant and reached out to an organization in Germany. That group contacted The Family Centre in Saint Lucia, seeking help for Janine.
“I met with her soon after she arrived and realized that there were other medical complications that would make it extremely difficult for her to carry the baby to term, despite the fact that she wanted to have her baby,” Nadine said. “In addition to counseling and emotional support, we were able to help her get funding to assist with her treatment and advanced monitoring of her pregnancy. Her healthy baby was born later that year.”
A situation such as Janine’s prompts The Family Centre staff to look toward the future. As they continue to meet the needs of the island’s pregnant women, they envision being of greater help.
“We’d like to expand our reach and range of services to a fully-fledged state-of-the-art pregnancy and birthing centre which specializes in at-risk pregnancies,” Nadine said.
Heartbeat will continue to be guiding force for St. Lucia and other pro-life pregnancy centers around the world.
“We invest a lot [into international training],” Boston said. “We raise a lot of funds so that our international friends can come over [to a conference] every year. In fact, each year we have 30 to 45 internationals coming.”
Nadine and the rest of The Family Centre staff recognize the vital assistance given to them and other centers across the world.
“We are especially thankful to Heartbeat International for the training and support that they have provided us with over the past few years. Their contribution is a key component to the success of our organization,” she said.
This story is reprinted from the August 5, 2019 article at Pregnancy Help News.
by Ellen Foell, Esq., International Program Specialist
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| Heartbeat had the honor of being present at the first pregnancy center opened in Belgrade, Serbia |
It is always a privilege to travel on behalf of Heartbeat International, whether it is to Arkansas or, in the most recent case, to Serbia, for the 2018 European Pregnancy Help Leaders’ Summit. A small Heartbeat team, which included as an honorary Heartbeat member, Mike Spencer from Life Training Institute, met with representatives from 16 organizations and 14 countries—from Romania to Ireland to France—to network, fellowship and share challenges, victories and current issues facing the pregnancy help movement. Topics covered in breakout sessions included a range from self-care to engaging the church and digitally reaching donors and clients.
In that kind of setting, one sees the hand of God working behind the scenes in so many instances (perhaps because one is actively looking for the intervention of God in the context of 14 languages, different alphabets and cultures, and a good dose of jetlag). Maybe one instance that this writer found most dear was the presence at the Summit of four women from Ireland, still reeling from the recent vote abolishing the eighth amendment of the Irish Constitution banning abortion just four months before.
As they face legalized abortion for the first time in their country, their attendance at the Summit was truly due to the providence of God. They needed to connect with other European pregnancy help leaders, to be encouraged and to reevaluate pregnancy help in a country committed to a path of abortion. In addition, they needed to connect with an attorney who might be able to help their centers in Ireland deal with some specific new legal challenges. They wanted to know if Heartbeat knew anyone who might be able to help.
Imagine their delight and praise to God to be told that one of the plenary speakers was an Irish barrister working with Alliance Defending Freedom who would make time during the Summit to speak with them.
That is what God is up to. That is the way God works. He is still working his purposes out day by day and year by year such that one day abortion will be unwanted throughout Europe—and the world—and unthinkable in the generations to come.