“But how will you walk to the grocery store? I don’t even see one near you!” This was the first comment my brother-in-law made when we sent him the Google Maps view of our new house two years ago. We were proud first-time homeowners, but his question reflected one of the largest differences in the culture between his town and ours.

“Each year when I arrive at [my in-laws’] tidy, modest home (which they built themselves in the 1990’s), I feel a bit like Alice the giant in Wonderland. The rooms, plates, cups, washing machine–everything is smaller than I am used to. Water here must be filtered or bought from the store, and so it is treated as precious, whether you’re drinking it or using it to wash clothes.

About a decade ago I used to volunteer with a pro-life religious order many of you may be familiar with—the Sisters of Life—in their Handmaids program. The concept was simple: while the Sisters provided many of the material resources necessary to help women through a crisis pregnancy, the Handmaids volunteers “walked with” the women through texts, phone calls, and meetings for coffee.

Peter’s acceptance speech, delivered at the 2023 Solidarity Convention in Plano, TX.