The Weyburn Pro-Life Association marked its 25th year with a low-key celebration and banquet honouring care-givers on Friday evening at the McKenna Hall, but plans to host the provincial association's annual meeting as a major part of this year's activities.

"We've had a rather illustrious history," president John Sidloski told the banquet crowd, noting the culmination of this anniversary year will be to host the Saskatchewan Pro-Life's annual convention on Oct. 17-18 in Weyburn.

While many of the plans are yet to be drawn up for the convention, Sidloski said the province's youth will be a focus of the gathering, as the youth will be ones to carry on the work of the association into the future.

The evening included raffles, a silent auction and entertainment by Ora-Lee Greening, along with guest speaker Cam Weber.

Souris-Moose Mountain MP Roy Bailey was a guest at the banquet, and told the audience he had spent a number of hours on Wednesday evening in the House of Commons voting on some 58 pieces of legislation dealing with human reproduction issues.

"If someone would've told me 20 years ago that Canada would move in this direction, I wouldn't have believed it," said the MP, adding if there is a time when Canada needs to make a turn away from this direction, it's now.

Guest speaker Cam Weber took to the podium, and urged the audience to stand behind today's youth and help them face some of the tough issues of the day.

He also delivered a message of hope, noting his family has come through "the roughest year" they have ever faced.

The year began with an accident on his farm near Griffin. Weber went out to see a site where an oil company was drilling a well; he broke through the ice and fell into a hole, which caused an injury that forced him off his job as mechanic. During the year, other things happened to both he and his wife, such as health problems and food poisoning.

Then last summer there was an incident involving their youngest son, Marvin. He graduated from the Weyburn Comprehensive School in June, then took a job working on the construction of the Pioneer Grain terminal on Highway 39. He turned 18 on Aug. 3, then on Aug. 10, just a few blocks from where the banquet was being held, he took his own life.

The suicide of their son brought home a disturbing statistic, he added, as he found out the southeast area from Weyburn to Midale and Estevan has one of the highest per capita suicide rates in western Canada.

"That's one of the reasons I've been involved with the Youth Centre, so the youth have a place to go to. As we found out after my son's death, after graduation there's been others who have taken their own lives. Those of us who are older need to stand behind our kids," said Weber.

Right now is a tough time for kids to handle, with the war on in Iraq and the outbreak of the mysterious SARS disease, "It's a very bleak outlook, unless we have the Lord in our life."

Weber currently serves as pastor of the Weyburn Gospel Assembly.