Pro-life education: ‘It cannot be business as usual’

By Anne DiBernardo - Florida Catholic

• Related story: Sandi Le Bel and her spiritual 'tsunami'

MIAMI | Sandi Le Bel hit the ground running when she became the new education coordinator for the Archdiocese of Miami Respect Life Ministry.

Le Bel had been running the South Broward Pregnancy Center for only a year when Respect Life Director Joan Crown hired her to fill Barbara Groeber’s position after she retired in September 2016.

“It’s never easy when someone has been in ministry for so many years to even picture someone else stepping over. But the Lord did send us somebody and placed her right in front of us,” Crown said. “Le Bel brings a youthful spirit and a camaraderie with the young people, being a mother of a high-school student herself.”

“I prayed much about it,” said Le Bel, noting that Groeber had served in that role for almost 30 years “with such knowledge and passion.”

“I had so much to learn but I realized God just needed me to be me and to depend on him for all I would need to minister in this new role. My past strengths and failures would be the clay in the potter’s hands,” Le Bel said.

Le Bel graduated from the University of Miami in 1989 and earned a master’s degree from Nova Southeastern. She worked for Procter & Gamble in cooperate sales and marketing until her conversion experience in 2000. She left after having her son in 2001 and started getting involved in ministry at her parish, St. Bernadette in Hollywood.

Her extensive ministry experience now includes working with youth programs, designing new confirmation retreat and youth rallies, leading a weekly charismatic prayer group, evangelizing through Lenten retreats, Family Fire it UP! retreats and Life in the Spirit seminars. She served a three-year term on the National Service Committee Council for Catholic Charismatic Renewal, and has been a keynote speaker at Marian and charismatic conferences.

But learning about post-abortion syndrome, fetal development, the Florida Pregnancy Support Services program and ultrasound equipment proved a steep learning curve. It was also a very “contested” first year, as the ministry was moving into the new Hollywood Boulevard location and completing the build-out while training an additional 30 or so volunteers. The roof collapsed twice and a sewer pipe backed up and broke through the walls.

“It was such a blessing but also a trial of faith and perseverance,” Le Bel said.

After a couple of weeks on the job, the ministry also received an invitation to bring the Respect Life program to all the diocesan high schools. Capitalizing on her experience as a marketing executive, ministry leader and national speaker, Le Bel dove into the challenge of developing presentations with a fresh approach, featuring new driving questions and using multimedia while weaving her personal testimony into each one.

The feedback from one principal was that the students and faculty were “buzzing” with excitement after the presentations.

“Much of our success was rooted in proclaiming insights from Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the body,” Le Bel said. “Since taking on the role of education coordinator, I have been discerning with others in the ministry about the state of our programs and how effectively, given the changing landscape, do they serve our mission to uphold the sanctity of human life. For us in the pro-life community, it cannot be business as usual. We have already begun to revamp many of our successful programs and had to make hard decisions to cut programs or methods that were not yielding as much fruit as they used to.”

She relates to a passage in scripture where Esther is told by a priest, “Maybe you're appointed for a time such as this” (Esther 4:14).

“That's the sense that both Barbara and I had, that everything that God did through her role, was perfect for that season,” said Le Bel. While she feels called to possibly revamp some of the programs, that does not mean the old ways were wrong. “This is a new day and the landscape has changed.”