Day 39…Thanks to Jeanette Holy Name Society, St. Kilian TMIY Group, faithful team members, and fantastic friends who stepped up to help!

Eat Your Broccoli!

  In life, we allow ourselves to experience some things not for a pleasure derived then, but for a beneficial outcome later. (Examples – exercise, cod liver oil, broccoli…. apologies to those who are fond of the veggie!) Given the divine blessing of fortitude, a person can force himself to do something contrary to his ordinary inclinations. (Examples – drive early into Pittsburgh even in poor weather, find a parking place in the city, trek to PP, pray, smile, greet and offer help to folks entering its doors…. you see where I’m going with this?!)
  Our time together is drawing to a close and the 365Advocates will return to what we do most of the year. Still, our needs will not change. We’ll simply have to adjust to having less support. If one of us is ill or called away on our day, there will be scrambling to ensure coverage of our shift. Every hour we are out there is perhaps an hour when a little life is saved and a young lady is prevented from making a horrible mistake.
  To those of you who are not regulars, maybe you could notify us if you’d be willing to occasionally fill in? That would be wonderfully helpful!  We hope to hear from you! Just reply to this message or contact pghsaland365@gmail.com.

-Tracy

SIDEWALK REPORTS

7:30-9 AM +++ Joe, Tim, and David

TIM: We were blessed as pp was closed and we got to witness to hundreds of runners who passed by. Many said nice things and a few not so nice. One paid us the ultimate compliment as she raced and shouted “Jesus Christ “.  Obviously she saw HIM in our presence, smiles and greetings. 🙂

9-11 AM +++ Sue and Bill

SUE: I was joined by a great group from Jeanette Holy Name Society who prayed nonstop. At the next shift I was joined by the men of St. Kilian and Linda and Don from Holy Trinity. PP was closed, but for some odd reason the front door was unlocked. 1 young woman went in and stayed in the lobby for a while, but declined offer of help on her way out. Another woman was dropping a bag off, but didn’t try the door and left. The sidewalk was very busy with young people and families from a sports event at the convention center. It was a good opportunity to pray and let our signs do the witnessing. 

11 AM-1 PM and 1-3 PM +++ Thank you to a church group and several individual volunteers for keeping the vigil unbroken! And thank you to Jeff for going early!

DON: The 11 – 1 shift was relatively quiet today.  Planned Parenthood was closed today (Praise be to Jesus!) so there was no traffic in and out of the building.  We had good representation from the St. Kilian’s TMIY group today and spent a good amount of time praying and witnessing to life.  We did have one man that stopped to debate about the validity of the Catholic church, but he quickly turned the conversation to racism and accused us all of being racists.  The longer the conversation continued the angrier he became.  It was very evident that he was not there to engage in dialogue, but to rant and degrade us.  We stopped attempting to engage in any sort of conversation with him and started praying the rosary instead.  Eventually he left.  We also had another man stop and ask us what is so bad about abortion?  We responded by telling him that it takes a human life.  He said that there is nothing wrong with that and that God kills people.  He started trying to make a few bible references to support his argument, but when asked if he had the bible with him, he stated that the bible and everything associated with it is complete BS (edited for family friendly reading).  He then said he just wanted us to know that we were complete garbage human beings and that he hoped we would all spend our eternity in the flames of hades (also edited for family friendly reading),  As he departed, we wished him well and asked for God’s blessing on him,  He responded with his own four letter laced greeting.  We prayed for both men.

3-5 PM +++ Jeff and Billy