So our topic today is one of our heavier topics and culturally charged. We're going to be thinking about abortion, and to do that, our guest with us today is Dale Ebe, and Dale works for Christian ministry, basically a call-in ministry. So we're just going to start with some of what he hears from people who are calling into this ministry. So, yeah, if you could give us, I don't know, a snapshot, I guess, so I think to hear what motivates, what do you hear from people? So I do take billboard calls on a regular basis, and those things are a variety of questions, a variety of feelings behind those questions. In regards to the abortion issue, there are people who are calling because they've had abortions, or they are anticipating an abortion, and they want a second opinion. It's interesting that they would call a Christian hotline to get an opinion if they're not a Christian.  And he's fearful that if she doesn't have an abortion, that his responsibility to her. But he called to get a second opinion, even though he's not a Christian. So somewhere in his spirit, there was still something wrong with what was going on. A lot of people call and ask the question, how do I feel about somebody and whether they'll go to hell or not if they have an abortion. We see there that there's something that God has placed within us that says it's wrong to take life. When four people call in eight days, which happened, who had abortions and gave the trauma of that, I started to sit up and take note. When the first one called and said, I had an abortion when I was 16 years old and now I'm 24, but I've never told anybody. I wondered, well, why did you call me and tell me now? But again, God didn't make us to keep secrets. And so that had to come out. And even though she was a professing Christian and had asked God for forgiveness, it still had to come out to someone to help work through that. And so we're able to lead her through prayer of repentance for that and to give her a sense of direction as to where to go in her life amidst that mistake that she knew she made and that she didn't ever want to make it again. Another caller from Washington, DC asked if we ever get calls from people who've had abortions. And I said, we do. And as she progressed in her discussion, I said, you wouldn't happen to be one of those that is struggling with that, would you? And she says, yes, I am. And this is a very traumatic thing for her. The third one that called said that she's just leaving Planned Parenthood presently and that she knows it's a mistake that she's just had an abortion. And so she went into the Planned Parenthood through a crowd of protesters or people with signs saying it's wrong to get an abortion. But she put all that aside and went in and had an abortion and then came out and realized this thing was wrong. And now driving home calls to say, what can I do? I've made a huge mistake in my life. The fourth one said I made this mistake and I have dreams every night and it haunts me. And those dreams are such that I see my baby being held in Satan's arms. And it's traumatic. Now, for me, when a baby passes, they go into the arms of Jesus. But for her, she was going through all this mental anguish for this whole thing. And she was actually seeing this baby as having been thrown away and now in the arms of Satan. And was just wondering how she gets rid of these nightmares and all of that. Does that give me a little picture? So those are just four in a day period. So, yeah, I guess we could frame a little bit. How you respond to some of those. I mean, you mentioned you mentioned we were talking beforehand. Your ministry does not have any billboards specifically addressing abortion, but it's clearly identified as Christian and so and conservative Christian by content and so probably most people calling in are not going to be at all surprised to find out that you think that abortion is wrong. But they're still willing to call with those kind of confusions. What kind of help or picture do you try to give some give in that situation? Yes. And so as we know right now with the Supreme Court ruling, this has brought it to the forefront again. And people are looking at Christians, especially right wing, as being people who are influencing this Supreme Court ruling. And we have the tremendous privilege of saying we are not politically involved as an Anabaptist. That's a tremendous thing to be able to tell people because they view Christians as running the show for the right wings. I tell them that we are interested in getting at the heart of people and asking what is going on with inside of you and that there's a separation of church and state. And that changes the tone of the conversation. But the person that's calling and saying, you know, I am angry at Christians and I want this wave of Christian rightists to stop what they're doing. I have the opportunity to say to them that God loves you and God has a plan for your life. And I just care about who you are as a being, who are you really as a person? For the Christian that calls, who's gone through the abortion and who's been traumatized, I encourage them to get with another Christian woman and share those feelings that keep coming up because Satan wants to keep them in a superstructure of guilt about that. We know we take our sins to the foot of the cross and we can find complete forgiveness. Satan doesn't just want us to sin. He wants to keep us in that superstructure of guilt so that somehow we're ineffective. If we can realize that he's taken our sins away, we're made whiter than snow. Our sins are taken as far as the east is from the west. We're on our way to rising above that failure and allowing God to make us a better person because of where we have failed. So I think the encouragement is to show people the scriptures like Psalm 139, where it speaks about him knowing us in our mother's womb. Jeremiah one, where Jeremiah was known in his mother's womb, how that God has made each one of us unique and special and to value life. I think that's something I try to do is encourage people to value that there has been a conception and that that's a miracle and to caution against resisting what has just happened. I step back for a moment he talked about as an Anabaptist Christian, not wanting to be involved with politics. I mean, I guess specifically, does that mean you don't identify or wouldn't participate in efforts to influence laws on abortion or influence who's in the Supreme Court? Well, that's a good question because there are many that even in our Anabaptist circles would think that we need to put some pressure on. I'm convinced that the laws change every four years based on administrative personnel and that that's not a lasting solution. And that it doesn't matter if the laws are all right, there still is going to be the problem of evil and suffering and sin, abortion, whatever it is. We go back to when the Temperance Movement was in the early 1920s. The reality was that there were still people out there in the woods making moonshine, no matter what the law said. And when we get involved politically, we're just looking at a surface issue instead of getting what's really behind what's really behind this thing of abortion. The reality is there's been immorality there in many cases. I think the percentage of abortions with single people is much greater than the percentage of people who have abortions who are married. And so the reality is there's been something else that's broken down in a moral level before it came to the question, should I abort or shouldn't I abort? And I get people who call and say, well, my girlfriend's body isn't mature enough yet to handle this child. Or, you know, we're not financially able to bear the burden of a child or this is going to mess up my college education. This is going to mess up my career. Those are real questions, but let's go back and ask the real question. What is life all about? Is there a moral standard that needs to be abided by or are we just going on at our own rate? Not in every case, but one of those frequent issues is the issue of abortion comes up because you don't have the Christian standard of sexuality, whereas sexual intercourse is within marriage, committed marriage. But then at the same time, you talk about valuing life once life is here, that life is to be valued regardless of what the circumstances or that led to it. The heartbreaker for me is when a parent forces their daughter to get an abortion because she's not married or she's underage. And a girl, 13, 14, that calls me and says that she's being forced to have an abortion. She knows it's wrong. Her dad's a political figure or he's a maybe even a leader in their church. I had that already to save his face, forcing a child, a young girl to do this with an impact that I know is going to become more clear as she goes into womanhood. Just like the 24 year old that called and said at 16, I had an abortion. And she was holding that for those eight years. Never telling anyone, does that say what's going to happen in the future as she becomes a woman? I've had women 20 years after the fact crying about this. It's giving the trauma of this. There's something inside that is just reeling against doing this deed. It's a short term fix with long term consequences. Yeah, well, yeah, and those are hard stories, especially when it's pressure and to think about the kind of hypocrisy that comes when it's pressure to, you know, a parent wants to save their image or even their religious or Christian image. They don't want the baby that's in their mind brings shame to them or their family. Totally opposite of a redemptive response. So, yeah, with all of those difficult stories, what is a redemptive response or how do you encourage somebody to find redemption in those different circumstances? Does it help to realize that scripture does not have a category of one sin being worse than another? Does it help to realize that we are sinners, that I have lied and lying?  And so for this person to realize that we are flawed human beings, is that identifying with them and helping them to take courage in moving on and that God loves you and God has a plan for you? No, it wasn't right. We recognize that, but we still that God can bring something good out of our mistakes, beauty out of ashes and that we need to move on. Life is for moving on, not looking back, except to learn the lessons. But moving on and saying, God is something beautiful in your life. And don't count yourself as being a wasted piece because of this experience. Whether you want to experience, whether you're the one who's gone through it or whether somebody looking on not to see this as something unique, bring this own kind of pain, but it's not unique sin as a human problem of any sort and redemption is a divine solution. Thank you for joining us for this episode and thanks to our donors and partners for making this possible. For more episodes, please subscribe or visit our website at Anabaptistperspectives.org. You can also leave a comment or review to help more people find our content.


What's up, beautiful? Permanent straightening is a highly debated topic. And personally, I have strong opinions about it. Not always positive, but today, we're watching some girls get Japanese straightening perms. I have never actually performed a Japanese straightening treatment on somebody. However, I do know quite a bit about it. We're gonna talk about it. We're gonna go through it. We're gonna watch these girls get it done and see what happens to their hair. Is it a good outcome? Is it a bad outcome? And what is my personal opinion about permanent straightening treatments? Okay, let's do it. And our first girl who is getting a permanent straightening treatment today, a Japanese one, is Mikan. Getting my hair permanently straightened in Japan, damage free. Oh, Mikan, we will see about that. Damage free and straightening treatments don't exactly go together. And I will explain why in a second, but that title is a little deceiving for me. She's so cute. Late for my appointment. Because why would you ever be on time for the hairdresser? Like, why would you? Nobody can be on time. I don't know what it is. Or they're like 30 minutes early and you're like, I can't take you 30 minutes early. It's always the case. Nobody's ever just right on time.  I'm going to. I was just gonna say, no. Your hair is pretty. I like it wavy. But I'm sure it looks really cute straight too.   You know what I mean? But it's like, if it's quite healthy, I think you'll have to cut the ends off a bit. Look at why people only suggest you do it on healthy hair because it is actually very damaging to get a treatment done. Japanese treatments do not bond cared into the hair. We'll go over the differences in a second. Typically it's not good for your hair. Okay, she's way too cute. I can't handle it. They've like completely covered everything on me. So typically they're clarifying the hair before applying the solution that then gets straightened and blow dried into the hair. She's putting a little protective ear thing on. Those are literally so cute. They're so cool. It looks like they're going to stop the chat. It's really important when you're getting a straightening treatment that the product is applied evenly and the right amount of product is applied. Not too much and not too little because you can overdo it and it gets really greasy and really gross if you overdo it. So just be careful. More is not better in this case. I know it's mind blowing. That took me a long time to figure out but more is not better. It just makes your hair damn greasy and gross and it's a way too much product. And the product's expensive. Like you don't need to be paying for more product because you're using way too much, all right? I'm just going to put that out there. I've been to hair, man.  Like you can't have really crazy colored hair and it be healthy. You can't have a permanent straightening treatment and have healthy hair. Like why is this world always give and take? I want to just take. That's it. I didn't mean that in a different way. So typically what happens is they apply the solution. You have to let it sit for an hour or less. Every treatment is different. Every different kinds of straightening treatments is a lot of different ones. And then you usually blow dry it in, you straighten it. Some of them you wash it after and then blow dry it again. Some of them you leave it in for two days and don't wash your hair. They all kind of vary but they're all kind of similar. This one looks like you leave it in under heat. Then they're probably gonna blow dry and straighten it. You might kind of be wondering like what is the difference? Why is Japanese perming different than keratin perming? And you might have heard of Brazilian blowouts. Keratin complex. Those are the two major ones like Brazilian keratin that sort of thing. Basically what keratin treatments are literally it's liquid keratin. Glued, glued, glued to each hair fiber with the intense heat that is applied to the hair. So your hair is made out of keratin and you're adding more keratin over it and a bit of a harder structure so that your hair cannot coil up and twist. It's kind of just like pulled in that same direction at all times and it slowly wears away. Whereas a Japanese straightening treatment does not go away until your hair grows out. Brazilian blowouts however, do slowly go away after about three months. Brazilian blowouts and stuff like that are gonna make your hair really, really glossy and beautiful and it's gonna get over with a lot of your wave. However, Japanese perming it's gonna get rid of pretty much all of your wave.  It's quite the opposite with Japanese. It's very flat and straight and pin pin straight but it does last longer. Depending if you've ever colored your hair you might wanna get a Brazilian blowout and if you've never colored your hair before maybe a Japanese straightening treatment would be better for you because that one lasts longer. However, you're gonna get more damage on that one and less damage on the Brazilian one. So there's all kinds of things involved with this process and all kinds of things to think about when and if you get a straightening treatment there are many different kinds and many different applications of the same sort of thing. It's just different outcomes, different amount of time that it lasts for and different for different hair types and textures. So now we're, so I'm really excited to see how it will turn out. All right, all right. I don't blame her for getting a straightening treatment. I think it would be good for her. The end result, I wouldn't even be mad because it's a lot better than my original hair. Easy question. But what she's going to straighten it and then supposedly that's like the end result. And then she said that she would cut my fringe too because it's a cold mess. Let me go over something. There's two reasons why I don't do these treatments with people and one of them is because it takes way too long. It is the most boring process in my opinion. You literally have to go over each strand like six times.   The time is not worth the money. People don't want to pay that much for a straightening treatment and if they do it's still not that much compared to a color process. So I'd rather spend three hours, four hours doing a color process and make double the money rather than doing a straightening treatment and making half the money. So that's why I stopped doing them. But hey, if you like doing it, I like you.  Oh my God, her hair looks so pretty. Oh, and now they put another layer of something on there. Wow, her hair looks beautiful. I just realized you guys, hold on a second. I didn't finish explaining what the differences was between both of these processes. So Japanese straightening actually changes the inner workings of the hair cuticle. The cortex of the hair is changed. It's very, very similar to a curly perm where it changes the disulfide bonds in the hair. It breaks the disulfide bonds and reforms it into a pin straight moment. So it's actually working in the inside whereas Brazilians and such things like keratin treatments are working on just the outside. It is not reforming anything in the inside. And that's the difference, okay? I just want to- Why is there a fly on my set? Get away from me. Stop flying in my face. I will show you my hair freshly dried. It's just because of the- Oh, it's so straight. It still looks beautiful and shiny. I approved. I haven't touched that. Yeah. It's not that cute when that happens.  This is the issue, man. Amongst other issues with straightening treatments is that it lasts for a couple months until your roots start to grow in and you get these awful curly roots and you have to straighten your roots and then the ends are straight and the roots aren't. And then you have this whole thing going on where you can't wear it natural. You can't wear it not natural. And then you have to always style it and you're gonna end up being more styling in the long run. But her hair looks nice. Just, I don't know how much of a convenience it will actually end up being for Ms. Mikan. But it looks nice. Let's move on. Let's watch one more. This video is by Rachel Enjun. This is called Japanese Permanent Hair Straightening. So she seems to have the same sort of hair as the last girl. Her hair is a little bit more straight. But the same bangs, the same sort of frizziness, the same bit of wave and curl going on. We'll say wave. And her hair looks either colored or she just has very majestically copper hair that I'm very into. A while ago I did an ultrasonic hair treatment at Nalu that left my hair super silky and straight for about three weeks. I loved it but the result didn't last too long and so they said if I did the permanent hair straightening. I've heard of these thermal treatments, whatever she just said. They're actually really crazy. They use this straightener that doesn't heat up, does this thing and somehow your hair is smoother and straighter with ionic things going on. Listen, I have literally no idea what I'm saying right now. If you wanna know about more about that then research it yourself. It like straightens the hair, temporarily smooths it out and adds a lot of shine apparently.  And we're going over the same process. The same things are kind of going on and let's see if we get a little bit more of an insight on this one and then I'll share with you guys why I don't like these treatments very much. This is cool because they actually put her bangs in a round like paper thing. However the solution is applied is how the disulfide bonds in the hair are going to reform.  I think the last girl didn't get that which is why her bangs kinda ended up being like two different ways. So it's really important the way you relax the hair the way you get it straightened is in the way that you're going to wear it or else it's always gonna be parted in that same direction at all times. If somebody does one of these Japanese treatments on you and gives you like a side part or a middle part and you only wear it on the side that's not a good idea. You should tell them you wear it on the side because if they do it in the middle and it's straightened like that it is going to stay in the middle forever or until your hair grows out and it's gonna be super annoying to try and change that. So that's really important. Great application, very satisfying.  And now they apply another solution which I think is like more of a deep conditioning treatment sort of moment going on. And then they rinse it and then they blow dry it. Whoa, dude, that's a difference. Wow, look how shiny it is.  Whoa, that is like HD copper. Like that is beautiful. Wow, it looks so smooth and shiny. Okay, let's see, God, this bug will f*** away. Let's see what the outcome is. Let's see if she likes it. Wait, this is so cool actually. Yo, commitment from Rachel. Like she just gave us a damn time lapse of her hair drying. Rachel, I don't think that was necessary but it's very much appreciated. And whoa, that's a lot of time you just sat there. Thank you for that. Her hair so shiny and soft looking. Oh, dude, yes. Honestly, yeah, yeah, for sure. That was actually really good for her too. Okay, well, let's get into my thoughts about this whole thing. So, okay. Over the course of watching these two videos, my thoughts about straightening treatments has sort of adjusted, let's say. And the reasoning for that is, let me just explain to you why I don't generally like them that much. A few reasons, okay. First of all, you're like literally changing how your hair dries naturally and how it is. We just need to embrace it sometimes or just use the correct products to style your hair. People with curly hair or wavy hair or frizzy hair just literally don't use the correct products or don't use high quality products that work. You're not gonna get as great of an outcome when you're just not using the right products, obviously. So, a lot of this stuff could be solved with correct products. I just think it's a very serious thing to do is like straighten your hair permanently. Like whatever, right? That's like the least of my worries. Mainly with Japanese straightening treatments, it's like you're reforming the bonds of your hair. You are going deep into that hair cuticle. You are doing a lot of damage and you are going in there and doing a lot of things to your hair that are not exactly meant to do. Which I just don't feel like it's the best decision, which is also like not that big of a deal. I don't really care that much about that. The third biggest reason for me why before this video I kind of didn't like them that much but kind of changed my mind is because when you get a straightening treatment, you are getting each little individual hair straightened by a 400 or around 450 degrees Fahrenheit, which is very hot. You cook a lot of food at that temperature or a little less than that.  It just really stresses me out. So when people get hair and treatments and their hair is already damaged, expecting it to be better off after. I don't know if straightening your hair 300 times to the 450 degree flat iron is gonna make your hair any healthier. Does that make sense? And then you have to think about how after you get it done, maybe you won't be using a flat iron, a blow dryer or whatever at all anymore which is actually gonna end up causing less damage but maybe the same amount of damage because you already like pulverized with a flat iron to get the treatment and now you're just not using any heat products after the treatment and otherwise it would have been the other way around. You don't do any treatment and you just pulverize it all the time with a low amount of heat. It's kind of the same sort of situation I guess. And the other thing is like I mentioned before is that your roots grow in and you end up curly and you end up having curly roots and you have to get it maintained a lot which is another whole process in a lot of time.  There's all different kinds of things you can get done and all different techniques. You can still keep your curl and get a straightening treatment if that's called just like defrizzed treatment. There's all sorts of things going on. I wanna share some knowledge today about straightening treatments and about Japanese straightening treatment. I feel lightened actually and if you've seen a bug flying around this entire time that is my friend. His name is Benny, Benny and he is sitting right beside me right now. All right, bye Benny. Oh, there he is. How do you wanna say hi? Oh, bye. All right, that is all you guys. Check out my new hair products Project X by X-Mondo, my brand. It'll be linked below. Follow X-Mondo on Instagram and Twitter for updates on new product launches. Follow me on Instagram and Twitter at grabondomyc and my other channel, Brad and Eric for behind the scenes content and stuff like that.  And thank you so much for watching today.  And I'll see you guys next time. Bye. Boom.