JFA Blog — Justice For All

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They Stop and Think (Then We Pray)

While our culture is drowning every day in new content embraced through shiny devices, we have the privilege of mobilizing Christians to show up to encourage each individual to stop and think. We listen to understand, ask questions with an open heart, and find common ground throughout every interaction. Then we work to challenge each person to love all of the people touched by unplanned pregnancy, especially the unborn child who is forgotten by so many. Thank you for your support!

What many people we reach don’t realize is that our team of supporters prays with us to ask and trust God to follow up and specially care for each person we’ve met. In this Impact Report, we share names and pictures of a few of the people we met in 2024. (See more pictures and stories at www.jfaweb.org/blog.) Please give a generous year-end gift to help us reach thousands more in 2025.

Pray with us for…

Let’s Cause Thousands to Stop and Think in 2025

What does it take for the content of the truth to sink into a person’s mind and heart? Is hearing or seeing enough? Our culture is filled with more data, inputs, and content than ever before, but we are at risk of being one of the least thoughtful cultures ever. The antidote? Cause people to stop and think. They need to stop not just for a moment, but for long enough to allow them to interactively consider what’s true. This is why one of our passions is conversations. (See our October Update, “Connecting the Dots” for one example.)

When our trainers and volunteers step out and create conversations, we ask questions that cause the other person to stop and think. Imagine the impact of thousands of Christians who are trained to be skillful advocates who start conversations and make them productive encounters filled with listening, asking questions, and offering respectful challenges. We’re passionate about these advocates because they then take what they’ve learned and, long after our event is over, continue changing their world one person at a time. During each outreach event we see a different kind of advocate creating a different kind of conversation, and we see the beginnings of a different kind of world in which elective abortion is unthinkable. Our strategy is aimed at long-term systemic change that’s only possible when many thousands of individual minds and hearts change. If you share our passion for conversations and advocates that God can use to change the world, please consider supporting JFA’s work with a generous year-end gift or a pledge of regular support.

When you give a gift to JFA (jfaweb.org/donate), it creates moments to “stop and think” by…

  • … transporting our trainers to events in CA, CO, TX, OK, KS, MO, NE, MI, VA, and elsewhere through flights, rental cars, and mileage reimbursements.

  • … helping us be present in 10 metro areas including increased activity in Denver (Kristine), NW Arkansas (Alora), Kansas City (Kristina), and Grand Rapids (Kaitlyn). (See our August update: “New Team Members and New Cities.”)

  • … helping us reach more people through small-scale events. (See our September update: “Team Be Nimble.”)

  • … allowing us to create new copies of our smaller exhibits and to experiment with new content so we can find the tools that attract more people to stop and think.

  • … providing new dialogue brochures for our campus events.

  • … enabling us to provide Seat Work + Feet Work training to Christians in more places.

  • … providing computers, projectors, and other technologies that enable us to reach more people through workshops, presentations, emails, letters, and social media.

Thank you for partnering with JFA. If you send regular financial support or host our trainers in your home or provide meals or pray for us or volunteer at events or share our training with others, you are already doing so much to help JFA make a difference. Thank you.

Where Do You Draw the Line?

In a conversation with a student at MiraCosta College in October.

Where do you draw the line on human rights? It’s a common question I ask people on campus while we look at images of human beings, born and unborn, in all stages of their development. I’ll ask them at what point they think humans begin to have the basic right to be protected from violence. I was at MiraCosta College in Oceanside on October 8-9, and I spent time talking about this question with a student I’ll call “Jake.”

We were looking at pictures of embryology together and I pointed at a picture of an 18-week-old fetus and asked him if he thought the abortion of that unborn child is wrong and should be illegal. He said yes. I then pointed to the 12-week-fetus,and he agreed it was wrong and should be illegal to kill a human at that point as well. I pointed to a seven-week-fetus, and his answer was the same. Then I pointed to a four-week human embryo, and that’s where it got murky for him. He said abortion should be legal at that point. I asked him if it had anything to do with how the human looks at that stage of development. He said yes.

Like Jake, many people struggle to see the early human embryo as having the same right to not be killed as you and me. I presented the equal rights argument* to Jake and made the case that if we believe every human being should be protected from violence and harm, we all have to share something equally. I made the case that human nature makes the most sense of our equality. That answer doesn’t lead to counterintuitive implications that would end up including animals or excluding newborn infants. Our equality is not rooted in how we look or in what we can currently do. If I’m right about this, then it’s wrong to kill the unborn even if they don’t look like you and me yet— it’s wrong because they are human just like us.

After I shared this, I asked him if he thought the criterion he was using to determine which humans get equal rights was a good one since it was largely based on how the human embryo looks. Jake told me, “I’m doubting it now.”

Many people have views about human value that are misinformed and based on criteria that actually result in great inequality and injustice. That is why it is so important for us to have conversations about these important issues with those around us.

*Go to www.jfaweb.org/equal-rights or www.jfaweb.org/notes#4 for more stories and equipping.

Never Underestimate a Picture

The poll asked, “Should abortion remain legal?” Students could vote yes or no.

My teammate Andrea and I recently conducted outreach at a college campus in Minnesota, setting up our table across from the campus cafeteria to engage with students between classes and meals. From the moment we were ready, it felt like there was no downtime—student after student approached us, curious, skeptical, and eager to talk.

At one point, I placed two JFA brochures on the table—one visible to those on the "Yes" side of our poll and the other to those on the "No" side. Shortly after, three students approached, chatting in French. They were international students from West Africa, each holding a different view on the topic: one woman was pro-life, her friend was pro-choice, and the man remained silent, observing their exchange.

The pro-life woman leaned over the poll, reading some of the responses on the "No" side. She picked up one of the brochures, noticing the bolded red warning printed on the bottom of the page: “Warning: Graphic images of abortion inside.” Without a second thought, she opened the flap and, to my surprise, nearly shoved it into her friend’s face (not exactly something we recommend doing!).

This is how I placed the brochures on both sides of the poll table.

Her friend flinched, startled, her eyes locking onto the graphic images. She stared in silence, processing what she saw. Then she slowly turned toward the poll table, glancing back and forth between the "Yes" and "No" sides. You could see the hesitation as her previous certainty began to waver.

After some thought, she picked up the pen on the "No" side, leaned in, and carefully wrote her reason:

"Because life is precious, and everyone should be given a chance to live."

Curious, I asked her, “Did you change your mind about abortion?”

"Yes," she said. "After I saw those images, I can’t support it."

Thanks be to God! While seeing the reality of abortion doesn’t change every pro-choice person’s mind, it can certainly aid many conversations, bringing clarity to what abortion truly is. Never underestimate the power of a picture.