Fletcher, Jane, & John

^{GAP is Better Sooner than Later at the University of Oklahoma}

	As always, big crowds gathered around GAP on both days.

We’ve never seen anything like it. Francis Schaefer is reported to have said that you can hang a sign on every abortion clinic in America, “Open by Permission of the Local Church.” Perhaps the biggest church scandal of the past 40 years is that our sewers are running red with the blood of our children, including children of church members, and the “pro-life, evangelical” church is doing almost nothing to stop it, even among our own members. We could all take a lesson from Trinity Baptist Church in Norman. Here’s what they do:

• support of the local CPC with budgeted giving and by hosting the annual fundraising dinner
  
• member support of the CPC with money and time
  
• strong preaching from the pulpit, plus additional emphasis in youth and college programs
  
• showing video of abortion during the worship service, so that people will know what the preaching is about
  
• voter registration and education programs
  
• maintaining a pro-life student group on campus
  
• conducting post-abortion Bible studies
  
• maintaining an adoption fund to help church members adopt babies
  
• If you want to know more about what your church can do, go to http://www.abortionno.org/Matt/churches.html.
  

The Sooner the better. Ryan Polk, the College Minister at Trinity Baptist, called CBR in late 2005 to request that we bring GAP to the University of Oklahoma (OU). They wasted no time making it happen. Their college students had already become a registered student organization on campus. They raised funds to cover GAP not only at OU, but at three other schools as well. They housed and fed our traveling team. They hosted the GAP training at their church, and 150 members attended—a new world record! They asked for members to help with setup and take-down, and 60 members showed up—another world record. Their student members and pastoral staff and other volunteers engaged passersby for two solid days, showing them the truth about abortion while sharing the love and forgiveness of Jesus. They wrote letters to the student paper. Some of them even drove up to Stillwater later that week to help with GAP at Oklahoma State. It was unlike anything we have ever seen. This church understands not only the question asked by Jesus, “Who is my neighbor?” but also His command to care for that neighbor. If there were just one church like Trinity Baptist in every major city in America, this battle would have been over long, long ago.

	Nearly a third of the people in this picture are Trinity Baptist members and staffers who are discussing abortion and using the GAP project as a venue for sharing the love of Jesus.

Some get it. The Oklahoma Daily, the student newspaper at OU, printed an article and at least 13 letters and columns. In the article, they reported on this passerby:

Lisa Lambert, University College freshman, said it is easy to object to the images but important to consider their point.

“At first, I thought it was not the right way, but now that I look at it, I think they are right on some level – it makes a lot of sense,” Lambert said. “I think at their time, these other photos were shocking too.”

Some don’t get it. Mary Asal was quoted in the same article, “I have done lots of human rights work, and what I find interesting is a lot of people who are pro-life are also supporting wars and support other forms of genocide.”

It’s a classic double whammy of changing the subject and launching ad hominem attacks. Abortion supporters can’t deal with the facts about abortion—it is killing for which they bear responsibility—so they try to change the subject. In this case, they try to justify their own crime by pointing to the crimes of others. Then they accuse pro-lifers of aiding and abetting those crimes. It reminds me of the Nazis who justified their own crimes against the Jews by claiming that others also committed murder in order to advance national interests.

Changed minds. At the beginning of Day 2, I asked the Trinity Baptist students to recall from the previous day whether they had heard anybody change his mind about abortion. More than half of the students had heard somebody change his mind the previous day! Some of the comments from passersby:

I admire the fact that you are brave enough to stand up for what you believe in.

I hate to say this, but I agree with what you are doing.

I was very pro-choice before I saw this. While the display didn’t change my mind, I will most definitely go home and research it more.

	GAP is like a box of chocolates. Ya neva know watt yore gonna gay-it.

Thank you, CBR supporter. Thank you for being there for Jane and the rest of us with your prayers and financial support, so that we can be there for David. Please do all you can, so that, by God’s grace, we can do all we must.

To arrange your automatic monthly bank draft to support our work:

1. Download and print the Electronic Gift Transfer Authorization:
http://www.abortionno.org/...GiftTransferSE.pdf
2. Fill out the form.  Make sure you designate the gift for "CBR Southeast"
3. Enclose a voided check or deposit slip bearing the account number of the account we should draft.
4. Mail the Transfer Authorization form and a voided check (or deposit slip) to CBR Southeast, P.O. Box 20115, Knoxville, TN 37940.

Please pray that God will raise up others to help you support this life-saving work!