A small church in East Texas with little online presence and no publicly advertised worship schedule has been covering legal defense fees for prominent anti-abortion lawyer Jonathan Mitchell in multiple recent cases.

According to new court testimony from Mitchell and the church’s pastor, Mark Lee Dickson, the Longview-based Sovereign Love Church has repeatedly paid Mitchell, who famously authored the state’s six-week abortion ban, known as Senate Bill 8. That includes payment for his work defending Dickson in a defamation case, and for his legal advice in crafting local abortion travel ban ordinances and in defending SB 8.