I would really appreciate your prayers for me and the other FFI students tomorrow. My entire class and I are going to be spending all day at the University of Northern Colorado in Greeley, CO with an organization called Justice For All ( http://www.jfaweb.org) The mission of JFA is "to train thousands to make abortion unthinkable for millions, one person at a time." JFA trains people to be equipped to engage students using photo exhibits that include pictures of babies in utero as well as pictures of aborted babies at different stages of pregnancy. Like most, I was a little hesitant at first regarding the use of graphic images for the pro-life cause, especially after having experienced the Genocide Awareness Project at the University of Maryland. Let me explain a few things that really caused me to think more about it. Back in 1955, a 14-year-old boy named Emmett Till from Chicago was visiting relatives in Mississippi when he was kidnapped and brutally murdered for looking at/speaking to a white woman. His body was grotesquely disfigured, but his mother demanded that the casket be open for the funeral and for photographs "so the whole world could see what they did" to her boy. The pictures were published in JET magazine and many consider this the start of the civil rights movement. Prior to this point, racism only existed in the abstract for much of the nation. But when the people saw the images on the evening news, they could no longer ignore it. In the same way, these pictures of abortions are a sickening reality that our nation needs to face. It is not a clump of cells, it is not a blob of tissue -- it is a baby in the early stages of development! We will freely agree with those upset by them that the pictures are disgusting (there are warning signs - people are not forced to look at them.) But it is necessary for the public to know what abortion truly is.
Our driving force is to represent Christ and engage students to find out what they believe about abortion, and to challenge more thought on the issue. The images are mainly to draw people into the debate, but we then want to dialogue with them and understand where they're coming from. Especially with post-abortive women or rape victims, we want to show compassion and have them encounter Jesus Christ through us. I am still a little nervous, but the training we have done also gives me an empowered feeling to make a solid, logical, and winsome case for the rights of our unborn children. There are multiple stories of women who decided against having an abortion after seeing a JFA exhibit, or who regretted that the exhibit didn't come sooner before she went through with it. But whether or not anyone changes their mind on the spot, if we put a "pebble in their shoe" that causes them to think and to reconsider their unexamined beliefs about abortion, it's worth it.
So I just wanted to tell you a little bit about what I'm doing Wednesday and ask you to pray for me. Ask that God would give me grace, courage, and a shining reflection of His character to the UNC students. Ask that the Holy Spirit would fill in the gaps that I miss in my interactions. Pray for those students who engage with us, and that God would draw them to Himself through this. I so appreciate all of your support and prayers.
In Christ,
Meghan
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