October

We kicked off this beautiful month with an outreach at the University of Minnesota. I got to know the interns and my bosses better as we explored Minneapolis and made important decisions about the best place to find ice cream. Paul is my supervisor in the office, and Steve is the director of JFA, so I have two bosses. The outreach itself was a different experience for each of us, but we all saw God's hand at work. For more details on that, see my blog post for Minnesota.

When we got back, Grace hosted a party for her friends who were visiting her from Louisiana. At this party which featured gumbo and good company, Grace surprised me with an early birthday present: a cheesecake. If my future were decided on a balance between "Stay with JFA Forever" and "Go Back to College", Grace is stacking the first side expertly.

This fun evening was followed by 24 hours in Oklahoma where I met some wonderful Pokes and shared the gospel alongside Tammy, Jon, and David. OSU was a peaceful campus with many questions for us. "What is the point of the poll?" "Are you selling something?" "How do you think the world began?" You never know what you're going to get, but every conversation is an opportunity to build relationship, find common ground, and respect every person.

Nearly two whole office weeks filled the middle of my month. I turned 22 and used that day to start reading The Hiding Place and explore Wichita a bit more. In the office, David and I have been replying to poll emails from the various campuses we visit, sorting through old files of JFA history, and helping out with random tasks which help the organization to run smoothly. I am unofficially the temporary librarian in the office because I put all the books in order and will dragon-like keep them orderly for the next month.

I've been attending my host family's small group as faithfully as possible with my busy travel schedule. We discussed the 5 Solas of the faith this month and I greatly enjoyed bouncing Scripture references off the other members of the group. They are a delightful collection of young parents and singles. Lord willing, I will be able to meet with them three more times before going home in December.

Random October adventures include a corn maze with new church friends, ice cream with Grace, walking on THE Yellow Brick Road, and riding a roller coaster in the Mall of America! There has been more dancing, and if I haven't been working, I've probably been crocheting, knitting, or cross-stitching.

Grace on the Yellow Brick Road in Liberal, KS

This past week in New Mexico was filled with answered prayers and unexpected laughter. Another 10 hours in the car to and from Albuquerque meant fun word games, riddle puzzles, and lots of jokes. This outreach was peacefully protested by a group from the university who stood a few yards away from us holding signs. They had chalked our area the day before with sayings. They were nice enough to engage a few of our staff in conversation about abortion before leaving. When people are expecting a fight, our organization is a disappointment. In contrast to this mindset, those in need of help are welcomed and provided for. Hundreds of conversations were held at UNM, some of those continuing in email form.

The space for our exhibit was covered in chalk-slogans from the Student Alliance for Reproductive Justice when we arrived on Monday morning (10/23/17)

On Sunday, Grace and I leave for Atlanta, GA where we will join other members of the staff to hold a seminar and outreach at Kennesaw State University. That event will close out October and welcome November. The last event of the internship will be Oklahoma in the middle of November.

Thank you for your continued prayers. I experienced only one nightmare this month and my health has remained strong. The training program is so helpful, teaching me all sorts of pro-life details that have been invaluable in conversation, especially at UNM. I'm two-thirds of the way through my internship and the idea of leaving to go home is hard to grasp. Please pray that my mind will stay engaged in my work through this final month and that my friendships here will grow stronger in their reflection of the Savior.

Real Conversation at UNM: "Will it end?"

"Will it end?"

I've been asked this question before. Not frequently, and usually not by people who describe themselves as pro-choice, but it has caused me to wonder for years. Will abortion ever end? Will it become illegal? Will Roe vs. Wade ever be reversed? For those of us who are fighting to this end, questions like these are ones which we struggle with commonly. A less-frequent question for me is this: "What next?"

I was asked both of these big questions at the University of New Mexico this week. One student on campus, William, saw Justice For All's exhibit from a window and thought, "This'll be fun." He wasn't wrong, but he didn't get the fight he was hoping for. William and I dialogued for two hours on Monday about abortion, justice, and the Christian worldview. He introduced me to his ideas about how the world works, the exceptions he found to be crucial for the justice of the women in hard situations, and there may have been some references to Star Wars. The next day, Tuesday, he came back to the exhibit. And he had questions. Between questions about JFA, aliens, and fears, he looked me right in the eye and asked, "Will it end?" He was asking if I thought abortion would ever be a thing of the past.

I sighed and prayed aloud, "Lord God... I hope so." Previous conversations where I've answered this question came to mind and recent conversations with Justice For All staff also spoke to my thoughts in that moment. Abortion really could end. Per JFA's mission statement, abortion really could become "unthinkable." I pray for a day where Roe vs. Wade will be reversed. It could be that I see a day where the millions who would have been surgically and chemically exterminated are safely entering the world and living their lives. I long for that day.

Explaining my hopes and dreams for the end of abortion over the course of the next few minutes was not enough. William listened patiently as I compared abortion to the United States slavery epidemic from 150 years ago and how the consequences of that time are affecting our nation today. Slavery may be over in that sense, but we experience the effects of it still. It will be the same for abortion, I said. When it is over... when it is finally done, our job will not be done. This world is forever changed by the way we have treated the weakest of our species over the past 45 years. Myself and pro-life advocates everywhere are ready to help people who are suffering the effects of a society which is embracing abortion. We know that our job will never be done in that sense and, more personally, Christians never expect our job to be over.

Knowing God helps us discover what we're meant to do in the time we're given on this earth. As Christians learn about God, we learn to care about what He cares about. He cares about His creation, so when it's being destroyed, it grieves Him and it has to grieve us. When abortion is over, the grief will still be there. We have to be ready to turn our care to the area of need. Today, there are so many areas of need. Right now, I'm concentrating on one of those areas in one college campus at a time, one person at a time. I told William that when this area is settled, with God's help, I will move to help whomever needs me. That's just how it goes. I can live my life no other way. Because if I believe God has the end of abortion in His plan, I have to believe He has a plan for what comes after.

I'm crying now as I write this. I want it to end. There are approximately 2,500 abortions every day in the U.S. alone. On the days I spent in New Mexico, around 7,500 lives were lost. At this rate, by the time Christmas rolls around, the U.S. will reach 60 million killed in 45 years. I have to believe it could stop.

Father God, please let there be an end to abortion. Give your people the humility, the strength, the grace, the compassion to extend Your love to every human being. Today, tomorrow, and after abortion is gone. Because the work will never be done, but Your faithfulness endures to all generations.

Outreach at the University of Minnesota

There was a lot of rain in the forecast. We had been praying all week in advance that God would move the rain to a time that wouldn't interfere our outreach. We planned to spend Monday and Tuesday in conversations with the students at "the U" as they call it. We got to the campus early Monday morning after it had rained all night. Set-up was a breeze as we assembled the a-frame exhibit pictured here.

The weather remained cooperative all day. I arrived on campus with four other JFA team members. We were ready to start conversations at 9 am and would be there until 3 or 4 in the afternoon, depending on the weather. Throughout the day, we were joined by volunteers who had attended our training workshop the previous day.

Outreach moved slowly for the first two hours. I had a few short interactions with students who were willing to stop and chat before their classes. One student followed me to the side of the exhibit pictured above, where we discussed the nature of the unborn. He and I talked for a long time about human development.

Right at 11, the action started. One young lady wearing pink walked up to our sign and quietly wrote her objections on the Free Speech Board. On the side not pictured in the above photo, there are two contrasting realities: the care that people give wanted babies, and what happens to babies who are unwanted. One is a story of a Spina Bifida baby on whom a doctor performed a very precise surgery to repair the problem. It's a powerful example of the lengths people go to in order to protect and nurture wanted babies. Next to this story on the exhibit is a picture of a fetus aborted at 9 weeks. It's very difficult to look at and represents what happens to thousands of unwanted babies. The lady in pink said calmly that these examples were faked and used for propaganda. Steve, our director, did his best to meet her objections and respect her. She stated over and over again, "the ribs aren't developed by 9 weeks. I don't know [when they do develop], but it isn't then." After a few minutes of her trying to look up sources on her smart phone, but not finding any, and disregarding our sources, she finally said, "I don't know why I'm talking to you about ribs. It doesn't make a difference. In the end, a woman should still have control of her own body." She walked away.

During the time she had been there, she drew a crowd from how vocal she became. Those four or five people stayed to lecture Paul, our Chief of Operations, on the basis that his opinions and facts were invalid simply because he was a man and not a woman. He patiently listened and tried to understand them. After a long time, one lady in that crowd, who did most of the talking, looked at him and her demeanor relaxed. She said something to the effect of "you've been listening to me this whole time." She asked him for a hug before she walked away with a completely different attitude than she arrived with.

The rain came barreling in at 3pm on Monday. It was perfect. We wrapped up our conversations and took down the exhibit. That night, it rained again and caused us to delay our outreach by one hour on Tuesday. Nevertheless, we were back for our second and final day of conversations.

We bring a poll table to almost every event we host. "Should Abortion Remain Legal?" is the most common question we ask college students to weigh in on with their opinion. Sometimes we bring pads of paper for them to sign, but on rainy days, we use Popsicle sticks instead. Students can write their two cents on a stick and poke it into the foam on the YES or NO side. This picture with the poll table was taken on Tuesday, the next day. Grace is talking to a young man and I'm talking to a girl named Sierra*.

Sierra was one of the crowd who gathered around Paul on Monday, the day before. Her complaint at the time was that "only men were here trying to shove this offensive topic down women's throats." She was so concentrated on Paul that she didn't notice Grace or I standing around the exhibit, even though we were there the whole time. She left our exhibit unwilling to engage in conversation. On Tuesday, Sierra came back to add a Popsicle on the YES side. She addressed one of our volunteers saying, "did you bring any girls with you this time?" I was standing directly behind her, so I opened up conversation with her and watched in amazement as her combative spirit disintegrated during our conversation. We listened to each other, raised questions for each other, and found common ground all throughout the conversation. She heard our purpose and appreciated our gentleness and compassion in how we address the issue of abortion. In the above picture, we're laughing together. I didn't think that would have been possible 24 hours previously when I first saw her. After we talked, she, too, walked away with a completely different perspective.

Both days of outreach were difficult. It was hard to get students to stop and dialogue with us. And yet, God knew exactly what He was doing. The stories I told here are just a handful of the beautiful, challenging, and inspiring interactions we experienced. God took care of us with the weather and He blessed our outreach incredibly, teaching us to trust and be still as we watched Him work in Minnesota.