A history lesson in Jackson, Mississippi

This whole week has seemed like one great big history lesson to me. We have over the past few days driven about 26 or more hours in total in order to make our way from Las Vegas, Nevada to Jackson, Mississippi. We made our way in our faithful Sprinter stopping in Albuquerque, NM first and then in Dallas, TX the next night. We were greeted at both places with awesome host homes who provided so graciously for us with food and a bed to sleep in (It’s always a joy to have a bed to sleep in when you’ve been traveling or working all day). So Sunday morning after going to church and a quick lunch we packed up and headed towards Jackson, MS. We were thankful to have a host homes with the Moore’s in Dallas, but were super excited upon reaching our desitination in Jackson. We were immeadiately welcomed into Vince’s host homes house by Roy who started giving us his life story of his work in both the pro-life movement and the civil rights movement.

Apparently Roy was arrested and in jail with Martin Luther King Jr and was in jail with him when he wrote the Birmingham letters! I mean how awesome and cool is that! If only I knew the amount of history that was about to hit us in the face upon arriving in Jackson.  Our host homes were made up of many people who had participated in Operation Rescue sit ins at clinic entrances before the FACE act was signed into law. These people would take their weekends off and drive hours and hours to an abortion mill where they would gather and sit in the entrance to the abortion mill as long as they could. Of course the police would then come and cart them off and they were usually in jail for a few days or so, sometimes a few hours, and sometimes weeks.

I’m honestly in awe of these people and the sacrifices they’ve made just to protect the unborn, I hope to be as bold and passionate as they are one day. Roy’s story was pretty amazing, his wife Beverly is actually a former abortionist who realized the error of her ways and turned herself around and opened a very successful OB-GYN practice later on. She’s not retired as well as Roy and they both work tirelessly to educate others on the horrors of abortion and it’s terrible effects on young women. We were graciously welcomed for dinner by Pro-Life Mississippi on Monday night, which was awesome there were so many passionate people there. Lots of older women who had such concern and love for the young women who were being misled and given abortions every week.

We held a candelight vigil there at the last remaining abortion mill in Mississippi on Monday night, how powerful to be joined in prayer with all those pro-lifers and get to write messages in chalk to the young women on the sidewalk.One of our host homes we had a older couple named Harriet and Bill, they were awesome! Harriet had done many rescues in her younger days, and Bill her ever faithful husband would drive her to them. He wasn’t one to participate in them but would follow her and then wait for her if she was arrested. It was one of the most darling stories I think I’ve ever heard.
There were overall lots of powerful stories from each of our host homes, lots of reasons that I would love to stay. I think I can safely say that I hope I’ll be visiting soon again, to learn more history and to join with the Mississippi pro-lifers in hopefully one day shutting down that last remaining abortion mill!

Did you know???

That Texas is flat as a pancake.... I now know this... thanks to 12 hours spent in the Sprinter today.

My First Truth Team

Thursday morning started off just a bit too early in the morning for my liking, but that seems to be how any morning going to an abortion mill is. But Thursday was different, very different, because I’d be walking into the abortion mill that morning, not just standing outside of it. Brianna was going into the center that morning to get a pregnancy test and Jayne and I were accompanying her into the center as concerned friends. So as we got to the abortion mill and most of the team got out with the signs the three of us hung back in the van. We waited about an hour until we knew that there were clients in the center and Brianna made the call to ask if she could come in to get a pregnancy test. We talked and prepared a plan in the van as to how to get the information needed about the center and how to possibly talk to the women in there and convince them to walk out. We grabbed a bunch of literature that we could put in the magazines letting women know the harmful side effects of abortion and also some cards for the local Pregnancy Resource Center that’s just a stone’s throw from the abortion mill. Mary Rose came back to the van to drive us around the corner so we could get out of the van and walk a block to the clinic so it didn’t look suspicious.

I got out of the van and found myself surprisingly calm for this being my first experience walking into one of the clinics. I had prepared the night before a bit for it and texted a lot of friends asking for prayer covering me and the girls going in. We walked to the clinic, Jayne and Brianna in their best pro-choice outfits they could pick out. As we walked up we saw the pro-lifers standing out there with their signs, our friends and team members, but we pretended as if we didn’t know them and had never seen signs like that before. I starred in horror at the signs, which even though I see them every day isn’t hard to do, some things you should just never be used to seeing. As we walked up Kristina started pleading with us to just take the literature and look at it, telling us there was a pregnancy center right nearby that we could go to instead. So I took the literature as Brianna walked right in, Jayne hung back and grabbed a piece from me to look at. 

We walked up the path and opened the door to that Horror house, and went to the receptionist’s window.

Jayne had opened up one of the graphic picture pamphlets at the window and the receptionist grabbed it from her telling her she couldn’t have it in here. I tried to hide mine but the receptionist saw it and demanded I hand it over. I asked “Can’t I just read it?” she barked at me “No, you’ll have to go outside”. So I gave the piece of paper to her, but not before I read some information to loudly share in the waiting room. I asked where the restroom was and was pointed towards it, I walked there. We had gone over in the car to try and leaflet the restroom and hide some stuff in magazines if there was any in there. I didn’t see any magazines so I took one and stuck it sitting up in the trash praying that someone would look at the leaflet and see how the baby grows. It had tons of facts in there, including that a baby’s heart starts beating by 21 days. I was slightly disgusted as I went to wash my hands and noticed no soap in the bathroom, guess that clean hands isn’t a priority so much there. I went back out in the waiting room and proceeded to wait with Jayne and Brianna for Brianna’s name to be called so she could go take the pregnancy test. We all wondered whether we would be told it was positive or not, Jayne had had an experience like that doing a Truth Team once.

So we sat in the waiting room, Jayne got up and went to the restroom as well and then afterwards sat down next to a young man in order to hopefully talk to him and convince him to get his lady out of there, but in a quiet manner. I sat talking to Brianna asking her if she knew what she would do if she was pregnant. I told her I saw in the leaflet that “a baby’s heart starts beating at 21 days!” We talked a little more and then she was called in to take the test. She came back out and around this time Jayne was trying to talk to the young man and his lady still, but didn’t have much luck with them. I went up to the receptionist and asked her “Hey, if my friend is pregnant, I was just wondering if you guys have adoption counseling or something for her?” The receptionist answered back coldly that “we don’t do that here, but I can get a number for it”. I then asked her what type of counseling was available and the lady who was even shorter tempered in the back answered “We don’t do counseling here, we just terminate pregnancies”.  I was shocked, very shocked, not so much that they didn’t do it, but that they would admit it in that manner. There was no sugar coating about it, nothing nice they just “terminated pregnancies” or in truthful speak “Killed children”.

I walked back to my seat feeling sick, I still feel sick about it as I type this. So I grabbed a magazine as I sat back down and started putting cards for the pregnancy resource center in there, my deepest hope is that they didn’t find them all when we left and somebody will find one and walk out of there. Brianna was back and sitting down and we talked about the Pregnancy Center and how she should go there if the test was positive since they offered free help and talked about all the options available to women. I asked a young man next to me if he knew why the receptionist took away what the people outside gave me. He said something about how they were probably threatening the people coming in, so I didn’t think I had much of a chance of convincing him to take his lady out of there. But by the time we made it into the clinic both his lady and then a young daughter of a mother in the waiting room were already in the back rooms.

At this point the mother who had brought her daughter in earlier that we had seen was on top of Jayne because she apparently recognized Jayne was trying to counsel the couple to leave. So Jayne walked out of the center. Brianna’s name was called not shortly after that and she was given her results; a negative… shocker! So Brianna and I, new to doing a truth team didn’t make a huge blow up when leaving we just put all the leaflet’s that we had left on the coffee tables and walked calmly out and found Jayne and proceeded to walk back up the street past the three cop cars that had been there since early that morning. We walked back up the street and crossed over to where the pregnancy center was, I told the girls I was going to go in and tell the nurse Patty what happened while we were in there and how they didn’t provide counseling at all at the abortion mill. I spent some time in there talking to the nurse and receptionist and thanking them for all the work they do to help women who often find themselves in crisis pregnancies. After spending some time with them I went back to our van and changed jackets and went back to sidewalk counsel with most of the team.

Sidewalk counseling is what I’m used to, it’s not a comfort zone, because it’s not easy, but it was nice to be back in familiar territory after a whole week of activism. I was surprised how many cars continued to keep driving up to the abortion mill, so many young women, some just for birth control, but still most don’t know that birth control is abortifacient. So we had literature and tried to give most of the couples or young women some, but most wouldn’t take it. We found out that the staff in the abortion mill often warns women coming in that both the people standing outside and the people at the Pregnancy Resource Center are really mean and won’t be nice to you. That makes me roll my eyes most of the time, I mean how can someone who is fighting for you be against you. But we can also look at God that way sometimes as well.

The roughest part of being there was seeing the young women come out of the clinic after the abortion had been performed on them. They were taken out the back door and the person accompanying them was told to drive to the back door so they wouldn’t have to see us. That honestly just creeps me out! I mean what other medical procedure would force you to leave through the back door so that you’re not seen, obviously something is wrong here!

It was a really tough day, but I’m thankful I was given the chance to participate in the Truth Team, because what we uncovered is only going to fuel me to keep fighting for the unborn, to keep fighting for the women, and to keep fighting for the men, all of whom are affected by abortion. 

Week 5.1

The past three days have definitely been challenging, as I’ve been getting more into the swing of things. Tuesday we finished up at the University of Nevada Las Vegas, I’ve learned that the second day seems to be the more challenging one as people are more ready to debate us then. I was sad to see that the young man (Josh) did not come back with his girlfriend Heather, but I’m hoping they still made the right decision and choose to not abort their child. I was able to talk to a lot more students then the first day however. A lot more stopped looking at the posters and asking why are we there? I always respond that we’re there because we care about them, and the children lost to abortion. I think that’s a part of the reason we’re all there, we all care, not just about the babies as pro-choice people claim, but we care about the mothers and fathers.

On Wednesday we arrived at the local community college in Las Vegas and set up our displays along with Project Truth. It was really refreshing to be at the junior college cause the students seemed way more willing to take literature and more willing to talk to us. We had so many students who came up to the displays with their jaws dropped and just a stunned look on their face. There were so many discussions I had that day that it’s almost hard to keep them all straight. But there was one who stuck out to me, a young man named Jamonte; he came up with a friend just staring at the picture. So I went up to him and asked whether he had ever seen anything like this before. He said he hadn’t but just kept staring, so we talked a little about how horrible it was and then he opened up to me. He told me his girlfriend had gone into labor at five months just recently and because it was so early the baby did not survive. My heart broke for him, he was talking about how could anyone kill a baby when they so wanted their little one. It was an unexpected pregnancy for them but he still said that he knew the second she was pregnant that he couldn’t kill their son. He stood and talked to for over a half hour, it was like he was just aching for someone to listen.Someone who was willing to listen to the pain that comes with losing a little one. It made me think, how many suffer and don’t get to vent because they feel that they have to suffer from the ‘Choice’ they made. That’s got to be the hardest part for post-abortive women and men, they must feel that they can’t complain or be openly upset because they made the ‘choice’ to kill.  I got Jamonte’s contact info in the end so I could email him and his girlfriend some resources to get some healing and help. But it was so awesome to be able to just listen, and just to tell someone I don’t know what you’re going through but I’m praying.

So many people don’t realize our hearts as pro-lifers, yes there are the angry ones. However there are those of us whose hearts bleed for the women being affected by this. I started praying a prayer a few years ago that God would break my heart for what breaks His and He has. My heart is broken for those women and men affected by abortion. I’m so blessed that God has given me the opportunity to be able to work with Survivors and spread the love of Christ and His redemption while fighting the social injustice that abortion is.

Start of the tour with Survivors

So today was my first day with the Survivors Campus Life Team doing activism.  It was an awesome first day!  The team arrived a little before 9 a.m. at the University of Nevada, Las Vegas.  We were told there might be rain, but fortunately the rain never came.

The team split up so we could cover more of the campus.  Jayne and I went to work with Uncle Don (Don Blythe's) group Project Truth.  Kristina, Mary Rose, Sarah, Brianna, Vincent, and Sarah D. went off to a populated sidewalk on campus. Jayne and I set to work handing out literature a little bit away from where Project Truth had up their signs. I was surprised at the amount I was able to pass out in the time, seemed like so many people were taking them.

Coming from a campus like Liberty University I can honestly say with all the stuff they pass out there it seems like I could barely ever get anyone to take anything. So I was very encouraged by the amount of both men and women taking the literature from us. Just about a hour and a half after I got started a older lady, perhaps a professor came up to me and told me she was from Lynchburg. I was so excited to meet a local all the way in Las Vegas! She then proceeded to tell me  "Well I am fully supportive of a women's right to choose and I’m so sorry that you’re so narrow minded and uneducated”. I was so taken aback by this, but as she was walking away I called to her that I didn’t think I was at all and that if she’d like to talk I’d be there later if she’d like. So that was pretty discouraging, not going to lie, it’s never easy to be called ‘narrow minded’ or ‘uneducated’ especially when you’ve spent hours researching what you’re trying to witness to people about.

So I went back to handing out literature and was able to talk with some different students there. My Liberty University sweatshirt I was wearing actually seemed to attract some people who had visited the area. I talked to one young man, who seemed to be a social activist of sorts. So we got on the topics of politics and he mentioned he had a lot of stuff he was outraged about. I asked him if he was registered to vote and he said “No, I’m not, I just don’t see it happening cause I’m so fed up with political crap”. I told him that I knew it was hard to deal with all the back and forth and slandering of others and not knowing who to believe. But if we don’t value life at it’s beginning then doesn’t that throw every other thing out the door. We talked for a quite awhile and I found out he was president of a social justice group on campus. It overall was a really enlightening conversation, I always try to keep myself open to listening to others. It goes back to being taught that  “people don’t care how much you know, til they know how much you care”. I hold onto that, I tried making some connection with the people walking towards me, whether that was talking about the weather or something else.

One of the best parts of the day was the fact that I got to hear Uncle Don talk, Kortney (Kortney Blythe Gordon who was killed back this fall in a car accident and was a pro-life hero and mentor of mine) had talked so much about her Uncle Don and all he has done in the pro-life movement. It was a bit emotional for me, because she was so much like him, you can see her smile when he smiles and hear her laugh in his laugh. But it was great to remember her and all that she had done to inspire so many of us.



So one of the encouraging conversations was with a young man named Josh, he came up to the signs, just looking at them stunned. He told us he grew up Catholic but never realized what abortion looked like and what it did to a human life. He told us his girlfriend was 9 weeks pregnant but she wasn’t sure she wanted to keep it. So I talked with him about the options they had, and told him the best thing he could do was bee supportive right now and help provide as I was sure his girlfriend Heather was probably really scared right now. We brought him over to talk to Diana (She and her husband, and their little girl) who is post-abortive and would be able to help give Josh some information and advice. He said he’s going to try to come back our second day with Heather on his lunch break so she could talk to us. I’m really praying they come back, I’d love to talk to her, while I’m not proud that I have a pregnancy scare in my past I really think it has helped me see that these women just need love and help, not condemnation.

We also were able to visit a local high school in Las Vegas and pass out some literature to some students. Their reactions to the posters showing an aborted baby were exactly what they should be. Some students said “There’s no way I’d ever do that”, others came up asking about the baby and commenting on what it looked like. I was really happy to get some literature in their hands and hope they read it and ask questions.

This was such a great day, and we’re so blessed with a great host home that’s a Godsend. I’m so excited to kick off this adventure of being a full-time Missionary for Life.