 Welcome to the July edition of Cornerstone Connect. We have a very special program planned just for you. At home digital content creator Joe Ligo will zoom in to tell us all about the new at home content available to you, not only on Cornerstone Network, but our YouTube page as well. And then Cornerstone Care's partners, Pastor Jay and Tiffany Gilbert, share how God took them to another level when he called them to open a pregnancy care center. And Tom Hollis joins me to celebrate the birth of America. All that and more coming up next. Amanda Brocker and I welcome you to Cornerstone Connect. I have a question for you. Have you received your newsletter in the mail? It's so important that you stay connected to us and we love to be connected to you. And just speaking of that, thank you to the many of you who wrote in. So I just got to reflect on some of these letters. This is from Irene. She says, I called Friday for prayer. It was such a wonderful prayer. It touched my heart. 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And the many of you who do give to us faithfully, it's the only way we're on air is by God pulling on those heartstrings of those who have fallen in love with this network and found that it's part of their assignment. So maybe God's speaking to you. Don't ever hesitate to give us a call and join the Cornerstone family, helping us to spread the good news of the gospel. This is from Monty. I appreciate Cornerstone TV and all the blessings it provides. This is from Sandy. I wanted to let you know how I love watching Arlene when she is cooking. I learned so much from her. It's amazing. It's like a legacy. Truly Arlene and her programming for all of us. This is from Catherine. She said, God bless you and your ministry. I'm a longtime supporter and very blessed with your ministry. Thank you so much, Catherine. And this is from Janice. She said, I appreciate all the wonderful programs on CTVN. God bless. You know, it is so important for us to have godly programming every hour of the day. So just know it's always well thought out and we pray over every movie that showed every program that is signed on and we desire for God to use that for your life. This comes from Denise. And she said, thank you for the CTVN lineup of programs that minister to our hearts. Honestly, I've been enthralled with origins. I always liked the 9 p.m. programs and radiant TV. Hey, there's nothing like learning about your creator. It helps us just solidify within our hearts that we know we belong to the God of the universe. He created us. He designed us and he has amazing plans for each of us. We're so thankful that you wrote in. Well, coming up next, Tom Hollis joins me to celebrate America and the God of our fathers. Stay tuned. Did you know your favorite programs on cornerstone television network like hope today, sister to sister, hard questions, dashing dish at home and move your mountain are not only on your TV screen, but also on YouTube. YouTube is the second most popular media platform in the world with more than 2.5 billion viewers. It's changed the way we watch content. And the way we're consuming media may be changing, but what remains the same and continues to stand true is God's word and the power of the gospel. Now take a look at this map behind me. These are the top cities that are watching cornerstone television network. And because of your partnership, they are getting life changing television every day. So in the US, you see it's New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Atlanta, Miami, Seattle, Dallas. And then we go to Canada, Toronto and Regina. And then over to Europe, Dublin, London. And then in Africa, we have Buwake, Nairobi, Petoria, Cape Town in just Hannesburg. And in Asia, Kochi, Jakarta, Bengaluru, Manila, Yungu Sea, Sydney and Melbourne. This is just the list of many of the cities we reach because of your faithful giving to cornerstone television network. Thank you for helping us bring hope to people around the world and right here in Pittsburgh. We're so thankful to have our COO on Tom Hollis for cornerstone connect. And you've got to talk to us about this wonderful article you wrote about America's birthday. Well, you know, I'm a July baby. I was born July 2nd. My brother was born July 3rd. So we always had lots of presidents on July 4th when all the family would get together. So I've always loved, I love history, you know that. And I love the founding of our nation. And as I was thinking about July 4th though, there was this quote about commemorating the signing of the Declaration of Independence from, it was from John Adams. And he said this, listen to this, Amanda. He said, it ought to be commemorated as a day of deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. This is our second president talking about what our celebration of the signing of our birth as a nation should be. And it even goes on kind of almost like prophetically talking about it should have a parade and shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, eliminations, the very things we do do on July 4th. He kind of looked into the future and saw our nation commemorating that. Isn't that amazing? It is. It's beautiful. We, you know, all of us out there buying our fireworks. We're not thinking about, you know, George Washington, was it George Washington? It was John Adams. John Adams words. Yeah. That's so anyhow, we need to go back to that first part that he said about with God. Yeah, devotion. There was an honor toward God with our founding fathers. Well, if you read the founders, they believe that God was with them and God was delivering them. And I truly believe that he was and, you know, the thing is we've lost that. We've lost that. Look, I love all the fun things. I love the hot dogs with the potato salad, the games, the fireworks. I love all that. But we've kind of made it about totally about America and we should make it about America. But what about the God, the God that helped found America and what does that mean for us? I thought of three points. So what are the God lessons in all this? You know, first of all, put God first in all that we do. We should put Almighty God first. He mentioned that first and that commemoration that we should commemorate it to God. So in our own personal lives, we need to do that to God as well to say, okay, God, I want to celebrate everything here, but I want to thank you first. And then our crisis brings out God's glory. Okay. America could have just stayed where she was and it wouldn't have brought out the glory of God. One of my favorite historical books is 1776. And if you read in there, it's clear that God was doing something because George Washington had no business, his army had no business surviving the first year, let alone winning the war. God intervened. And then finally, we need to celebrate the victories. Alene Eagle, who used to be our director here, she said, we need to rehearse the victories. In other words, to celebrate the victories, talk about the victories. God wanted Israel to talk about the victories and tell them to their children, you know, and tell the deliverance to their children. We need to do that too in our own life because we're going to have times where we're not going to remember them. They're going to be hard to remember because we're going to be going through another hard time. But the God who delivered us before is the God who would deliver us again. So let's trust in him just like America did during this time. And boy, do we need to remember that that same God can deliver America now. Amen. Well, I'm just thinking of like, you know, applying this to our lives right now and what you said about celebrating those victories we've had kind of reminded me of David looking at the notches in his staff, so to speak, of that he killed the lion, he killed the bear, you know, as he's going to go to face Goliath. And it's so important for us to fix our eyes on God. What is something, you know, in your life, your wife's life that you have done to put God first, like in individually? Well, you know, God has always been first in our home, you know, and even when we haven't always done things perfectly, at least there's that anchor, that foundation that we're going to honor God. We're going to thank him. Something as simple as always thanking him at the meals, always eating together and thanking him at the meals, which I think everybody did that a couple of generations ago, probably. It needs to be done. And then, you know, simple things like honoring God with our, just our service to our church and our attendance there and talking to our neighbors, things like that. Those are very simple things, very basic. But God was always first. God was always not to the exclusion of our children, but to the inclusion of our children and our relationships, but having God is that foundation. Amen. Well, you heard it said best by our historian here at Cornerstone Television, the Tom Hollis, but I love this foundation that you have built and laid in your own home. I love this foundation. It's been built in our country, maybe not forget it. The only way we forget it is if we aren't spreading that to the next generation. You know, and I'm just thinking about all those people, Tom, who have given of their time, their money, their efforts to Cornerstone Television, which allows us to have this amazing broadcast 24 hours a day, seven days a week, and it's glorifying God. What does that mean to your heart? Well, let me just say to all of you who do support Cornerstone, thank you so much. We could not do this. You know, people's lives are changed by the ministry of this station. And the only way we could do that is when you step up to the plate, when you say, I wanna be the one that's gonna help Cornerstone to continue to broadcast the gospel, bring hope, and put God first, just like John Adams wanted our country to, put God first in all we do. Thank you. That's so important. Well, here we go. We've got so much more in this program. Thank you, Tom, for just sharing this wonderful article with us, but you had the chance to sit down with a very special couple the other week, and I can't wait to share their story. Watch this. One of the great things about partnering with Cornerstone Television is Cornerstone Cares, where we support missionaries around the world and just sharing the gospel and doing such great programs, and we support them here, right in our own backyard. And today, we're celebrating one of our newest Cornerstone Cares partners, the East Liberty Women's Care Center, a ministry of voices for the unborn as they enter their third year of making an impact to the Pittsburgh area. And you may recognize the founders, I think you will, Pastor Jay and Tiffany Gilbert. Welcome. Yes, thank you. We are so glad to be here. Well, you know, we, you know, Jay, we all know Jay from Hosting, Hope Today, and Hard Questions, and Tiffany, you've even been on TV a few times, sister to sister. A little bit, yeah. Yeah, oh, you do a great job. But many don't realize that the Lord placed on you both a calling. You kind of got this separately. Tiffany, why don't you start? You kind of got this from the Lord to be involved in this arena. We did. It was definitely a separate call, you know, when the pandemic hit. We did some things differently and we were doing some things online. And it was so interesting. Once we got to the topic of abortion, God kind of arrested our hearts. And, you know, God just said to me, you can't just sit there in the front row. You kind of have to move to the front lines and be about it. And what I didn't know is that my husband on the other side, God had shared some things with him about the very same thing as well. And we had never talked about doing a pregnancy center. We had never been on our heart, but the Lord really just said, if not now, when? And if not you, then who? You know, who's gonna step up and do this? He said, you're preaching to the choir. You're talking to all these people about pro-life, but that's not saving any babies. And God just put it upon our heart to go out there and say, let's start and let's go ahead and let's do this. You know, there's so many different angles to kind of attack a problem. One is obviously it's great to have legislation and all that and it's great to have the truth of God be preached, but you're really setting things in action personally. But let me ask you, how do you start a center? I mean, where do you find the book? This is how you start a center. What did you do to take those first steps? You know what? I wish there was a book. Yeah, right, right. And that we could follow, but there wasn't, we just followed God's call. And honestly, you know, we just made some cold calls. And I just went on Google and Googled some names and some organizations and I just was led that way. And I remember meeting this older woman who's been in the game of pro-life, that pro-life just support for a long time. And she said, hey, listen, you know, I don't have a lot to give, but I'll give you what I can. And so I said, well, we'll take it. We'll take all that you have. And she led us to somebody named, her name was Regina from Birthright. And our original plan was to move right next door to Planned Parenthood. But Regina said, hey, have you ever heard of Allegheny Reproductive? And we said, no. And that day we went down there and we said, you know what, we're just gonna, God lead us. And we went right past the abortion clinic. And right when we came past the door, there were women coming out and it was obviously what happened at that point. And we said, all right, Lord, show us exactly where you want us to be. And it was so crazy. It was just a God thing that when we got to the end of that block, literally, there was a forensic sign right there. And this is the Allegheny Reproductive. This had been an abortion clinic at one time, hadn't it? The building you're in now? Yes, absolutely. Yeah, it was. And matter of fact, our original plan was we want to be right next door to every abortion clinic that is in Pittsburgh. Matter of fact, once we get this thing where it needs to be, our next plan is to move to the one downtown. There's a Planned Parenthood down there. We want to be right next door time where they have to go by us a place for life before they can go and realize they don't have any options. Well, let me, now, it usually takes at least a couple of years to get going here. So tell me how the process went. I mean, how did the Lord open doors for you? What else did He do to kind of get you to the place where you're up and running now? Listen, it was like lightning speed. I mean, when we tell people, you know, how quick, because it takes up to three years. Save your first baby. To save your first baby. And so for us, we just said, all right, Lord, show us what you want us to do. And God blessed us so much where there were things that we're, we didn't even share. And people approached us and said, hey, listen, do you need this? Do you need this? What do you need? You know, because it's something that it's not just us. You know, it's everybody. It's the body of Christ that needs to come together for this. I mean, you guys have really mobilized the body of Christ. I've been to one of your fundraising banquets and I was like, wow, there's a lot of people here that have come alongside of you guys. Now, tell me the results. Okay, tell me, like, tell me a story about a baby. Oh man. Well, one in particular one was, there was a young woman that was actually, she came last year to our banquet and she brought her son and she shared a little bit of her story. But I love to share this because you can actually see God working in that counseling room. And she came in and she said, hey, listen, this is what's going on. These are my challenges in life. And all she needed was love. So we gave her the love of Christ and we've seen the Holy Spirit literally move right in front of her eyes. And at that point, she just, she said, hey, listen, I want to keep my baby. I get chills just hearing that story, but you've been able to see some of these babies born, right? Yes, we have been. And it's been such a great journey and we want to thank you guys and along with all the people at Cornerstone that support Cornerstone that are helping us because there have been several days that you're seeing up on the screen right now. These are some of the many babies that we have been fortunate to see save women that have chosen to say yes. And that's why we're here. We have to be a voice for those that are voiceless. And Tom, we didn't know when we opened this up that Roe v. Wade was going to be overturned. But God positioned us because it's been given back to the States. And what God has put upon us, you said like we've immobilized the church. We want to link arms with all denominations, with all churches, with all backgrounds. We all need to stand up because it's been given back and we are a huge pro-abortion state. And if we don't stand up and do something, we are going to let these babies go and we are going to be the one to have to answer for that. Absolutely. And again, you're taking it right at the, where the rubber meets the road, right on the front lines, out of the front row. I like that. Out of the front row into the front lines. I like that. If you want to thank the, would you just look into the camera and just thank the cornerstone partners for being a part of this? Yes. Well, listen, I just want to say that we could not at all do it without you. I tell people all the time that it's not a Pastor Jay and Tiff thing. It's not just a cornerstone thing. It's a body of Christ thing. We need everybody in the body of Christ to do this. And we're so grateful for all of you that are there. We thank you so much. And you know what Tom, if there are people that want to be a part, we still need volunteers. We're getting ready to go from just being a pregnancy center to a full blown medical clinic. We just received a phenomenal grant that's going to take us to where we're going to see tons of ladies and babies saved like we've never seen before. So thank you for your support, but the work is just beginning. Yeah. Well, thank you for being on the front lines. I know that's a little battles there sometimes, but it's a battle that we need to be in guys. Thank you so much for watching. Thank you. I would like to welcome a very special guest, Joe Ligo. He is our at home digital content creator and has been bringing the at home show and recipes, making them available just for you. Joe, welcome to Cornerstone Connect. Hi Amanda, thanks for having me. This is awesome. So I think we need to dive back into the story here. It's no secret to us, but it might be a surprise to our audience that you are a huge Arlene Williams fan. Do you just love to cook or how did this come about? Yeah. So, you know, growing up, my mom watched the show, my grandma watched the show. I didn't really get into at home until I got a job at Cornerstone television around 2013. They'd actually just stopped making new episodes of at home, but I helped Arlene do cooking segments for another talk show program. And we got to become friends and I would watch some of the old episodes of the show. And I always tell people I love to cook because I love to eat. And so, you know, at home was, you know, kind of something I would put on in the background when I was working in the kitchen or whatever. And it's a fun show in that sort of way. And of course, ever since Arlene passed away, it's been for me a way to remember a friend, you know, to turn on an old episode and watch Arlene. It's like she's right there with you. What is one of the characteristics in working with her that you remember about her? So I got to help behind the scenes, you know, cut up stuff and prepare stuff for the cooking segments that she would do. And I remember one time I, we had, it was something Mexican or something and I had this little bowl of sour cream and I worked really hard to make like this like beautiful spiral in it. And Arlene told me that looks too nice. Nobody's gonna eat it. You have to make it look a little bit messier. Everybody will be too afraid to dip the spoon into it. And I think that just goes to show that Arlene had a really good sense, not only of how to cook food that people would like, but she wanted to make people comfortable when they shared food together. And I think that was a big part of her show. It wasn't just how to make something that tastes good, but how to make your guest family or your relatives or whoever's coming over for dinner, how to make them comfortable and how to make a Christian home a welcoming place for someone. That's right. Hence the name at home. I've said it time and time again. She literally, even when I worked with her myself, I fell at home. She just, she helped me. I did make her roll her eyes a few times because I'm not the expert in the kitchen. She never said those words to me that I made it too pretty. But tell us what's new with at home and this project that you're doing. Sure. So Cornerstone of course has this wonderful library of programs that, you know, I think it's over 400 episodes of at home. And the folks at Cornerstone, you know, the folks in master control especially have been working really hard to find these tapes, go through them, get them into the system. And there's, you know, 20 years worth of shows. And then I'm working with them to get those shows edited and uploaded to YouTube and then also get a website that has all the recipes. So it's kind of a partner thing where there's the YouTube channel where you can watch the videos and then there's the website where you can go get the recipes. And, you know, that's a lot of material, you know, 400 show archives. It takes a long time, but we're really proud of the fact that we've gotten over a hundred episodes on YouTube. We're adding new episodes each week. And it's really been fun to go through and, you know, watch these old shows. And of course it's been really fun to see the comments people leave on YouTube and stuff saying, Oh, I love Arlene so much. Thank you for putting these shows up here. It shows that there's, you know, even though the material might be several decades old, there's a lot of people that these shows meant a lot to them. And so it really feels good to be able to share those. So go over again, how do people watch these? I know it's in our newsletter. So we'll put that page up on the screen and hopefully you have your newsletter and you can refer to it. Yes, I have my newsletter too. So I have my newsletter. I got the mail, but it's pretty easy. If you just go to ctbn.org slash at home, all the recipes are there, links to all the videos are there. And like I said, we're adding new ones each week. And if you wanna, you know, binge watch the episodes, just go to YouTube and search for at home with Arlene Williams and you'll find our channel there. And of course a great way to follow us is on Facebook. We have a Facebook page for at home with Arlene Williams. Every time a new video gets uploaded, we share it. We like to share pictures. We actually just celebrated all week where we showed all of our favorite episodes featuring Arlene's husband theme weeks and stuff like that. So it's, you know, not just random episodes, but there's some thought into what shows are going to be on TV when and what shows we upload to YouTube. That is amazing, Joe. We thank you so much for this work that you're doing and your heart for Arlene and for sharing that with our Cornerstone family. We greatly appreciate it. Well, it's been a lot of fun and I'm really excited about the month of July because obviously we have some fourth of July episodes, you know, the first week leading up to July. We're gonna have a bunch of fourth of July stuff. And July itself, we started to be really fun. It's called Tuesdays and Zucchini Thursdays. See, I've got my basket here. One of Arlene's favorite things to do is she would do these summer produce shows. And she knows, you know, if you have a garden or if you have a neighbor with a garden, you know, once the zucchinis start coming in, you're gonna get swamped with them. And so she was great at coming up with recipes and, you know, she would make zucchini bread and zucchini cake and, you know, chicken stuff, zoo with zucchini and all that. So I made a few of her recipes here. This one is a great one that you'll see coming up in July. It's a zucchini onion quiche. And so that's eggs with a layer of cheddar cheese on top and a flaky, you know, herb pie crust. Really delicious stuff. That's a great recipe of hers. And then of course, tomatoes you have to have too. So these were these fun little appetizers she made. These are tomato and egg sandwiches. And you can see there's like a layer of horseradish and cream cheese and then two slices of hard boiled egg on top. And so she really just had a good sense of creative ideas to use up all this stuff. Cause, you know, you can only eat so much salad, you know, during the summer. And so the fact that she was able to come up with these recipes and share them with people, something she was really proud of. And that's something that if you follow us on Facebook during the month of July, you can follow us on YouTube. You can get all these recipes and Arlene was coming up with practical ways to use all this delicious summer produce that's going to be in season here. That is awesome, Joe. We'll talk to you later. Thank you so much for your time today. Well, I know that you enjoyed hearing from Joe and how about using those vegetables and all the things he just presented. He really is like Arlene. I love it. But I just want to read to you this piece of mail from Nancy. She said, I'm balling watching today's remembering Paul show that he was talking about. Even though they are both gone now, I had watched her for years. And now that her husband, Jim, has also passed, she was glued to the shows on Cornerstone television stations. She said, Arlene is number one. You know, it's only by your gifts that we're able to continue the work of Cornerstone television. And we just want to say a great big thank you, a happy birthday to the United States of America. And thank you for all of your love and support.