Homeless Not Helpless - Pt. 2 Repeat Work

Hi JFA,

Thank you for keeping Christina and her unborn baby in prayer. She is still pregnant, though there was a brief scare when she called an abortion clinic shortly after I wrote the first time.

The [abortion] clinic told her she was too far along for them to help her and they did not give her the name of any other clinics to contact. Praise God for that victory.

My church has [also] been helping Christina and keeping in touch with her every day. My mom and I are taking her out for her 28th birthday next week. She wants to go to Red Lobster! :)

The next step is to get her to a nearby pro-life free clinic that can get Christina in touch with some adoption agencies.

I felt discouraged by people's attitudes when I shared a little bit of my walk with Christina. A co-worker made a nasty face at me and said that Christina's baby SHOULD be aborted because Christina hadn't had prenatal care and may or may not have taken drugs/used alcohol.

I was able to share with this co-worker that we will take whatever comes with this baby... we're praying for him or her, we already love him or her, and consider his or her life precious.

She was confused and didn't wish to discuss it further with me. I was proud of myself for responding to her with love, like JFA taught me.

And when we get to meet Christina's baby, by the grace of God, my co-worker will see that our prayers have reaped rewards. Whatever hardships this baby may face...we'll take them on.

So, keep us in prayer, as I do for you.

Love you guys!

-Nicole

Homeless But Not Helpless

With JFA's training behind you, repeat work can be merely a conversation away at ANY event - even church events!

Dear JFA,

Today my church hosted a fall event for the less privileged in our area and for the homeless currently living at a local motel.

I met Christina. She's 27, has had 7 babies and 2 abortions - the first when she was 14 because she became pregnant after being raped by her adoptive father.

Christina is now 4.5 months pregnant and has an abortion scheduled for this week. She said to me, 'I don't want to kill him or her, but I don't want to bring another one here and have the authorities take it (again).' Christina has had all 7 of her kids forcibly removed from her - each time leaving her wounded.

I was able to sit with Christina. I got her a cupcake (chocolate is her favorite), and coffee (I had to send someone to the church office with a tea cup to get some!), and we talked.

She has beautiful blue eyes - plagued with hardship and pain. Her pregnancy is obvious, and because she doesn't have clothes that fit, her pants looked uncomfortably tight.

I shared with Christina that one day I dream of adopting a baby. She said that was nice.

I touched her arm and said that if all babies went from the womb to heaven, there wouldn't be any babies to adopt - but that adoption is an option for her unborn baby.

She looked at me, and asked, 'Would there be someone who might adopt this baby?' I assured her there would be.

She said that she would rather not abort, but only if she could pick a family for the baby. My mom then joined us and we discussed getting in touch with some adoption agencies.

Christina left the event with a bag of sandwiches, another chocolate cupcake, a blanket, and a fleet of angels following her.

"Christina left with a fleet of angels following her."

On Monday my mom and I are going to contact Christina and see what we can do to help her. The father of the baby is not in the picture, though Christina lives with a man who does not support her decision to abort.

Please pray for wisdom for me and my mom as we walk with Christina.

I felt a bit helpless watching Christina walk out the church doors. Had I shown her enough love - said the right things? I pray so - and that this journey with her isn't over.

Thanks for being there for me JFA. I wouldn't have had the courage to sit down with Christina if it wasn't for the training you gave me. I love you guys.

I'll keep you updated.

--Nicole

Sent via BlackBerry

Just One More

Not only did Nicole not enjoy her seat work with JFA, she hated her first day of feet work.

In her own words:

"Bumping along on the bus ride to the Justice for All Exhibit, I actually slept peacefully, knowing full well that God would use me if He chose to do so. I felt I had prepared since I knew to ask, “What do you think of the Exhibit,” wait for an answer, and then proceed to introduce my new friend to a toddler or take them for a knowledgeable ride on a 'S-L-E-D.'

I figured that it was my pro-life duty to spend a couple days chatting with a few people about my beliefs, but I didn’t wish to be contacted by JFA for any future outreaches since I was doing my time, and earning my Family, Church, and Society class credit at the Focus Leadership Institute.

So, arriving safe and sound at the ghastly Exhibit (which I had seen earlier during JFA training), I proceeded to listen to a few conversations between Rebeccah, Steve, and a few of the CSU campus students. Then, I felt that it was my time, and so I stood, upright and qualified in front of the Exhibit, and waited for a student to happen along my path.

About three minutes later, I looked to my left and saw a girl, about my age, staring intently at side one of the Exhibit. I prayed to God, asking Him if indeed He did want me to talk to this girl, and I felt the Holy Spirit prodding me toward her.

By this time she had been standing beside me for about two minutes and so I figured she was committed to at least discussing the Exhibit with me for a little while. I had evaluated this girl, prayed for guidance about whether or not to talk to her, and I was so ready to finally ask my 'What do you think…' question! And so I did.

There aren’t words to describe what this girl said when I politely invited her to discuss the Exhibit. Actually, there are words, but I’m not repeating them.

It was as if she was spitting fire, flinging it back and forth between the Exhibit and me, and I was stunned. I tried once more to engage her, but it was no use; she cut through me with her angry eyes one last time and then stormed off, spewing a few more choice words as she went.

I was completely defeated. My upright and qualified stature turned into a sunken down and absolutely ruined one. I slunk away from the Exhibit, sat down under a tree that was away from people, and began to question God. 'Why in the world would you have me talk to that one?!'

I sat and talked with God for a while, and my answer seemed to be, 'Because that one, Nicole, is the one I wanted you to talk to.' But I didn’t understand. The rest of the day I couldn’t bring myself to talk to anyone.

The next day I was worried. I couldn’t possibly go through another situation like the one I had the day before. And so I prayed, 'God, let me just talk to one person today.'

A friend and I took some surveys into the heart of the campus and before I knew it, I was jumping in on a conversation between my friend and a guy who had said he believed that a baby was 'alive' only after birth. I challenged his belief with the 'environment' part of the S-L-E-D test and I actually felt like I had stood up for what I believed to be true, that a baby was whole, alive, and important at conception.

I had spoken to my 'one person!' And so, I prayed, 'God, let me talk to just one more person.' Six or seven surveys, and about five great conversations later, I was still praying, 'Okay, God, just one more!'

When I found myself back at the Exhibit, I began to get a little nervous again, because this was the war zone where I had been trashed! But with my prayer on my lips, I walked up to a young girl and her friend and asked them if they had been at the Exhibit the day before.

One said she had and the other one flipped her phone open and said that she hadn’t. I asked the one with the phone what she thought and she said, 'Well, I carried my baby nine months, and it was because of pictures like these. So I don’t mind this (exhibit) being here at all.'

Then, holding up her phone, she asked, 'Do you want to see a picture of my daughter?' Of course I said yes, and on the screen of the phone was the face of a gorgeous 6 month old, curly haired little girl named Shanae. I told the young mom what a hero she was for making the hard choice to carry her baby and to care for her. She said that yes, it had been a hard choice, because when she found herself pregnant, neither her parents nor her church had agreed to take the child, and so she had decided to get an abortion.

Before she did, though, she said she had to check on the internet to see what exactly an abortion was. She told me, 'After seeing those (abortion) pictures, I knew I could never do that to my baby, and I decided to keep her.' It was the pictures she saw of abortions that changed this girl’s mind, and so people who say, 'The pictures are just shock tactics that don’t affect people other than to make them emotional' are wrong! It was such a blessing to talk to this girl that the hard conversation that I had had the day before drastically faded in my mind.

I must have spoken to about a dozen just 'one more persons' on that second day, and the impact it had on my life was indescribable. I told Tammy (JFA staff member) that I wanted to change my mind about going to future exhibits and I gave her my email address. Now I can’t wait to receive an email from JFA telling me how I can help and when I can attend another campus with them.

But I also know that I don’t need to be standing in front of the JFA Exhibit in order to discuss my beliefs about abortion. With my JFA training, my two days at CSU talking with students, and with a prayer on my lips, I could talk to hundreds of 'just one more persons' in my lifetime; but I pray that by the time God takes me home, I won’t have to argue against abortion anymore because there truly will be 'Justice for All.'"

Postlogue: Click here to read about Nicole’s first “Just One More Person” experience (her mom) upon returning home from the Focus Leadership Institute in 2006.

Second Postlogue: Click here to read about Nicole's most recent (2010) "Just One More Person" named Christina.

Turning 2-day outreaches into 2-minute outreaches

JFA’s very first 2010 training gave me firsthand opportunity to witness the practical goal of JFA’s Abortion: From Debate to Dialogue (ADD) training:

Translate two day life-changing JFA training experiences into two minute life-changing conversations with family, friends and peers.

Texan native Charity Boaz met JFA Texas staffer Jacob Burow through FaceBook. Jacob persuaded her to attend our Georgia Tech (GT) training. Charity flew to Atlanta to attend our Sunday afternoon ADD seminar at GT.

She was in my GT outreach carpool the following Monday morning. We finished our journey to the GT campus each day via MARTA, Atlanta’s mass transit train.

Despite a very rainy Monday Charity had 15-20 conversations in which she practiced JFA’s 3 essential dialogue skills: ask good questions, listen, and find common ground.

On Tuesday morning’s 10-minute crowded MARTA commute, I had to stand but Charity found a seat beside a young man (Darius) who promptly asked if she was a GT student.

"No," she said, "but I am going to GT for the 2nd day of a pro-life outreach." Darius barely had time to nod before Charity asked him, "So are you pro-life or pro-choice?"

"I’m...(hesitating) I don't know. Which are you?" Darius was as smart as he looked!

"Oh," Charity quickly responded, "I'm pro-life. May I show you why?"

“Sure,” he said. Charity proceeded to give Darius our 2-minute side-one tour of the JFA Exhibit using the 9-inch JFA Exhibit brochure, asking the key questions: “When do we become human?” and “Should wanted-ness determine our value as humans?”

As the train neared the GT stop Darius told Charity, “I think I’m pro-life too. May I have that brochure?”

“Sure,” responded Charity, handing it to him. “If you fill out the card in the back I’ll make sure you receive more information. Thanks for letting me share it with you.”

“Oh, thank you,” said Darius. “I plan to share this with my friends.”

Through God’s blessing, your prayers and your generous financial support, we’ve had an entire year of equipping more than 1,500 students and young adults like Charity to become 2-minute ambassadors!

A fait accompli

The dehumanization of unwanted unborn children is a fait accompli.

Fait accompli is French for "I don't care what the weight is or the gender of the person singing, or even if cigars have been handed out. It means "It's over. It's done."

The attitude that unwanted unborn children are "different" from born children has reached those we would once have though most protected from such a dehumanizing bias.

I recently spoke in a Sunday morning service in very pro-life, pro-home school church in one of American's most conservative cities. The message I gave that morning was JFA’s hard-hitting and heart-breaking 30 minute presentation entitled, “Facing Abortion.”

It’s the pro-life PowerPoint presentation to end all pro-choice confusion and sentiment. You would expect it - I wrote it. And that morning I delivered it to a full church.

One of the first people to greet and thank me after the service was a young man who introduced himself as Hanley.* (Name changed for privacy)

“I really enjoyed your presentation,” he said, and then almost in the same breath added, “I have a friend who’s 17. She told me about 3 weeks ago that she was pregnant and planning to get an abortion.”

“Wow…your girlfriend?”

“Oh no, I’m only 13. My dad would kill me if I did something like that!”

“Got it. So Hanley,” I asked, “what did you say when your friend told you she was planning to get an abortion?”

“I told her it was a bad idea, but then I didn’t know what else to say.” He looked distressed.

“Did you tell your parents or her parents or anyone about the situation?” I asked.

“O no, she made swear not to tell anyone. She knows a lot of people in this church and is also home-schooled. She didn’t want her parents to find out."

“So do you know what happened?” I inquired.

“Yeah, I called her later that week to see how she was doing – she told me that she had already had the abortion."

“How is she doing now?” I asked.

“I don’t know. I haven’t seen or talked to her since.”

“Does anyone else know that she got an abortion?”

“I don’t think so. She made me promise not to tell anyone.”

With the utterance of those words Hanley’s face went white and his voice quivered, “Oh no, that’s my dad coming over to tell you what a good job you did this morning. PLEASE don’t tell him what I just told you."

(to Hanley's father) “Hi...thank you. Yes, I met Hanley. We’re having a great conversation. Thanks again, good to meet you too. Talk with you a little later.”

After Hanley's father had left and Hanley began to breathe again I said, “Got a question for you.”

“Okay,” Hanley said gamely.

“What if your 17-year old friend had told you that she was going to kill her 2-year old brother, but asked you not to tell anyone. Would you have remained silent?”

“Oh no, that would be totally different,” he quickly shot back.

“How would it be different, Hanley?” I asked.

Hand under chin, Hanley visibly considered my question. After about 15 seconds, a wry smile broke across his face. He said, “Really wouldn’t be different, would it?”

Listen up. The bad news is that if a 13-year old home schooled boy in a pro-life church in the heart of conservative America believes there's a moral difference between killing born and unborn children, for all practical purposes, the dehumanization of the unwanted unborn child is a fait accompli.

The good news is that the cultural attitude that Hanley had assumed was not consistent with his personal faith. Once better informed and then challenged to consider his previous bias, Hanley dismissed any difference between killing unwanted unborn and born children.

The mission of Justice For All? Train thousands like Hanley to make abortion unthinkable for millions, one person at a time.