Adoption Begins Pro-life Journey for Teen: A Shared Passion for the Cause of Life.

I came upon a treasure in my first year of teaching at a Christian school in northern Wisconsin. At first she seemed like any other teenager, trying to find her place in the world, more interested in friends than the grammar lessons I was trying to teach, and giving her parents the usual amount of grief.

Somehow in the midst of her grumbling over how much she didn't appreciate the tests I gave, I discovered that we had a shared passion for the cause of life. In fact, I soon learned, she wanted to dedicate her life to saving the vulnerable.

Her parents tattled during a parent-teacher conference and I somehow managed to drag the details out of her a few days later. Turns out the grumpy little cherub halfway back in the third row of my 9th and 10th grade English class would end up teaching me some important life lessons.

Tatiana's story begins in Honduras where she was born in August 1987. Her parents, Bill and Veronica Elowson, had tried to adopt previously, but their twins died before they could travel to Central America to pick them up.

That was pretty much the end of it for them, or so they thought. Friends back home adopted a little girl from Honduras. When they met her they melted and decided to try one more time. Tatiana, or as her friends call her, "Tot," came into their lives.

In many ways, her history has fueled Tot's pro-life beliefs.

"It has made it far more personal for me," she says. "I'm not usually inspired to do something on the emotional level, so I believe this was God's way of letting the issue really hit home for me, making it a heart issue and giving me a passion to fight for life."