Posts Tagged ‘Tennessee Tech’
Pro-Life on Campus in Tennessee and North Carolina
Newbie staff member Mik’aela Raymond went on her first GAP tour the Spring of 2018. She did great!
In the Spring semester, we focused our GAP efforts on North Carolina and Tennessee. We traveled to Appalachian State, the University of Tennessee, Tennessee Tech, UNC Charlotte, and UNC Greensboro.
North Carolina is especially important, because it is one of the most important swing states in our region.
These are all schools we have visited before, but once every year or two is not too often. New students come and go, so we always get a new audience. Also, even when we get repeat customers, they often say that we move the needle on their opinions with each visit.
With your $upport, we will get abortion photos on every campus, every year. With that much exposure to reality, it will be almost impossible for pro-abortion professors to lie to our students any longer.
Check out the press coverage:
Hope and healing at Tennessee Tech
Letter on our Free Speech Board, written to Paiten and Jesse by a sister who misses them deeply.
by Debbie Picarello
At Tennessee Tech, Angie (not her real name) wrote a note to her two siblings, both aborted years ago (photo at right).
Angie learned about them when her mother went to work at a CPC, and through that experience, told Angie about the children she had aborted years ago.
Angie was crushed by the news. She had always begged her mom for a sibling. At some point, the siblings were named Paiten and Jesse. Angie has even written letters to them. She looks forward to meeting them in heaven.
I gave Angie a Deeper Still pamphlet.
Just a few days later, a post-abortive woman came to one of our Deeper Still healing retreats. A few weeks after that, this same woman attended a Deeper Still training seminar. We wound up in the same sharing group, and I heard this woman tell her story. It sounded so familiar.
This woman was none other than Angie’s mother!
It was one of the most beautiful God surprises I’ve had to this day! God certainly knows how to connect people! Thank you, CBR supporters, for making this encounter possible! Angie’s Mom will now help other women heal from their abortions!
Debbie Picarello volunteers with CBR and with Deeper Still, a post-abortion healing ministry.
Gems at Tennessee Tech University
CBR Southeast Director Fletcher Armstrong speaks with students at Tennessee Tech.
The new Centennial Plaza is a beautiful new venue at Tennessee Tech. While there, we dug up a few gems to share. (Don’t worry; no bricks were harmed in the mining of these gems!)
Appropriate response. A female history major commented, “I have seen GAP a couple of times.” When asked how she responded the first time she saw the pictures, she replied, “I went to the bathroom and threw up.”
Ready for battle. An engineering student remarked, “We may have different views on the subject, but I appreciate that we can sit here and have a civil conversation about this. You are clearly passionate and well informed.” Indeed.
Happy. A male student welcomed us. “I’m glad you are here. People say it is too graphic, but it is what it is. People need to see it.”
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Angry. Three female students, at different times during the day, said essentially the same thing. “This breaks my heart and I get so mad when my friends don’t get it. How can they not see it?”
Sad, but bold. A female student in a medical major spoke of her brother’s child, who was aborted by his girlfriend aborted without his knowledge. She said, “I could have been an aunt. And that relationship between them is also over.” She took a photo of GAP and said, “I’ll post this on Facebook and see how many friends I lose!”
Selfish couple. She tried to argue against the humanity of the unborn human child. When that failed, she said, “Why should I have to carry a baby I don’t want, just so I can give it away by adoption?”
He didn’t say much. As long as he can get sex without responsibility, why should he care?
Civil. Student Carl said, “I really appreciate that I can sit here and have a civil discussion with you even if I’m pro-choice and you are pro-life.”
Barely alive. A male engineering student said, “My mom was raised Muslim and became pregnant with me right before she and my father divorced. Her family wanted her to abort me, but she chose to give me life. It is so eye opening to see these images and think of how easily that could have been me. My life was decided by a yes or no question.”
Another close call. A female history student remarked, “I have a niece who is almost a year old, and she is my whole world. I look at these images and think about how that was her just a little while ago. How could someone destroy something so precious?”
The Baby Brigade
A UNC Greensboro student takes a GAP brochure. Who could resist?
by Jacqueline Hawkins
Sometimes at our GAP display, you will see a gaggle of babies and toddlers, and also moms with strollers. These are members of our “Baby Brigade.” They make a subtle but powerful pro-life statement.
They change the dynamic in several ways. First, students are less likely to become verbally abusive. No one likes to use obscene language in front of 2-year olds.
Second, students can see the contrast between death (the stark truth of child murder) and life (the end result when pre-born babies are spared). When students see women with their own children romping about in the green grass, motherhood doesn’t seem so scary; it looks inviting.
The babies soften the blow of the images. Christy McKinney, one of the mothers in the Brigade, spoke with a freshman at Tennessee Tech for an hour. The pictures hit home for this young woman, because she had recently learned that her mother wanted to abort her when she was six months along. She was very hurt by this and became tearful during the conversation. Christy let the student hold her 6-month old son, and that seemed to ease her pain.
Are you a mom with babies in tow? Would you like to join the Baby Brigade and make a subtle but powerful pro-life statement during GAP? Call or e-mail us and we’ll keep you abreast of volunteer opportunities!
Jacqueline Hawkins is a CBR Project Director and a regular FAB contributor.
Pro Life on Campus at Tennessee Tech University
Justin Brown explains to a group of students how abortion advocates dehumanize their intended victims. It is amazing how much influence one student can have.
This was different, but in a good way. At Tennessee Tech University (TTU), official policy allows individual students (not just student groups) to host events on campus. So when national pro-life award-winner and TTU student Justin Brown contacted us about bringing GAP, we were eager to go.
It is amazing how much influence one student can have, by God’s grace and with your support. Thank you for making our work possible!
As it turns out, every public university student has the same right that Justin exercised at TTU; their universities just don’t know it … yet. The rights of free speech and equal access to university grounds are individual rights, not group rights. They cannot be denied to an individual student simply because he hasn’t identified others willing to join him in that speech. TTU has figured this out, and they deserve credit for that.
There were some complications, however, because several TTU administrators didn’t understand their own policies. To make matters worse, they were not very cooperative when we tried to speak with them. It’s a good thing we got those issues resolved, however, because the last thing TTU wanted was for CBR to start flying airplane tow banners bearing abortion photos over their campus on a regular basis! They can ask Notre Dame what that’s like. TTU hosts many activities for high school students throughout the summer (Boys State, cheerleading camps, etc.), so the last thing they want to see is abortion photos flying overhead. Fortunately, they read their own policy manual in time, so we can save the nasty version of ourselves for somebody else.
Justin did an outstanding job of hosting GAP at TTU, and we look forward to working with him for many years to come. We set up in front of the Library, a very good location in the middle of campus.
Media Coverage:
The GAP display and Reproductive Choice Campaign (RCC) truth trucks are a powerful combination.
