Archive for the 'General' Category

A hearty hello to everyone!

Like Christina and Margaret, I am very grateful for the opportunity to contribute here on GFL as a guest blogger. Some of you may recognize me from the comments I‘ve been posting on this site for the last couple of months, but for everyone else, a little bit about me:

My name is Molly. I am thirteen years old and live in a small suburb you’ve probably never heard of in North Texas. I have been homeschooled for most of my life, though I did attend public school for a few years. I have only been involved in the pro-life movement for a little less than a year, but I hope to continue to be involved in it for many years to come.

Besides pro-life activities, my hobbies include reading, creative writing, studying theology, filmmaking, and partaking in friendly debates.

At the moment I am not involved in a pro-life group, though I will happily join one if I can gather enough members.

I look forward to posting on this site, and feel free to comment on anything I post; I’m very happy to hear your opinion. (Oh, and happy Easter, everyone!)

Dear friends in the pro-life movement:

Christ is risen! We rejoice in His victory over death and the triumph of His Kingdom.

What special meaning does Easter have for all of us who work to bring an end to abortion, the greatest destroyer of the Culture of Life?

On Easter we celebrate and commemorate Christ’s rising from the dead. What exactly happened when He rose from the dead? He conquered the Kingdom of Death! Forever! No more is death a power, a kingdom, a mighty conqueror. In His rising we have new and everlasting life.

Christ’s conquering of the Kingdom of Death by His Resurrection is our greatest inspiration and hope in the pro-life movement. We can do our work with renewed assurance and conviction that we are on the winning side, the side that will not lose, will not lose as surely as Christ did rise from the dead, because through that rising He destroyed the Kingdom of Death.

What stronger and more victorious Captain could we dream of, than He who by His own power rose from the dead and destroyed that Kingdom? He now leads us on to certain victory in our efforts to renew a respect and love for the dignity and life of every person, victory in our battle against the greatest destroyer of the Culture of Life.

The Kingdom of Death, though trying to reign, will never and can never win, because Christ conquered it through His Resurrection from the dead and is our Captain in our work for life.

For us in the pro-life movement, the conquering of the Kingdom of Death does not mean that we will not die at the end of our lives. It rather means that death is no longer a power that can reign in our world and in our souls.

These reflections should give us all new courage, hope, and certainty that we are on the winning side, the side that will win because Christ has already conquered for us the Kingdom of Death. We have but to fight this Kingdom’s efforts to regain power. And because it’s powers have been already broken and crushed by the Resurrection, we will win.

A happy and blessed Easter to all!
God bless.

We have a limited number of CDs available from our TeenSpeak conference last month, featuring two great pro-life talks by:

• Dr. Anthony Levatino, a former abortionist who shared his personal story, and
• Scott Klusendorf, who explained how to intelligently and persuasively argue the pro-life position.

We’ve decided to make these two-CD sets available for FREE to anyone who was not able to attend TeenSpeak in person.

If you’d like one of these CD sets, fill out our contact form and, in the Comments section of the form, be sure to say you’d like the free CDs.

We only have a limited number, so get ‘em before they’re gone!

We’ve just been asked to plug the 2008 Pro-Life Youth Day this Saturday, March 8, in Albany, NY, and we’re glad to do so. Bobby Schindler, the brother of Terri Schiavo, will be one of the speakers.

This event is sponsored by the New York State Right to Life Committee. You can get more information here [PDF].

Hello everyone!

My name is Margaret and I am another one of the student guest bloggers who will be posting my pro-life news, reflections and experiences on this site. Like Christina, I am thrilled to be involved in the pro-life movement in this way and I am very grateful for the invitation to write on this blog!

I am especially excited because not only does this site give me the chance to be able to continually put in my two cents about pro-life issues, but it allows me publicize upcoming events and fundraisers being put on by my church’s new teen pro-life group, Apostles for Life, as well as other clubs in the area!

Now, let me tell you a little about myself- I am sixteen years old (seventeen later this month!) and a junior in high school. I am primarily home schooled, but I also take some classes at my local community college.

I live in a little suburb about forty minutes west of Chicago, Illinois. I am the third of five children, with one older sister and brother and two younger brothers. I have basically been involved in the pro-life movement as long as I can remember, but I did not become a passionate member until my teen years when I started discovering for myself what it means to be pro-life.

My hobbies include: playing the flute and the tuba (but never at the same time), helping teach catechism at my church, volunteering with my 4-H group, working at my part-time job, and participating in my local pro-life club.

Right now, my main focus has been working with the already mentioned pro-life club, Apostles for Life, at my church, Sacred Heart. We are currently planning a baby bottle fundraiser where the proceeds will go directly to the crisis pregnancy center Woman’s Choice Services.

For all of you who are not familiar with how a baby bottle fundraiser works, a pro-life organization passes out baby bottles for everyone to take home. Then, each individual who took a bottle fills it up with money or loose change until the bottle is full. Then everyone returns their bottles and the organization donates the money to a crisis pregnancy center or other pro-life cause.

We will be passing out bottles at all of the Masses at Sacred Heart in Lombard, IL, the weekend of March 8-9. Please pray for the success of our first fundraiser!

I hope to be able to post more soon. Until then- God bless!

I’m honored that I’ve been invited to be a presenter at the Here I Am Lord National Vocations Conference next weekend, where I’ll be talking at St. Edward High School in Elgin, IL about the vocation all of us have to be pro-life.

I just spoke with Mike Zak, the youth minister who is the main coordinator for this multi-site conference, and he told me many of the sessions are already sold out, but there are still some tickets available for Friday night’s talk by Gianna Jessen — who survived a third trimester saline abortion thirty years ago — and for Saturday night’s session with the amazingly talented Tony Melendez:

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A warm hello to everybody!
My name is Christina DeGoede, and I am one of the new guest bloggers who will be regularly posting some of my pro-life-related experiences, reflections, ideas, etc. on this website. I am very much looking forward to doing this and think that I will really enjoy it, and I am very grateful for the invitation to blog from Generations for Life. I love so much to be involved in pro-life work, and this will be a great way to share with you some of what this work means to me.

And let me tell you a little about myself. I live in Mossyrock, Washington; this is about two hours southeast of Seattle, Washington. I am 18 years old, and I just graduated from my high school studies in which I was homeschooled. My family and I first became actively involved in pro-life work when I was three years old, and again we have been actively involved for these past eight years.

I was especially excited about finishing my high school studies because I am very eager to organize and lead a new pro-life activism group. I will most probably start this group in my area. Just now, I am in the process of getting it all planned out.

Again, I look forward to posting on this website. And thank you all for any comments that you will write on my posts. I will always be interested in what your point of view is.

Take care everybody, and God bless!
Sincerely,
Christina DeGoede

We’ve recently invited three high school students we’ve been in contact with the past few months to be guest bloggers here on Generations for Life.

They will be introducing themselves soon, and they’ll write periodically about their reflections and insights on abortion and other life issues, personal experiences defending life, current pro-life news, events or activities their pro-life clubs are doing, etc.

Recently, we’ve gotten a lot of e-mails from high school and college students across the country who are looking for information on abortion for research papers and speeches they’re working on.

We expect this number to continue to grow in the next few weeks of December — a peak time for term papers.

When we receive e-mails like these, we first recommend that students check out our Q & A section.

We also offer to mail a complimentary pro-life literature packet.

If you would like one of these free student packets for yourself or for someone else, let us know through our contact form, and we’ll be happy to send you one.

In this week’s Stand True E-News, Bryan Kemper writes:

I look through a lot of web sites and MySpace sites every day. We get so many messages and invites and I love to see the creative ways people are spreading the pro-fie message.

One of the coolest things I see is the photos that people take and turn into pro-life banners and graphics. Some of these are very powerful and creative, and I know they make people think.

We want to see your creativity. We want to put your talents to work to help spread the pro-life message. So we are holding a pro-life photo and graphics contest.

Great idea!

Contest rules and prizes are listed here.

Last week we got an e-mail from Elizabeth, who is working on a project called Bella for Life. She writes:

We are using the movie Bella as a catalyst to raise awareness to the pro-life movement and the need for people to step up and become “lifeguards” to women in troubled pregnancies and their unborn babies.

The way it works is people contact Bella for Life, pledging to become a “lifeguard”. We then contact the Crisis Pregnancy Center in their area, letting them know of the volunteer(s). Then we exchange their contact information, helping them to create a time for volunteering.

Great idea!

There’s more information on how to become a “lifeguard” here.

**UPDATE: 8/9, 10:50AM: Wow! The number of T-shirt requests we’ve received has been overwhelming. We’ve gotten so many requests, in fact, that we have no more shirts left!

Kathy Piper, one of our longtime supporters, has made a generous donation of pro-life T-shirts to GFL. On the front, they say, “4-Life”, and on the back they say, “Choose Life! Your Mother Did!”

We’ve decided to make them available for FREE. If you’d like one (or more!), please contact us. Be sure to include your full name and mailing address, and also let us know what size you’d like — we have them available in medium, large, extra large, and double extra large.

Yesterday, Pope Benedict XVI traveled to Assisi to celebrate the 800th anniversary of the city’s favorite hometown hero, St. Francis.

During his eleven-hour trip, the pope gave five talks, including a beautiful address to a crowd of more than 25,000 young people gathered in the square surrounding the Porziuncola, the little church where Francis realized his vocation to serve God by living in poverty among the poor.

Here are some excerpts:

Saint Francis speaks to all men and women, but I know that he has a special attraction for young people. Your presence here in great numbers confirms this as do the questions you have put before me. His conversion took place at the prime of his life, of his experiences, of his dreams. He had spent twenty five years without ever having come to understand the meaning of life. A few months before his death, he will remember that period as a time when he was “in sin” (more…)

We’ve been getting a lot of questions lately from students interested in finding pro-life internship opportunities. Thankfully, Students for Life of America has a long list of these opportunities on their website.

Check them out!

…which we recently got from Theresa, a high school senior:

I just wanted to say thank you for putting together the amazing Pro-Life Club Curriculum. Right now, I’m a senior at a very secular, very liberal high school, and for my AP Biology class we have to do a bioethics presentation. I have the topic of abortion as birth control. I kept putting off the assignment, because I did not know where to start. Then I remembered my mom had given me the Pro-Life Club Curriculum binder about a year ago, just for information. I spent a long time reading it. It is exactly the approach I need to take to present a persuasive argument to my class. It also solidified once again my pro-life stance. Thank you very much for your efforts in creating such a binder with every possible fact, rebuttal, and pro-life alternative.

And thank you, Theresa, for your compliments! God bless you!