aul.org

This is a really helpful website when wondering what to say to your legislators when you call them.  Go to this link and click on your state.  It will then tell you what are the most pressing issues about abortion for your state.  You don't have to say, "Please vote for or against this bill or that bill," but you can ask in more general terms, like, "Please vote to defund Planned Parenthood," or "Please support the idea that minors should have parental notification before obtaining an abortion."  This website is very helpful in knowing what exactly you should tell your legislators.  If you want the actual website, visit this link.

40 days for life

this was in an email that i got from 40 days for life:

Several 40 Days for Life volunteers were praying in
front of Planned Parenthood, including some children
who were kneeling. After a while, a young woman came
out of the building and began to speak with the mother
of one of the girls kneeling in prayer.
The young woman asked what was going on, and the
volunteer explained, telling her that they offer support
and information to women who are thinking about abortion.
After some discussion, the young woman decided to keep
her baby. She and the volunteer then went straight to
the nearby pregnancy resource center.
"Please pray for this young woman," said Paula in
Wilmington. "She is very poor, homeless and has very
little support. She has also been mistreated by her
boyfriend."
Before she left, the young woman went up to the girls
and told them the good news and said that she hoped her
child would be good like them -- beautiful young ladies
praying for her and her baby.
"She looked so happy," Paula said. "We assured her of
our prayers. Praise God!"

please pray for the other 345 mothers that have not aborted their babies because of 40 days for life's ministry.  if it sounds like something that you want to get involved in, visit this link.

Politics and Christians

"Christians should seek to influence civil government according to God's moral standards and God's purposes for government as revealed in the Bible (when rightly understood)... In addition, 'significant influence' does not mean angry, belligerent, intolerant, judgmental, red-faced, and hate-filled influence, but rather winsome, kind, thoughtful, loving, persuasive influence that is suitable to each circumstance and that always protects the other person's right to disagree, but that is also uncompromising about the truthfulness and moral goodness of the teachings of God's Word." 

this quote is from the Citizen magazine november issue.  when i read it today, i thought it really signified what christians should be doing in the pro-life movement.  christians shouldn't think that we can just storm the capitol and get it over with.  then abortion would be illegal and we wouldn't have to worry about it anymore.  this isn't how it works.  as christians, even though storming the capitol won't work, we do need to be active in politics and what better time for us to start than now?  we need to lovingly proclaim the truth both to politicians and abortionists, but, though loving them, we can't back down.  there needs to be a balance.  we shouldn't judge them; we should have compassion on them instead.  just some food for thought:)

this is a video that shows how to call your legislator...it's really cheesy, but it's still good...they say to just do it by calling the capitol campus, but you can also directly call your certain legislator.

legislative stuff

Okay, so here is what i think is the easiest thing to do to help the pro-life movement. all you have to do is write a letter, send an email, or make a phone call. especially as teenagers, we will get the attention of our legislators. what you can do is this:

go to your state legislative website (just google (your state abbreviation) legislature and you should be able to find it, so like for california, ca legislature. washington's website is leg.wa.gov) and find your district (usually there's a place where you can enter your zip code and find your senators and representatives). then get the addresses, phone numbers, or emails of your senators or representatives and write them a hand written letter, email, or call them telling your name, age, maybe grade and that you would like to ask them to vote for or against certain bills. i'll keep updated bills on here for washington, oregon, california, and the whole country. make sure you call the right legislators. for example: you would call your representatives for House Bills (HB) and senator for Senate Bills (SB). but make sure you call your state senator/representative for state wide bills and your congressional senator/representative for nation wide bills. i'll be giving you ideas of things to do in later posts!

This is what we need to do

Abortion is an ugly thing that has completely overtaken our society.  Even so, many Christians in our country aren't doing much about it, and sometimes even contributing to the problem.  Here’s my story:

When I was in 7^th grade, I learned more about the problem of abortion and I became a part of two different groups of friends who wanted to make abortion illegal.  I found out it doesn’t work that way, and the idea just faded out both times.  Even though I wanted to help, I didn’t really understand what was wrong with abortion.  I didn’t really think about the issue again for a couple of years.  This year, though, has been different.  I’m in a leadership/government class at my school and because of that, have been exposed more to politics.  Also, this year, through different circumstances, I have learned more about the pro-life movement.  I watched some speeches by Giana Jessen (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kPF1FhCMPuQ) and read a magazine article about Abby Johnson (abbyjohnson.org).  Each time something like this happened, I got psyched about doing something about abortion and wrote a couple songs, but that only lasted for a few days.  Then, on March 22 of this year, I saw Abby Johnson speak.  A few things she said really hit me, but it still felt just the same as it always had.  I would maybe think about calling a few legislators asking them to vote for or against certain bills, but that probably would have been all that happened.  But that night, my mom and dad talked with me.  I told them about how I always feel excited about this but then a couple days later, the feeling’s over.  My dad asked me why he thought this was.  I told him that I thought that if I got involved, it would change my plans for my life (I want to compose and dance for a living).  He asked me if that scared me, and I realized it did!  I had been holding so tightly to what I wanted to do, that I didn’t want to do anything different.  My dad went on to tell me that if this was something I felt like God was pulling at my heart for, I needed to respond to that.  I realized that I needed to do something.  I didn’t know what that was yet, but I had confidence that if God wanted me to do something, He would open doors for me.  Soooo….a few days later, I was doing some research on abortion (bills to call on and statistics and such) and I decided to do a google image search.  I typed in ‘mothers and abortion’.  Okay, more than anyone else I know, I have been exposed to some pretty graphic stuff.  My brothers lived through a civil war in Liberia, West Africa (they’re adopted) and they have told stories and I have seen pictures of the ugly, ugly war that went on there.  I’ve never had to stop looking at or hearing about something because it made me feel sick or I couldn’t handle it anymore.  Never.  But the pictures that came up when I did that google search sickened me and I had to stop.  I saw babies torn apart limb from limb so small that they fit on a few fingers.  I saw babies burnt to a crisp.  And I saw pictures of t-shirts that said, “Save the earth, abort a child.”  I had to stop.  I left my laptop on my desk and went to my grand piano and started writing a song.  It was about an average 16-year-old girl who got an abortion and the shape her life took after that day she visited an abortion clinic.  Through this song, I wanted to show people that abortion doesn’t fix anyone’s life.  It’s a lose lose situation!  The baby dies and the mother’s life is ruined because of her guilt.  The song is still in progress.  Through some circumstances, I have realized that many kids my age know about the problem of abortion and believe that it's wrong, but think that they're too young, sheltered, or not talented to do anything about it.  I’m guessing there are more people out there besides me thinking that there’s nothing they can do to lessen abortion.  I think we’re always finding reasons that we can’t do something.  Or there are people who want to do something but don’t know what to do.  That’s why I’ll give you some ideas of what to do about it.  Last year, Pro-lifers were outnumbered in their calls to legislators by 60 to 1!!  And think on this, every year now, 1 MILLION babies die from abortion.  I think sometimes we take that number for granted.  1,000,000 = 1,000 x 1,000.  One thousand one thousands.  That is a lot of babies dying, partly because the Church isn’t taking a stand.  I want to end with a little story.  One of my teachers last year adopted a son who was almost aborted.  His biological mother was stopped by a family asking her to not abort her baby.  They took her in and helped her place her baby for adoption.  THIS is what we should be doing.  THIS is how we’re going to make a difference.

So, all that to say, I challenge you to use this blog to DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!  Look further into this blog and find something that you think you can do.  This movement isn’t going to take 5 or 10 people working hard.  It’s going to take every single living Christian we have in this country.  So, again, DO SOMETHING ABOUT IT!!