Rejoice and be Glad

It’s difficult to adequately express gratitude to the many groups and individuals who have been so supportive and generous throughout 2007. It has been an exciting and challenging year for all of us at LifeCanada.

We started the year in a difficult financial situation and our executive director Carroll Rees, who had so ably spearheaded our work for four years, resigned in April to start a new job. It was a tough time for our part-time office manager, Karen Young, and our board. Karen took on the challenge without complaint and held us together for the two months during which we searched for a replacement.

However, our member groups responded to the financial crisis by endorsing our membership fee increase and participating in our educational campaigns such as the Environics poll and the national Abortion Breast Cancer billboard advertising campaign. We received a generous bequest which boosted our bank account and our morale. Finally, we hired a new executive director, Gudrun Schultz, who has taken on the job with great enthusiasm, initiative and competence.

We are now putting the finishing touches on the website, www.AbortionInCanada.ca, and in early January we’ll launch our new educational campaign to highlight 20 years of unrestricted abortion in Canada. We’ll have close to 50 billboards across the country (as of this writing), 24 transit ads, newspaper ads and tens of thousands of postcards—all educating Canadians about the realities of abortion.

LifeCanada has truly been blessed in 2007. We are stronger, more focused and creating awareness of life issues in the wider community. We are advancing the culture of life in Canada.

On behalf of the board of LifeCanada I want to thank all of you who have supported us with your prayers, your time and effort and your financial contributions. I would also like to thank in a special way the members of the board for their additional efforts as we worked to solve the challenges over the past year. Our staff members, Gudrun Schultz and Karen Young, have performed above and beyond the call of duty and we are so thankful for their commitment.

We wish everyone a blessed Christmas and our best wishes for this wonderful season. We look forward to working together throughout 2008 to continue building and strengthening the culture of life across our great country.

God bless and keep you all.

Joanne Byfield