By: Elizabeth Crawford
Faith Lutheran School started its Y4Life team in November 2022, and we have been slowly gaining momentum, working our way into developing programs, activities, and events for our life team. We had numerous planning meetings and fun social gatherings, and our team leaders have applied for grants to secure support funds for our team. We have been working very hard behind the scenes to promote life!
Our first official activity as a team was participating in our school’s Treat ‘N’ Feast, which is a fall festival hosted in our school gym. At our small booth, we gave away lifesavers candy and bracelets to everyone who stopped by. We encouraged older youth and adults who visited our booth to leave their information so we could follow up with them about joining our team or supporting our future work. There was a lot of interest from youth and adults alike, which was very exciting!
Our team also supported our school’s Life Week in April. As part of Life Week, our school supports a local pregnancy resource clinic by having a “baby bottle drive.” School students and staff are encouraged to collect coins and bills in specially marked baby bottles. Our team’s youth leaders presented a short presentation to the school about supporting and upholding all life. We used the baby models that Y4Life gifted us and explained the different stages of life to various classrooms of students. All of the children, especially the younger ones, were fascinated by the baby models and asked many questions about how babies were born and how babies could fit in their mother’s womb. We felt that Life Week at our school was very successful. It was one of the first formal opportunities our youth leaders have had to speak to others about life and use the baby models. It was an intimidating but exciting experience, and seeing how excited the staff and students were about the presentations was very encouraging.
In the spring, we also hosted an event for high school students that was both social and educational. As part of an after-school event that featured social time and snacks, we showed the life-affirming movie “The Drop Box.” Several attended that had not previously shown interest in Lions4Life. We enjoyed a brief discussion about the movie after viewing.
At the end of the school year, we formed a partnership with Human Coalition, a local pro-life organization in our community where one of our church members works. We began a collection box to collect clothes and diapers for the mothers. After recently receiving the two grants to support life activities we were able to use some of the money to purchase strollers, baby carriers and other needed supplies to donate to the mothers served by Human Coalition.
We are thankful for the support that our church and school have given us, and we are thankful for Y4Life for giving us the opportunity and the resources to boldly support life. We are looking forward to the next school year and have even more activities planned. We continue to pray for the unborn, the differently abled, the older members of our community and others. We are honored and determined to be a Gospel-focused voice for life, and we are excited to see where the next year takes us!