(LifeSiteNews) — The following is a personal story about the incredible influence of LifeSite, and in return on LifeSite, related to the life of a dear, tragically recently deceased friend who achieved astonishing things for life, family, and faith. He was also an enormous help to me regarding health issues I have been enduring.
After reading this you might be inspired to give a generous donation towards LifeSite’s quarterly campaign so that we can continue to inspire and help many other pro-life warriors in the world, like this incredible friend, who deeply appreciated and used our news reports to perform miracles.
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On May 20 of this year, I received in my usual daily flood of emails one with an attached obituary about a Dr. Gene Antonio. I knew a Gene Anthony, but not Gene Antonio, and have never communicate with the unknown person who sent the email, so I just kept on scanning all my other emails and did not open the obituary file.
A few hours later, I got a sick feeling that the email might be about my many-years Dominican Republic friend and naturopathic doctor, Gene Anthony, who, as far as I knew, was not dangerously ill. I talked to him on April 27. He sounded like he had a bad case of the flu or something similar and asked me to pray for him, but he did not give any details other than it is “really bad.” Gene was one of the most fit persons his age I have ever known and he still sounded like his usual bouncy self, and so I was not too worried – a regrettably big mistake on my part.
I opened the attachment and with a shock saw the photo of my dear friend and extraordinary pro-lifer who, it was stated, died on May 3, one week after I talked to him. That hit hard.
Gene was always unusually healthy, an active fitness person, and the most amazingly effective Christian pro-life evangelist that I have ever encountered in over 40 years in the movement. He was a humble, ALWAYS super joyful, constantly giving superstar who literally saved many thousands of lives from abortion, pornography, drug addiction, suicide, and other perversities of our modern age.
I learned that Sue Cyr, who sent me the obituary, is a solid Catholic who helped Gene’s ministry from her home in Dallas for the past five years and has also been intensely active in pro-life work in the United States. After I contacted her to ask what could possibly have caused the death of this robust, dear friend she wrote,
“Gene slipped and fell down a staircase a year ago, as he was packing to go give pro-life talks in a school. That messed up his back and leg. He’s been in recovery mode all year, going to get therapy, infrared, etc. — while continuing to work pro-life. A few months ago, he was in a lot of pain and went into a hospital and then a rehab. And then he went back home. A few weeks ago, he was in excruciating pain, went to get some sort of pain relief at a hospital. Then he called me again in terrible pain a few days later, and the next I heard from his son Dominic, Gene was back in a hospital and had exploratory surgery – where they found a serious infection and some sepsis in his internal organs. He died that evening in ICU. I’d say likely he focused on the pro-life work and didn’t slow down enough to properly recover and care for his own issues.”
It was a fluke death of a pro-life giant that no one, including Gene, expected until the last few hours.
What a sad report that was to read, but on the other hand, I feel privileged and inspired for having known this amazing, selfless man, shared so much with him, and seen how many thousands of lives he was able to positively influence.
Among many other things, Gene spoke to classes and entire school assemblies, including all the teachers, in literally hundreds of schools in the Dominican Republic, the United States, and in other nations his family lived in. You have probably never heard of him because he was not one to ever promote himself.
PLEASE read the obituary. It relates the life of a giant to whom the Lord will surely have said, “Well done good and faithful servant.”
Gene and Steve
Gene used to frequently, often daily, message or call me out of the blue, late at night or during the day, sometimes several times in one day, to ask how I was doing, and also when he was ecstatic and literally crying on the phone over the unexpected flood of moving testimonials of gratitude, changed lives, and babies saved that he received, often with photos – from around the world.
Listen to one of Gene’s brief calls below. I am not sure who he was talking to, or the context, but it does not matter. It conveys the unforgettable personality of Gene Anthony and his total commitment to saving babies lives.
Gene Anthony loved others in need with an incredible passion and gave everything that he was blessed with to help others. He did not care what faith or Christian confession they were from. All got equal treatment.
How this pertains to LifeSiteNews is that Gene Anthony was, in my experience, the world’s number one fan and consumer of LifeSiteNews information. He faithfully read LifeSiteNews every day and devoured all the pro-life, pro-family, and other related news and used it for his life and soul-saving mission work.
He constantly raved about LifeSiteNews articles he just read and often sent me news tips about stories he thought we should cover, many of which we did report. Just one example is this one that he sent with the comment, “That is HUGE! Fills me with joy, hope and motivation! Thanks for covering it.”
His mission also involved his wonderful wife Rebecca and their children and a small band of other assistants in the Dominican Republic. His was always a low-budget, humble operation that accomplished more than most with far more money and staff because they fully trusted in God to provide whatever they needed. LifeSite was one source that especially inspired him and fed him much that he was able to use for his work. He was constantly, profusely grateful and praising of LifeSite. It always bowled me over.
My relationship with Gene started about 10 years ago when I went to the Dominican Republic for a stem cell treatment that naturopathic doctor Gene Anthony (real name Antonio) offered, that successfully helped many of his patients. I had a severe, chronic neck pain that, among many other things, did not allow me to sleep lying down on a bed for several years. I had to sleep sitting up in an easy chair. It was rough, and I was desperate.
The stem cell treatment did not help, but I developed a close relationship with this amazing pro-life warrior who constantly cheered me up and reminded me that LifeSiteNews was, in his opinion, the top news service of any kind in the entire world. He emphatically meant it. He would frequently say, “there is nothing like LifeSite in the world. It is THE best and ONLY news service that anyone needs.”
Gene frequently used LifeSiteNews materials in his ministry, forwarded them to numerous others, and gave me lots of news tips that became LifeSiteNews articles. What he above all appreciated was that we reported all our news on every issue from a faithful Christian perspective like no one else.
Gene said that he had a serious obligation to dedicate himself to helping me with my health issues because what I was doing was so incredibly important for the world.
After a few years, he found a supplements regime for me that made a tremendous difference to my neck pain. Soon after using it I was able to finally sleep most nights lying down in bed again. He was always asking about my health and trying to suggest solutions, many of which were helpful.
I had my own personal naturopathic doctor for about 10 years who offered his help 24 hours per day, seven days a week and who communicated with me almost daily from the Dominican Republic over WhatsApp. It was humbling. I did not ask for any of this but am immensely grateful for what he did for me. I don’t believe I would still be doing this work but for Gene.
The international pro-life evangelist
Gene moved to the Dominican Republic from the U.S. because it allowed more freedom for pro-life evangelization and alternative medical work. The U.S. was far too restrictive and medically controlled by Big Pharma for him. Gene often told me, as poor as the DR was, its medical system was superior and much less costly than on the U.S. mainland.
Gene was the most prolific, ALWAYS positive, joyful, and incredibly effective pro-life missionary that I have encountered in over 40 years of being involved in the movement. He was fearless, creative, and totally dependent on the grace of God.
Especially in the last several years, he found a unique way to use the Internet to literally save many thousands of lives from abortion, suicide, and the effects of other moral depravities. He strongly promoted the benefits of homeschooling. He was also dedicated to daily physical workouts and would often send me photos or videos of him working out at a full gym at 4 am every day. That was one of the secrets to his incredible energy. I doubt he slept for more than 4-6 hours most days.
Gene’s incredible discovery of how to reach millions
His new websites and the unique way that he promoted them (I still don’t know exactly what he did) rapidly reached literally millions. He first started with a Spanish-English version, https://embarazosduros.com/, a few years ago that quickly resulted in massive positive responses of babies being saved and readers changing their lives and turning them over to God.
Gene read me some of the heart-rending messages he received, barely being able to read them because he was so emotionally overcome from reading that his website caused readers to not abort their baby, saved marriages, turned children and adults away from pornography, or decided not to kill themselves after reading his website.
Gene repeatedly told me, “I have seen thousands of messages like this as a result of people seeing the website.” Many included photos of their saved baby such as the one below that he called “adorable Chloe” who had a “lovely name.”
He always included a prominent free ad for LifeSiteNews on his English or Spanish websites and the others in various languages such as Russian.
Gene produced a Russian version of “Reproductive health is a fundament right” which in reality, like the Spanish version, was totally pro-life and contained the videos, “The Silent Scream” and “The Hard Truth,” but, above all, many photos of beautiful babies and mothers throughout the website. Gene was a pro-life marketing genius.
Next, he added a Spanish site https://mejorquesuicidio.com/, which in English meant Better than Suicide. Gene said it became, “the number one most visited suicide prevention website in the world. Thousands have been saved through it.” He had thousands of testimonies to prove it. He targeted many different nations with his websites, including Equatorial Guinea and other African nations.
The volume of communications was far beyond what he and his tiny team could respond to. However, he related to one mother that, “The fact that you are worried clearly indicates you are a responsible, loving caring mom. Not to worry. Block out the lies!”
He, of course, had many challenges and told me about that mom, “Trust me I’m xtreamly grateful to God, and I’m enjoying it a lot, but there is this tiny voice that makes me feel worried about failing to God and her 😥.”
He told another mom, “Be ecstatic…she (her baby) is a gift from God!” He once told me recently, “I have literally 1000s of kids in Russia, Equatorial Guinea, Latin America.” Again, he had the evidence, but it was too much for him to process. He never expected such an overwhelming response to his websites. There were also the usual hateful attacks, but Gene was able to easily ignore them because of the huge volume of expressions of gratitude. He also had to deal with censoring governments and other issues, but somehow eventually overcame most of those issues.
What Gene stunningly came to realize was that, after successfully changing the lives of thousands of students and teachers in the hundreds of schools he gave presentations to, the Internet was the way to reach even millions! Which it did.
LifeSiteNews did not write about Gene because in recent years he had to keep his work below the radar because of potential threats from the Dominican Republic government, mainstream media, and U.S. authorities when he was there. He was fearful of his wonderfully God-serving ministry being interfered with or shut down by the cancel culture.
Gene’s incredibly successful Russian language website was blocked by a Russian agency after a few months, and the same eventually occurred with some of the other language websites, but he usually found a way to recover most of them.
Gene often sent me videos and photos of his numerous school sessions and the astonishing results by the end of his talks. His message was always hardcore truth about abortion, including showing blunt Hard Truth and The Silent Scream movies showing aborted babies or involving whatever other moral issue he was addressing, especially pornography use and suicide. His hard but always joyful approach proved to be amazingly successful and appreciated. He succeeded in convincing the young students to change their lives and that faith in Jesus Christ is the answer to avoiding these evils or repenting of past involvement. They overwhelmingly loved him for it.
At the end of his many school presentations Gene always got everyone up, including teachers, cheering and singing inspiring, rousing songs and changed their lives like no one else I have ever seen.
Gene quickly learned that he had to get to the children by at least the age of 14 because many became sexually active at that age and earlier. See a sample video here of his enthusiasm (in Spanish) and the explicit abortion images that he always showed.
Everything Gene did was low budget and relatively simple but very attractive and mostly beautiful. He had enthusiastic and talented associates who did the technical work, and some of his family members have also become speakers.
What a tragic, strange end it was for such an incredible pro-life warrior who brought so much forgiveness, joy, truth, and changed lives to hundreds of thousands and possibly millions because his websites reached across entire nations. Their tracking software proved that.
Letter to Gene’s wife Rebecca
This is an excerpt from a condolence email I wrote to Gene’s wife Rebecca
Please accept my heartfelt condolences about the loss to you and your family of that amazing, huge-hearted, dynamo husband of yours for whom you all must be experiencing a giant vacuum in your lives. When someone like Gene suddenly leaves this life, the permanent lack of his earthly presence is strongly felt.
Words cannot adequately indicate what all of you must be experiencing, and yet, life must go on and the Lord allowed this for some reason known only to Him. I am sure that does not make it any easier, but it does perhaps give some sense to it. I am sure the Lord has said to him, “Well done, amazingly good and faithful servant.” He was extraordinary.
Email from Gene’s friend Sue Cyr
Sue, the one who sent me the email with Gene’s obituary notice, sent me the following to use for my article.
Sue Cyr is part of the Finn family, who have been active in pro-life work since they were children. For the past five years, from Dallas, Sue has helped Dr. Gene expand his Save Helpless Babies ministry in the Dominican Republic.
“Dr. Gene, and his family, are a courageous example of loving until it hurts. Dr. Gene was in ‘Unwavering Beast Mode’ since we first met him, fighting against many evils in our culture. He was a heroic soldier, running to stand in the most raging battles of our day. When we were together fighting for life, he was also authoring books on many hot topics. His uncompromising advocacy left anyone near him very clear where he stood on the issues that nearly all churches are still too afraid to take on.
He was a keynote speaker at an HLI conference where he introduced me to my husband, Tom, and even set us up for a get-acquainted date after his talk. Throughout his missionary travels around the world with his family, finally ending in the Dominican Republic, he impressed us with his unwavering zeal for pro-life.
When we heard that he was a kingpin in the Dominican Republic to uphold their steadfast respect for life, and to keep abortion illegal there, we offered to join his team to help with raising funds for Save Helpless Babies. His pro-life work has inspired many people to continue saving babies, moms and souls in the U.S. and throughout the world.
Dr. Gene put others first and has literally helped save tens of thousands of lives and souls. He ran his race to the very end and stands as a veritable model for what it means to have passion for the gospel and chasing the pearl of great price. Dr. Gene, we salute you. Well done, good and faithful servant.”
Amen.
Please consider donating to the LifeSiteNews current campaign so that we can continue to inspire and help many pro-life warriors in the world who deeply appreciate and need our news reports.
For Gene and all others who benefit from the best news service in the world donate to give.lifesitenews.com.
With gratitude,
Steve Jalsevac
Co-founder
LifeSiteNews.com
