Wings of the Wind

Young Pro-Lifers on the Rise

By Darci N. Hill

This past spring I had the opportunity to attend a pro-life banquet sponsored by the Montgomery County Right to Life organization in Conroe, Texas. The featured speakers, as at most such events, were knowledgeable and committed, but they also shared another trait that should encourage everyone concerned for the future of the pro-life movement.

The first speaker was Laura Sprack, an eleventh-grade student who had won a Student Oratory contest sponsored by Montgomery County Right to Life. Miss Sprack spoke on the false illusion of euthanasia. She was poised, informed, and possessed an amazing command of her material. Seeing her on the stage speaking as well as she did gave me new hope for the pro-life message being articulated precisely and winsomely.

Sprack was followed on the podium by a young man named Shawn Carney. A whopping 28 years old, Carney is a co-founder of the Forty Days for Life prayer events, as well as the director of the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life in College Station, Texas (home of Texas A&M University). In his address, Carney rattled off some encouraging statistics regarding the most recent Forty Days for Life event he had helped organize. The forty-day vigil had been observed in 306 cities across the United States, he reported, and during those days of prayer and fasting, 2,818 abortion-minded women had chosen life over death for their babies, and six abortion facilities had completely closed. Most astounding of all, 32 workers in the abortion industry had been converted and quit their jobs!

Carney then began to talk about Abby Johnson, director of the Planned Parenthood (PP) facility in College Station, Texas, which, not coincidentally, is located next-door to the offices of the Brazos Valley Coalition for Life. Being so close to the PP facility afforded Carney some opportunities of speaking with Johnson, whom he knew from his student days, when they were classmates. He recalled having had several conversations with her over the years and, in particular, that she had once told him, “You’re not going to convert me!” But Carney persevered, continuing to pray for her and gently trying to persuade her to change her mind about abortion.

After telling the banquet audience these things, Carney then introduced the keynote speaker of the evening—Abby Johnson.

Abby Johnson’s Story

Johnson, an attractive twenty-something, worked at Planned Parenthood of College Station for eight years and was its director for two. So successful had she been at her job that she was named top director of a PP facility and was invited in March 2009 to attend the National Planned Parenthood Conference in Houston to receive an award. She even got to sit at the same table as Hillary Clinton, who was being presented with the Margaret Sanger Award that year—the most coveted award given by Planned Parenthood for championing abortion “rights.”

So, Johnson reminisced, just one year ago, she had been receiving the accolades of the most prominent pro-abortion advocates in the nation and meeting Hillary Clinton. Now she was speaking at a pro-life banquet, and the following Friday she would have the opportunity to meet one of the most prominent pro-life advocates in the nation, Sarah Palin.

Then Johnson began to talk about the event that triggered this dramatic change in her life: the day she witnessed an ultrasound-guided abortion. The PP facility in College Station had recently hired a husband-and-wife team from Austin who specialized in this procedure. As director of the center, Johnson wanted to learn all she could about it, so although she had never witnessed or assisted at an abortion before, she agreed to help with the ultrasound-guided procedure, which is portrayed as being safer for the mother than an unguided procedure, though it takes five minutes longer.

Johnson described the procedure in detail. Her task was to hold the ultrasound probe on the woman’s belly. Up on the screen she could see the 13-week-old fetus perfectly from head to toe. At first, it was lying still. Then, as the cannula (a straw-like tube connected to the suction machine) was inserted into the uterus and the vacuum turned on, the fetus began flailing and visibly attempting to move away from the instrument.

Johnson recalled that, one minute she saw a baby on the screen and the next minute it was simply gone, torn to pieces by the suction machine. It was at that moment that she decided to leave the abortion industry behind and completely turn her life around. That was October 6, 2009.

Now Johnson is participating in sidewalk counseling and prayer outside the very facility she once directed. As a speaker, she has become one of the most important pro-life voices in the nation. And she is still in her twenties.

So Young, So Many

Before introducing Johnson, Shawn Carney related an anecdote about the reaction of Nancy Keenan, president of NARAL, to the pro-lifers who assembled in Washington, D.C., on January 22 for the 2010 March for Life. According to a story by Sarah Kliff in Newsweek, Keenan had traveled to Washington by train, and upon pulling into the station, she noticed the large crowds of pro-lifers. “I just thought, my gosh, they are so young,” she told Kliff. “There are so many of them, and they are so young.”

And she was not the only one struck by the ages of the estimated 400,000 attendees of the march. Robert McCartney, an admitted Roe v. Wade supporter, wrote in a Washington Post column that he, too, “was especially struck by the large number of young people” at the march. He noted that about half of the total number of marchers appeared “to be younger than thirty,” including “numerous large groups of teenagers.”

McCartney also commented on the enthusiasm and even confidence of the young pro-lifers—noting in particular the signs that read, “We are the pro-life generation”—while acknowledging that pro-abortion activists he spoke with “conceded that there’s less energy among young people on their side of the debate.”

What he witnessed took McCartney rather by surprise. He began his column by saying that he had expected to write about the irrelevance and the “quaintness” of the annual pro-life march. But when he took a closer look at this year’s march, he discovered “how wrong I was.”

Indeed, we who champion a culture of life have reason to hope, and cause to rejoice. •

From Salvo 14 (Autumn 2010)

…I would like to thank Joy McArtor for handing me this information.  It is always a blessing to read something as encouraging as this article. – CR

Butterflies……

Book review: The Butterfly Effect

Andy Andrews speaks to groups over 100 times a year, and his skill at story telling is one of the main reasons he’s so popular with audiences. One of those stories, The Butterfly Effect, is his most requested, and has now been turned into a book. Just 109 pages long, The Butterfly Effect is a slim book, but communicates a weighty message. The speaker and New York Times best-selling author uses real-life examples to communicate an important principle: the decisions you make and the way you treat others have more impact than you may ever realize.

The book’s title is taken from a scientific hypothesis presented in 1963. It suggested that a butterfly could flap its wings and set molecules of air in motion, which would move other molecules of air, in turn moving more molecules of air — eventually capable of starting a hurricane on the other side of the planet.

Now I’m no scientist, but the whole idea seems pretty fanciful to me. If butterfly wings cause hurricanes, the force of my tire blowing out recently should have caused the planet to be wrenched out of its orbit around the Sun. In the same way, some of Andrew’s accounts seem a bit Bunyanesque. For example, Colonel Vincent Chamberlain, spared a mortal wound when a bullet bounced off his belt buckle during the Battle of Gettysburg, heroically held off rebel soldiers against insurmountable odds (Are there any other kind of odds in war stories?). If he didn’t, the North would have lost the war, the United States would have dissolved, and North America would have turned into a politically fragmented continent like Europe.

In spite of the fact that a number of Andrew’s biographical stories seem like hyperbole, The Butterfly Effect does convey the important message that your life can impact others in ways that are not always immediately evident. I’m reminded of Mordecai’s encouragement to Esther during a time of peril for the nation of Israel:

“For if you keep silent at this time, relief and deliverance will rise for the Jews from another place, but you and your father’s house will perish. And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14 ESV)

The Butterfly Effect does provide some serious inspiration. But I’ll hold off on giving it a round of applause. I might cause a typhoon on the other side of the globe.

——————————————————————————-

David Wilson has a blog called “Faces of Lions.”  This post can be found here:

http://facesoflions.wordpress.com/2010/09/14/book-review-the-butterfly-effect

I have never explained why I’ve used a butterfly as a symbol on this blog.  It has nothing to do with anything in David’s review or Andy Andrews’ book.  Maybe  I’ll explain it someday.

The letter that I’ve printed below is interesting on a number of levels.  Because there’s only a few weeks left for folks to register to vote, I chose to focus on that part of the letter.

I was walking through a church fellowship hall the other day (not my own church) and my eyes happened to notice a letter from a young lady who lives in Uganda.  Evidently, the church sends funding to support the young lady’s education and there is correspondence.

There was a picture of the young teenager next to the letter.

The letter was written by the young lady, in English handwriting, with an obvious concern for neatness.

Enjoy and, if you aren’t, get registered.

By the way; Tuesday is the day school board elections are being held.  I am endorsing Graham McCullough for the Hot Springs School Board.

Chris Reimers

Hello my sponsors,

I’m so glad to write to you again.  So far away from me, but I pray for you always and wish the best for you in your life.

Can you imagine how God does wonders; I am just growing taller without even realizing it.  I now think, talk, and even conduct myself differently from the way I used to Have you experienced this too?

(The young lady goes on to tell of a change in her schooling situation that has created new challenges.)

I know through prayers and by the grace of God, I’ll get used to the (changes).

The government is encouraging people to register for voting.  I can’t vote because I am 16 years old.  They allow voters 18 and older here. Is it the same there?

Are you interested in voting?

Please continue praying for me to work harder because I’m also working hard and praying for you in every situation.

Thank you for your prayers and for loving me.

From your daughter,

(Signed)

Note:  It is June 25, 2012 and I just got a comment about this post today (see comments).  To be fair to the website linked to here that used to give you the option to drop a bomb on the traditional family, IT HAS BEEN CHANGED.  I did not know this until I read today’s comment and came back to this post.  The target and bomb has been replaced by a baby bottle and a baby.  I don’t know when the change was made, but it has been made.  I’m leaving the story up so that you know how it was not long ago.

CR

The following is a portion of an article that appeared on LifeSiteNews today.  I’m really beginning to like the site.

We all know that the traditional family is in trouble.  A large percentage of younger folks, through no fault of their own, have never tasted personally what it feels like to be part of a traditional family.

Times have certainly changed.

As a 12-year-old paper boy in 1970, I delivered papers to the neighborhood that surrounded the home of my youth.  Out of the 120 or so customers that I had, I can remember the widowed woman across the street raising two kids, and the man who lived by himself a few houses down.

Other than those two, everyone else that I collected monthly payments from  were either retired or in a family that had a Dad and a Mom.

Did I hear family members hollering at one another occasionally?  Yes.

Were there a few meanies?  Yes.

Were all of the Fathers great Fathers?  I would guess that not all of them were.

Were all of the Mothers great Mothers?  Probably not.

Was there dysfunction (although I don’t think the word was yet related to families)?

Of course.

Sadly, things aren’t as good for children today as they were in 1970.

I can’t believe how fast and how far things have deteriorated.

I have met heroic young women who are trying to raise their children in a godly way by themselves.

I have met heroic young men who are doing the same.

A good deal of the time today, however, the kids are the last consideration in the fight between former marrieds.

I don’t think I need to quote statistics for those of you who are reading this.  You have eyes.  You can see what is happening.

It is a difficult thing to watch.

Chris Reimers

Here’s part of the article (a letter) from LifeSiteNews:

Dear Friends,

“Destroy the Traditional Family: The Game”

No, we’re not joking. This game is real, and you can play it on this website.

Participants can use the cursor (shaped like a target) to click on images of happy traditional families, and watch as bombs fall onto the collage of smiling portraits, leaving only a black crater in their wake!

And we’re the intolerant bigots?

Of course we realize that the people behind the website have no intention of actually bombing families. But what it does make clear is what LifeSiteNews.com has been saying for years:

Very influential, well-funded people are trying to destroy the traditional family.

Anti-family groups, organizations, and individuals have made it their mission to completely deconstruct the family, giving it a subjective meaning that can be molded and warped to an individual’s liking. The result is not a new type of family, but the destruction of family, the bedrock of civilization, altogether.

Perhaps no institution has done more to further this destruction than Hollywood.

Moreover, the recently released film, “The Kids Are All Right,” starring Julianne Moore and Annette Bening, attempts to give normalcy to a lesbian-headed “family,” where the children were conceived with the help of a sperm donor. The title (and the whole film) is meant to suggest that such a lifestyle is perfectly natural and harmless.

The anti-family movement has certainly made progress over the past few decades, and Hollywood has been the perfect vehicle to spread its propaganda.

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/sep/10091505.html

You can watch big bombs destroy the traditional family (I guess that includes single parents because a few of them are pictured) by clicking on the red letters above or by going here:

http://www.goodasyou.org/good_as_you/2007/09/destroy-traditi.html

Whoever planned the 911 attacks of nine years ago missed the most important “building,” figuratively speaking.  They thought they hit the most important building, but they missed it by a long shot.

The “building” to which I refer is the church of Jesus Christ.

Two tall buildings, and others, were destroyed 9 years ago.

The church will never be destroyed.  It is not a building.  It is a group of people.

Jesus said, “…the gates of Hades will not overpower it.”

Some members of the church of Jesus Christ died 9 years ago.  They were attacked and killed, but their souls were not destroyed.

The church can be and is being attacked today. It can’t be destroyed.

Most church goers today have trouble finding 2^nd Timothy.  It is a small book towards the back of the Bible that was written by Paul while he was imprisoned in Rome.  They are his last words before martyrdom.

It would be good for everyone to read the four chapters of this little book today.  It takes about 20 minutes.

From chapter 3:

¹But realize this, that in the last days difficult times will come.

²For men will be lovers of self, lovers of money, boastful, arrogant, revilers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, unholy,

³unloving, irreconcilable, malicious gossips, without self-control, brutal, haters of good,

⁴treacherous, reckless, conceited, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God…

Sure sounds a lot like our world today.

Those men who were responsible for killing over 3,000 Americans 9 years ago could not be described better.

In the final chapter (4) that he ever penned, Paul wrote:

³For the time will come when they will not endure sound doctrine; but wanting to have their ears tickled, they will accumulate for themselves teachers in accordance to their own desires…”

This is a good description of many within “Christian” churches today.  Many in those churches no longer believe in absolute truth.

The truth is:

An insidious attack took place in New York 9 years ago.

An insidious attack has been taking place within many of the churches for years.

Many think they are going to heaven because of their good deeds.  The Bible says that no one will go to heaven because of their goodness.

We must get back to simple Bible truths.

When Paul wrote these final words, the many churches he had started were experiencing attacks from within and without.  It is no different today.

Today’s news will be filled with stories of the events that took place 9 years ago.  It should be a reminder.  Life is vaporous (Ecclesiastes).  There are no guarantees.

It should cause us to stop and examine our condition.

Do we know God?

Chris Reimers

……..If you aren’t one of the over 20 million people who have seen this via internet, I hope you become one.  There are probably another 20,000,000 who have seen it in the artist’s country alone.

I define true art as something that “moves” you.  Different things move different people.  This is true art in my opinion.

I can’t remember who sent this to me months ago.  For some reason, I just remembered it today.  Don’t know how I forgot to share it.

Chris Reimers

Sand Artist Kseniya Simonova Moves Audience to Tears with Performance Last Year Winning “Ukraine’s Got Talent”

Miss Simonova, 24, drew a series of pictures on an illuminated sand table showing how ordinary people were affected by the German invasion during World War II.

One video clip, of the many now in many places, has gotten over 15 million views

She begins by creating a scene showing a couple sitting holding hands on a bench under a starry sky, but then warplanes appear and the happy scene is obliterated.

It is replaced by a woman’s face crying, but then a baby arrives and the woman smiles again. Once again war returns and Miss Simonova throws the sand into chaos from which a young woman’s face appears.

She quickly becomes an old widow, her face wrinkled and sad, before the image turns into a monument to an Unknown Soldier.

This outdoor scene becomes framed by a window as if the viewer is looking out on the monument from within a house.

In the final scene, a mother and child appear inside and a man standing outside, with his hands pressed against the glass, saying goodbye.

The Great Patriotic War, as it is called in Ukraine, resulted in one in four of the population being killed with eight to 11 million deaths out of a population of 42 million.

Click here to watch this incredibly talented young lady (Make sure you watch it in fullscreen mode):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=518XP8prwZo