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NRL News
When the
Educated Become Educators and Inspire Others It’s pretty amazing, really! One passionate pro-life teenager can have a huge impact on the world around her and even on future generations. Let me give you an example—and keep in mind that this potential exists every time we train a young person and give him or her an opportunity to fall in love with our cause. Rachel Schumacher, our new Wisconsin Teens for Life (WTL) president, is 15 years old. She has mad organizational skills, a fabulous sense of humor, and a level of maturity that is beyond her years. Other teens are drawn to her, but it’s more than her wit and friendliness that draws them. To put it simply, this kid knows her stuff. Rachel is the younger sister of past WTL president Bethany Schumacher, who took the time to educate her about the cause of life. Bethany brought Rachel to her first Wisconsin Right to Life camp when Rachel was 13 years old. Two years later Rachel was on the leadership team (along with Bethany) and this fall she became our youngest WTL president ever. She was chosen for this role because she exemplifies what it means to be a teen in the right-to-life movement. She is savvy. She not only learns what she is taught, she also internalizes it and finds ways to explain it to her peers that will help them better understand the issue. She is passionate. After a devotion at one of this summer’s camps she passed the speaker a little note. It was a prayer she had written out, pledging to spend her life—as long as it takes—telling people exactly why abortion and euthanasia are wrong and challenging them to speak out. She is compassionate. She understands that abortion is wrong because it kills children and because it hurts women. She never loses sight of the fact that every abortion has multiple victims. She is a go-to kind of girl. If it needs to get done, you give it to Rachel. It will get done, it will get done well, and somehow she will manage to do it while juggling school, Driver’s Ed, religion classes, running her local Teens for Life group, and taking time out to play with her little sisters. In the eight months that she has been on our team, Rachel has spoken in front of teen groups, written articles, engaged in some amazing discussions about abortion with peers on Facebook, taken the issue to her school, and participated in national-level events. She helps plan all of our teen events on the state level and her input is valued every bit as highly as that of any adult. Anyone who knows her will tell you that Rachel is unique, amazing, fabulous, and delightful. But here’s the best news ... There are other Rachels out there in every state of the union. They have different names and faces, different sets of talents, sure, but all with one thing in common: they care about life and are willing to speak up to defend it. All it takes from us is a little time and effort to identify and train them—then watch as what you have invested in them snowballs and impacts more and more lives. One life truly can change—and save—many, many others. This rings especially true in Rachel’s case because, you see, her involvement didn’t start with her older sister, Bethany ... it actually started even further back when a few girls started a pro-life group at their Catholic school when Rachel was only seven. One of them was Amanda McClone, who you will, no doubt, remember from countless previous NRL News articles. The other was a girl named Maria. Maria would have been in college now, had she not died in a car accident when she was 14. Maria was Bethany and Rachel’s older sister. When she died, Bethany inherited her collection of pro-life t-shirts and, it turns out, her passion for ending abortion. It is a mantle that Bethany has passed on to Rachel, and Rachel is working to pass on to the rest of the Schumacher brood. (Emma, at nine, is already clamoring to attend Teens for Life camp.) Just as every life for which we fight is precious, unique, and valuable, every teen we train is all of those things, too. And every single one of them has the potential, like Rachel, Bethany, Amanda, and Maria, to reach many, many others and inspire in them a passion for life. When I asked Amanda (who is also my assistant) for a few specifics about Maria, she mentioned that she and a friend had just been talking about how many people are involved in the fight for life because of Maria’s example. Not the least of whom is her little sister, Rachel, who will be doing great things for the cause of life for years and decades to come. For more information on how you can involve youth in the right-to-life movement, contact us at jlittle@wrtl.org. |