Sara: Last week, Gus and I tagged along when Justin went to a work conference. The conference was held on a college campus, so Gus and I spent a fair amount of time both playing outside in the green spaces and wandering through their massive student union.

Gus would wander around going from one interesting thing to the next. He was especially proud when I allowed him to climb the stairs standing up, with my help, of course.

Gus has no boundaries and he enjoyed walking up to random groups of people to see what they were doing. I definitely had my hands full making sure Gus stayed out of trouble in an unfamiliar environment!

As time went on, I noticed most people smiled at Gus, waved at him, or stopped to talk to him. And, although in my biased opinion Gus is an exceptionally cute child, this surprised me.

Later, as I was talking to Justin about my adventures with Gus, I realized Gus had brought a lot of joy to random strangers that day. Gus spread his joy to people that I never would have been able to talk to by myself. Most of those college students probably have had very little experience with young children. Since my brother is only three years younger than I am, until I had Gus, I had never really been around babies or other young children. Even while I was pregnant, I didn’t truly realize how blessed we were to have Gus until he was born.

Just days earlier, Gus and I attended a pro-life rally and heard speaker Angela share how she became an “accidental advocate” for the pro-life movement after her fourteen year old daughter became pregnant as a result of a rape. Angela immediately wanted her daughter to have an abortion, but her husband was adamant they would not take the life of the child.

Angela spoke about how ultimately, after God worked to change her heart, her grandson Noah is a huge gift to their family. He has given a new purpose and meaning to her entire family’s lives.

Angela’s story moved me to tears, and I was wondering how I personally could get involved in changing minds and hearts as part of the pro-life movement.

After seeing the joy Gus brought to all the college students at Justin’s conference, I’ve decided to take Gus to our local university occasionally to just hang out, explore the green spaces, and walk around the student union. Perhaps seeing the joy that Gus is capable of giving will encourage these young men and women to be more open to life.

I think many people get abortions because they are scared. Women are scared of the cost of raising a child. They are scared of the responsibility and wonder if they have what it takes to care of a baby. Like me, they haven’t spent a lot of time around babies so they don’t know how much joy children can bring. Perhaps even a brief encounter with a kid like Gus can help change minds and hearts.