®International Charitable Fund "GIFT OF LIFE"

Priceless

Cigarette packs now have a photo you can’t ignore instead of a warning you will ignore. “A picture is worth a thousand words.” Complex and sometimes multiple ideas can be conveyed with a single still image. We kept that in mind during our recent remodeling. Gift of Life’s Pro-Life offices have undergone needed “facelifts”, thanks to donors. The renovated counseling rooms had plenty of wall space which we saw as empty canvas.

Abortion was never illegal in the Soviet Union; in fact, it was the primary means of birth control. Many pro-life centers here chose to display its horrors with graphic posters of aborted children. It never seemed to us that that was what we should impose on the eyes of desperate women looking for a way out and God’s help.

We began looking for landscapes that would depict God’s splendor, His almighty power, and also calming, relaxing, stabilizing pictures sending subliminal messages of hope, and a path to a future found in Christ Jesus.

After searching the internet and shops here in Ukraine nothing seemed exactly right. Too big, too small, faded, lacking detail, unreproducible, copyrighted, just not right. Then, during a stateside furlough, we visited Don and Kris Weltzien, friends, and Gift of Life supporters. They are award winning photographers whose home is filled with their spectacular photos from around the world – scenes of nature. Hello walls, the answer was staring at us. “Could we purchase prints for the life centers?” Don’s answer, “Absolutely not!” But he would donate them. Priceless!

Technology allowed him to reformat the images so that we receive printer-ready files based on our desired print sizes. Cool! Next, Don uploads them to iCloud, and we download them here in Ukraine. The huge pictures are printed on canvas in amazing detail, at a fraction of what it would cost in the states. Bingo!

Each picture has a relevant Bible verse imprinted right on it.

Don and Kris “hope that the Holy Spirit can use these images to shed some ‘Light’ on people who view them.” We’ve come a long way in this business of saving lives. If a picture is worth a thousand words, how much is a human life worth?

Priceless.


  • Nick and Kerry Laper

  • Gift of Life – Ukraine

Lake Superior Sunset

Great are the works of the Lord …. Psalm 111

■ Autumn Road

Trust in the Lord with all your heart … and he will direct your paths. Proverbs 3:5-6

■ Lighthouse

           You are the light of the world …. Matthew 5:14

 

O Lord, my God, when I in awesome wonder

Consider all the worlds Thy Hands have made

I see the stars, I hear the rolling thunder

Thy power throughout the universe displayed:

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee

How great Thou art, how great Thou art.

Then sings my soul, my Savior God to Thee

How great Thou art, how great Thou art.

Swedish folk melody, adapted by Stuart K. Hine


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