5 More for the Glory of God!

We had five turnarounds in front of Dr. Emily's abortion clinic, the largest clinic in the south Bronx, last Friday! The clinic had changed their hours that week to 12-3pm, instead of the norml 7-11am, perhaps to throw us off. So we watched the clinic all morning, with very few people coming in before 11, but actually got two turnarounds before noon! One had a sonogram in our mobile clinic and decided she couldn't kill something that had a heartbeat. The day dragged on, but we toughed it out through lunchtime and got 3 more saves! One girl was 4 months pregnant who decided to keep. She thought she was only 1 month pregnant, so our sonogram technician Wadiya definitely surprised her and us. Two other girls came out and told us they were going to keep, one of them was carrying twins! So we saved 4 moms, 5 babies.

Go do your surgery!

Clare and Joanie and I think that there's no way you can do this job and not believe in God-- there are too many undeniable miracles during the week.

A 28 year old womanl from Spanish Harlem walked towards the front entrance of Dr. Emily's abortion clinic, the largest abortion clinic in the South Bronx, with her boyfriend last Saturday. He handed money off to her, she said something to him, then he got angry and walked off, screaming back at her "Go do your surgery! I'm going home." She looked heartbroken and turned to me, thinking I was just an innocent bystander, and said "Who does that?! Who just drops off their girl and says, 'go do your surgery?!'"

That was my in. I let her know about how many guys like that I had seen, and how this abortion wasn't going to help their relationship. I was basically telling her to abort the boyfriend, not the baby.

I was able to bring her over to our South Bronx pregnancy center and she ended up sitting with Julie for over three and a half hours! She had two young kids at home and her boyfriend only helped when he felt like it, they were off and on. Her previous pregnancies had been really hard, she was bedridden during and after the pregnancy for a while. She said that she needed diapers for the kids, and right then Julie received a call from a donor who wanted to drop off diapers. She needed size five diapers. All 150 diapers that showed up on our doorstep a half hour later were size 5. So this Harlem mom walked away with diapers from EMC and the confidence that God would always provide.

2 Hours of Counseling!

I had a 2 hour counseling session this morning at the South Bronx Pregnancy Center! This girl was 20-years-old, and only eight months ago she had had an abortion. She was seeking another one with me for her six-week-old baby. I could tell why she wanted one, her family was in shambles, and her mom was not supportive at all. Her boyfriend said it was totally up to her, and she felt alone because of everyone's indifference. At first she acted like the first abortion never hurt her. But when she started to see the pictures, the reality of what her abortion was finally hit her. She then decided that she really wanted to keep her child. I told her that she would be a good mother, I could tell that she had a good heart at the root of it all. She said, "I know I'll be a good mother because I know what a bad mother is like." By the end of it all, a full two hours later, she was still afraid but willing to trust in God.

Receive your Diploma and your Baby

I helped out at our South Bronx Pregnancy Center on Easter Monday. It was a little depressing to think that girls would be wanting abortions the day after Easter, but I knew that they needed hope in the Resurrection more than anyone. I counseled a girl who was my age, her birthday was two days before mine. (It was kind of crazy to think how different our lives were). This was the first time she had been pregnant. Her friend, who had an abortion a couple of years ago, had told her to come to our place on 149th street. (I think she had mistaken our place for the Planned Parenthood across the street). So thank God she came to our place instead. She was undecided on what she wanted to do if she was pregnant. I had her start the pregnancy test and then I popped in the abortion procedures video for her (it's a non-graphic animated video showing the two most common abortion methods and the side effects). She was absolutely appalled. She sounded like me when I was a young pro-lifer. "How could anyone do that!" and "That's insane!" and "It's a full child!". So needless to say, she would have decided to keep her child. The pregnancy test was negative, but she had missed her period for two months, so we suspect that she is pregnant. She's going to come back in a week to test again, and we'll get her a sonogram in a couple weeks as well. She's graduating in a month, pregnant or not, from Hostos College in the Bronx. Diploma and maybe baby on the way!

You can still Soar!

I went over to our South Bronx Pregnancy Center to help Liz out, the Director of the center. It was a rather slow day, but we had one 17-year-old girl who was pregnant and looking for an abortion. So I told her I could give her information. I sat down with her, filled out her intake form, and invited her boyfriend in to watch the abortion procedures video with her. (It's a non-graphic animated presentation, it describes the two most common procedures and the possible complications). She started crying during the video, and asked her boyfriend to leave. She was most embarrassed to tell her mom, because she was "fornicating" (her language, she was Muslim). Because of her faith, she said she didn't want to do an abortion. Her boyfriend was pressuring her to. We assured her that God would forgive her, as well as her mom, and that she wouldn't disown her. We also assured her that her boyfriend would be able to handle it if she told him earnestly that she couldn't do it. And finally we let her know that her future plans of joining the air force wouldn't be lost with having a baby.(Her sister had a baby at 14 and actually went on to get her PhD.!) We then scheduled a sonogram for her at the Brooklyn center for next Monday. We think she'll be a great mom!

"What a Mistake I was about to Make"

A 15-year-old girl and her mother came to Dr. Emily's abortion clinic, the largest abortion clinic in the South Bronx. It had been raining all day and we were starting to get discouraged because it becomes really difficult to speak to women when the weather is bad. They don't want to stop to talk. I was fortunately able to stop these two. I asked the mother if she wanted her to do this, and she shook her head slowly and said, "No." So I took them over to our mobile sonogram clinic down the street. Wadiya, our sonogram technician, showed her her baby on the screen. When The girl saw it, and heard the baby's heartbeat, she said, "What a mistake I was about to make." Her mother had been crying the whole time I was counseling her daughter, and at the sound of the heartbeat the tears ran down even harder. Then mom asked her daughter what she wanted to do, and she just asked if they could go home. So they did. God bless them!

Chris and Maita's Miracle

Chris and Maita are a young hispanic couple, 17 and 16 years old, who came to Dr. Emily's Abortion clinic, (the largest abortion clinic in the South Bronx) early last week. I talked to them in the front of the clinic just briefly, I was able to get out my normal spiel that this was going to be bad and painful for them and that we had help to get them out of this situation. I could tell that they didn't want to go through with an abortion, but like most people their age they felt like they had no choice.

Later in the day, they ended up coming out the back of the abortion clinic because they were having second thoughts about it. They talked to Joanie, (another intern and sidewalk counselor) but again after their conversation they decided to go back in. The boyfriend, Chris, we found out didn't want her to do the abortion at all. After she had gone back in, he had tried to get her out and take her home. When he got to the front desk, however, the Dr. Emily's staff told him that she was inside getting the abortion and there was nothing they could do to interupt. He was despondent, broken down, freaking out, and puffing away at cigarettes with one of his girlfriend's friends in the back of the clinic.

Normally I have giveaway rosaries for boyfriends or whoever may need one, but I was fresh out. I called over to him and offered him my personal rosary and said "Listen man, cigarettes arent going to get her out of there at this point, only God can. You need to pray." He and his friend were visibly moved. He didnt want to take my rosary, he wanted me to pray for him, and I compromised by saying that we could pray together. He helped me say the intention at the beginning, and the closing prayer after we said a decade of the rosary.

After we finished the prayer, I said to him that it was most likely that the abortion will happen, it was getting late in the day and once a girl goes in they rarely come out with the baby. So I told them that they especially have to pray for each other, both for their souls and for reconciliation. But I also told him to not rule out a miracle, and that I had seen crazy things happen there.

Literally 5 seconds after I said that, Maita walks out the back door. "I didnt do it" she mouths to him. He runs over to her, gives her the biggest hug I've ever seen, they start crying in each other's arms. He looks up to heaven and says "It worked! She didn't do it! She didn't do it!" Their friend looks at me and says quietly, "Thank you. From someone who doesn't believe, thank you."

I absolutely couldn't believe what I witnessed, it was no doubt a miracle. I gave them all the pregnancy help material I had and gave them my personal number. I hope to hear from them soon. Personal lesson: Prayer works and always needs to be a part of the work that we do.