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PASADENA, CA, July 11, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) – When Crossroads pilgrim Andrew Moore, 20, was struck by a car and killed last year while taking the pro-life message to America’s highways and byways, Andrew’s younger sister Teresa found herself inspired to “become much more committed to the movement he gave his life for.”

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The 20-year-old is currently walking with Crossroads from Pasadena, California, to Washington, D.C.

“My brother, Andrew, was very passionate about the pro-life movement,” she said.

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“He prayed outside the Planned Parenthood by our house every day and did his best to spread information, hope, and acceptance to every woman who crossed his path,” she said. “This work was very difficult for him, and oftentimes he wasn't very good at it, but he persevered at what he felt called to do, up to the very second the Lord chose to take him into His sacred presence.”

Crossroads, founded in 1995, exists to help bring about a Culture of Life and defend the right to life of all unborn children. Young people get out the message by making pro-life pilgrimages across the USA and Canada – and now Ireland, Spain, and Australia, as well.

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Wearing t-shirts with the words “PRO-LIFE” in large letters across the front, the young people hope to catch the attention – and, maybe even change the hearts and minds – of people they meet along the way.

Before joining the Crossroads team, Andrew, a rising senior at Thomas Aquinas College, spent hours praying in front of abortion mills and helping out at women’s crisis pregnancy centers. “He knew that success was not defined by simply talking a woman out of getting an abortion,” wrote Andrew’s father, Joseph Moore in a tribute to his son. “Success meant that he – and all of us – stepped up to help, to love that woman and her baby unconditionally and materially for the rest of their lives.”

Teresa said her brother’s passing “felt like a torch being passed along to the next child in line: me.”

“This summer, instead of trying to ‘balance’ pro-life work with my recreational activities, I am choosing to really give the pro-life movement my all and prove to myself and the world that abortion must end, and I won't stop until it does,” she wrote.

Walking in shifts during the week, each Crossroads pilgrim will journey an average of more than a 1,000 miles by the end of the summer.

On the weekends, teams stop to peacefully pray at abortion clinics along the way and to speak at local churches.

By the end of the journey, Crossroads team members will have spoken at thousands of religious events, reaching out to perhaps hundreds of thousands of people at the grassroots level.

More than 50 college students in the United States are currently walking three simultaneously cross-country walks that began in Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

They will end together in Washington, D.C., on August 10 with a pro-life rally at the U.S. Capitol Building.

This year's theme is: “Building a Culture of Life and Defending Religious Liberty.”

“We chose the theme of this summer’s [U.S.] walks because we feel like we are at a critical point in the history of our nation” said Jim Nolan, Crossroads’ president. “Never before have our rights and freedoms as Christians been under attack as they are now. If we don’t stand up now and draw a line, we will lose these rights and the result will be nothing short of catastrophic for our culture and country.”

For many of the walkers, the Crossroads experience is not only about ending abortion, but about learning valuable life lessons.

Mariana Mazzarolo of Peterborough, Ontario, a member currently walking on the Canadian team, called Crossroads “an adventure of so many seeming contradictions, much like the adventure of life and the inner journey towards God.”

“For, we say that Christ has conquered sin and death, and yet, why do we still see so much suffering, selfishness, and hurt around us?” she asked.

For Mariana, the answer lies in “enter into [Christ’s] suffering and death, that we may also enter into His resurrection.”

“This is what it means to be pro-life,” she said.

Mariana wrote on a blog detailing the teams journey that the Crossroads experience “really magnifies and reflects the reality that in order to come to the fullness of life in Christ, He calls us first to a personal encounter with Calvary.”

“Hence, a horde of blood-thirsty mosquitoes become a gift when we see that God is giving us an opportunity to enter into His redemptive sufferings as we journey, one foot in front of the other, to Calvary—the ultimate sacrifice of Love,” she said.

“And thus we are faced with the amazing reality that our experience this summer is actually a micro-view of what God is calling all of us to in life.”