Sioux Center, Iowa — Former Vice President Mike Pence, while in Sioux Center Wednesday morning, talked about his faith, how he grew up in a Christian home, but then wandered. “Like a lot of young people, I lost interest in faith, really walked away from what I’ve been taught in my upbringing,” he says. But during college, Pence says he met people who talked to him about having a personal relationship with God. During this time, he attended a Christian Music Festival that changed his life, saying it was then that he accepted Jesus as his personal savior.
Over the years, he says they made mistakes and learned a lot of lessons. “We learned the hard way in early attempts at politics,” he says, “I feel like my faith requires more of me in the way that I deal with one another. So, I hope in the last 20 years as a congressman, as a governor, and as vice president, I hope people have seen that we’ve stood strong for our values, but we’ve also tried to treat others the way we want to be treated and it’s probably the greatest way that my faith has guided my public life.”
Pence says his faith helped him form core values that serve as a foundation for his work. Those values give him guidance whether it’s at home, whether it was in the Oval Office, or even now on the campaign trail. He says one of the most important values is life. “I would tell you the commitment to the right to life, to ensuring that we have leadership at the very highest level of this country that upholds not only the sanctity of life, but the sanctity of family”.
Pence talked briefly of a new book he and his daughter authored, called Go Home For Dinner (due out this fall). It’s about family, and one his favorite quotes about family comes from President Ronald Reagan, “all great change in this country begins at the dinner table,” he says. Pence believes we need to get creative to preserve the family. “I think we’ve got to find new and renewed ways about how we strengthen families, how we make it possible for more families to live on one income, if they so choose,” Pence says. “I honestly think if we can give the American people the ability to turn their hearts back to home, to be home for dinner, to really put a priority on the family again, that everything proceeds out of that,” he says. “I think if we strengthen the American family, we will strengthen America”.
Pence has been in Western Iowa this week, he visited Sioux Center and Le Mars on Wednesday. Thursday he was in Holstein and Neola. These stops are part of his plan to visit all 99 of Iowa counties before the Iowa Caucuses.
(Courtesy of Community First Broadcasting station KSOU in Sioux Center)
