By: Kate Roberts
Although I spent a majority of my summer working from my home in Tennessee, I would sometimes slip away to a coffee shop, observing the bustling people ordering their mid-day lattes and lunch as I worked on whatever project I was choosing to tackle that day. As I sat in one of my favorite local coffee shops, whose owner I learned was pro-life after he curiously asked me what I was working on for so many hours in his corner booth, I reflected on how grateful I was to be in such an amazing position. Not only did my internship allow me the flexibility to work whenever, wherever, but I was also working on and learning more about things that matter deeply to me, all while having opportunities to share the connection of life issues and the Gospel with unexpected people, such as the coffee shop owner.
Working as a part of the Y4Life team this summer included many amazing opportunities, including traveling to the LWML conference in Milwaukee and Higher Things conferences in both Carbondale and San Antonio! I got to hand out infographics with many ladies of the LCMS as well as many high school youth at Higher Things about life issues, why our Gospel-motivated approach matters, and how to get involved with Y4Life. These conversations were very life-giving, often giving me an opportunity to share about what Y4Life does and the other person often sharing their personal connection to 4 Life work in their local area.
I got to learn all the ins and outs of behind the scenes things that Y4Life is currently working on and working toward in the future. As a non-profit management major, it was fascinating to observe how Lutherans For Life runs as a nonprofit and how Y4Life director Michelle structures the Y4Life team and her goals for the team, as far as five years in the future.
Although I worked on many different things throughout the summer, including developing Life Facts, Life Snaps, Life Week Activity Sheets, Good News Notes posts, editing Chats4Life podcasts, recording podcasts as part of the summer series, and completing Equal Rights Institute training (just to name a few!), my favorite thing to work on was researching and developing a new Y4Life infographic on foster care. As an organization, LFL focuses on recognizing each individual employee’s strengths and using those strengths in order to ensure everyone is working on things they are good at and care about. Knowing that foster care was a life issue I was passionate about, Michelle suggested I work on developing a foster care infographic. It was a great joy to do lots of research, writing and designing to ensure that the infographic was filled with facts, but also shared the Gospel message with those reading it.
Even though I had been involved with Y4Life by attending various online and in-person opportunities, as well as being on my Y4Life team at Concordia Wisconsin, this summer truly taught me even further how to convey the love of Christ, the hope we have in Him, and His promise of everlasting life to all who believe in Him while approaching all life issues. The summer internship absolutely flew by, keeping me busy with all kinds of tasks, projects, and travel, and I am so sad that it’s over! If you are a high school or college student who loves research, writing, designing, and talking about life issues, and if you have a passion for the Gospel-motivated life message, this position is definitely something for you to consider in the future!