By Kathleen Gilbert
ROCKFORD, IL, March 3, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Pro-lifers across the country have been celebrating as reports continue to pour in of hearts changed and lives saved thanks to the prayerful intervention of 40 Days for Life campaigners. 40 Days for Life organizers report that at least 39 lives have been confirmed saved from abortion since the campaign began last Wednesday.
40 Days for Life has mobilized pro-life advocates in over 130 cities around the world to pray, fast, and keep vigil outside abortion facilities in an effort to raise awareness of the abortion holocaust. The campaign this spring lasts from February 25-April 5.
Lisa Rylatt, Co-Director and Prayer Vigil Coordinator for the Rockland branch of the 40 Days for Life campaign, related one sidewalk counselor’s account of how an unexpected visitor coincided with a young woman’s decision against abortion:
“A young woman stopped in the street in front of me to ask directions to the ‘purple doors’, so I walked over to her and asked her if I could help her. She was a very sweet girl, with a passenger along with her. We were able to have a somewhat lengthy conversation about her unborn baby and the life that is within her. She told me her baby would be due in September, but she had too many issues in her life to deal with right now.”
The sidewalk counselor urged the woman to take more time to decide and offered help, apparently to no avail. “As she went into the mill I called out offering prayer and that I would be waiting out here to help her.”
Rylatt reports that, “A funny thing happened” when a dark-skinned woman pulled up to the group, about 20 or 30 strong, and asked what they were doing. A counselor told her that they were praying to end abortion.
The Congonese woman, who gave her name as Marsa, asked to join the prayer group. “She prayed and prayed with us in her native language and lifted her hands in prayer towards the building,” Rylatt reports.
“Praise God not 10 minutes later, but about 30 minutes after the young woman I talked to who went into the abortion facility, Marsa and I witnessed her coming out. Her passenger was grinning ear to ear, as I patted my tummy and I asked her passenger if the mom (the driver) had changed her mind. She nodded yes to me, with a big, beautiful smile.”
40 Days for Life Director David Bereit tells of another miracle last week as related by “Alejandra” of Orange County, California. According to Bereit a man leaving the abortion centre early one morning asked the group why they were there. They responded: “We are pro-life and we don’t accept abortion. We are praying to end abortion.”
“The man burst into tears and said that his wife was inside the clinic, but that he didn’t want her to have the abortion,” wrote Alejandra. “He went inside to talk with his wife. Two hours later, the man came out in tears and said, ‘I got her out! Thank you!’ By then more volunteers had joined the vigil and were celebrating!”
Many of the 40 Days for Life vigils across America have made local headlines. One reporter in Huntsville, Alabama was interviewing a prayer group when a woman came out of the clinic and told the group she had changed her mind. The same woman had accepted pro-life literature from the group minutes earlier.
“I realized I just didn’t want to do it. I had to get out of there,” said 22-year-old Wendy, as reported in the Huntsville Times.
Many of the pro-life vigil participants came over from the sidewalk to hug her. One gave her baby gifts, and others gave phone numbers and e-mail addresses in case she needed further help.
“This baby will be such a blessing,” Marliese Weber Huell, the pro-lifer who had given Wendy the literature, told her. “This baby will be a joy. I promise.”