“All we can do is invite, and it’s up to that other person to respond,” Muzyka said. “We do get a mix of rejection and then people who take us up on that offer of help.”
SAFL is celebrating more than 22,000 lives recorded to be saved from abortion through their sidewalk counseling service. In addition, more than 5,000 “hopeful saves” — women who leave the abortion facility to “think about it.” SAFL also reported 89 abortion workers leaving and 55 abortion facilities closing as a result of their work.
But their success isn’t their own, Muzyka said.
“It’s the grace of God. It’s his hope, it’s his love, it’s his peace that’s really winning someone over,” she said. “… It’s even right there in our mission statement that we are the hands and feet of Jesus. And that’s really the heart of sidewalk advocacy, is Our Lord sent people out in twos to go spread the Gospel. And this is really the epitome of the gospel of life, is meeting someone there in their moment of crisis and speaking hope and peace into their circumstances.”
The ministry sees “miracles out on the sidewalk” because it is a “beautiful little mix of practical and spiritual,” Muzyka said.
SAFL’s top core value is being Christ-centered. Though the organization doesn’t subscribe to a particular denomination, the movement is “Catholic-heavy” but “comfortable” for anyone of another denomination, Muzyka said, and their formation materials incorporate Scripture.
“And it’s beautiful, because we’re actually seeing this new springtime of collaboration throughout the body of Christ,” Muzyka said.
“When you go to a Sidewalk Advocates for Life training, there is Scripture from beginning to end, reinforcing basically every major concept that we’re teaching,” she said. “Even the understanding that in every case, there’s a life-affirming solution — really anchoring ourselves and anchoring her into the hope that we have in Christ and giving her his joy and his peace and his love.”
“We really believe, of course, too, that we’re not the ones actually saving these babies,” she added.
The ministry doesn’t just help mothers and babies in crisis, but it offers community to pro-lifers across the country, Muzyka pointed out.
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“It’s almost like Sidewalk Advocates for Life is here to say to the pro-life person serving on the front lines, ‘You are not alone, and we’re going to journey with you until you are called elsewhere or until your abortion facility shuts down,’” she said.
This article has been updated.
Kate Quiñones is a staff writer for Catholic News Agency and a fellow of the College Fix. She has been published by the Wall Street Journal, the Denver Catholic Register, and CatholicVote, and she graduated from Hillsdale College. She lives in Colorado with her husband.
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