Part II: From Bleecker St. to a Miracle on Court St.

The Planned Parenthood  premises occupies a sizeable corner location on the block.  We started to walk around the block - praying together aloud, pitched at normal conversational level.

Then Hannah suggested that we read Joshua 6: 1-27 on the siege and fall of Jericho:
Now Jericho was shut up inside and out..... And the Lord said to Joshua, "See, I have given Jericho into your hand, with its king and mighty men of valor. You shall march around the city, all the men of war going around the city once.....On the seventh day you shall march around the city seven times, and the priests shall blow trumpets......then all the people shall shout with a great shout, and the wall of the city will fall down flat".

She sourced it on her smart phone and I listened and meditated on it as she read.  In our minds, Jericho became  the abortion mill before us.  We likened our rounds of the block to the marching around  Jericho and earnestly willed and implored God that the abortion mill, too, would fall as Jericho once had done, and be claimed for HIM.

This and our preceding prayers really raised us up!  After our three rounds of the block, my spirits were high, almost buoyant. I was joyful, despite the grim reality before us.
"Even though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil, for you are with me...." (Psalm 23:4).

After a few rounds, we chose and assumed our respective stations on the sidewalk and continued to walk - this time up and down past the P.P. door - and pray, while scanning the sidewalk for approaching women.  The initial prayers - a sort of spiritual arming - really set us up for our morning at the abortuary. This was unsurprising given the power of both public prayer and witness, and praying together -
"For where two or three are gathered in my name, there am I among them.” (Matthew 18:20).

This joy spurred me on, praying, reciting any lines  I  remember from psalms and singing quitely, as I am a very bad singer and for this reason, I never developed  much of a repertoire of songs, or hymns!!....

Photo: Myself, Claire outside Planned Parenthood on Bleecker St.

Part I: From Bleecker St. to a Miracle on Court St.

Myself and Hannah arrived at the Planned Parenthood on Bleecker St., Manhattan at 7.30am Wednesday morning. It was my third time at an abortion facility for the purpose of sidewalk counselling. The second occasion had been outside Dr. Emily's in The Bronx the previous morning. That morning, I'd felt apprehensive  and  ill-prepared (though this wasn't the case). Therefore, I was grateful when no clients arrived early. This bought me time! I prayed that God would enable me by dispelling my nerves, lending me his voice and giving me the courage and confidence to approach and engage effectively with the women.
This morning at P.P. on Bleecker St. though, I felt more capable.
A dual approach is necessary at abortion mills: prayer and action! Yet, there can  be an amount of standing in between making overtures to the arriving expectant mothers.
I've found that standing outside clinics can lend itself to a certain feeling of frustration and helplessness. This, I think, stems from the fact that you are essentially an unwitting bystander in the face of the horrific and insidious practice that is being perpetrated just at the other side of the building's wall. You can do nothing physically to prevent its occurence, lest be incarcerated.
We'd only been there for minutes when Hannah was feeling the afore-mentioned frustration a little more than I. She suggested praying whilst walking  around the block.......
Photos: Myself, Claire outside Dr. Emily's abortion mill in The Bronx and myself and Hannah at the same facility.

Part II : New York Renaissance

The conflict persisted right up and into to the office block that houses one of our pregnancy centres in the city. The views from our floor are lovely. Nearby streets are leafy and balmy. Seemingly innocuously named abortion clinics share the building with us and do their diabolical best to bludgeon babies to death on other floors of the building.  A few times already the elevator has stopped on these floors. Shivers permeated my body. I was staring at the face of evil. The good, the bad, the beautiful, the ugly and the evil interface in one building in NY, just as they co-exist in places the world over. Be it in our the pregnancy centres or outside the baby-killing facilities, we are on the front-line.
New York, New York, so good they named it twice. New York needs a renaissance – the French for re-birth - to be born again in humanity, dignity, truth and love. We have to reclaim  New York. For life. The good news is that pro-lifers are informing, spreading the truth, praying, witnessing, counselling, making interventions, saving babies and sparing expectant mothers from abortion. We are bringing the city slowly back to life, one baby at a time. There can be great sorrow but there is great joy and hope also. In God we do, and will continue to trust. May God bless America y viva la vida!
Photo: Claire and Hannah bringing HIS light and life to an abortion mill.

A New York Renaissance, Part I

I´m Claire and I arrived from Ireland last week to start an internship with EMC.

Conflicting and some seemingly incongruous ideas and associations abounded prior to my trip  to New York and en route: New York, the city that never sleeps.  The abortion capital of  the world.  Soho. Central Park. From Broadway to Roosevelt Avenue´s 12 abortion mills:  New York´s very own baby death-row.   Giuliani´s  zero tolerance of yester-year versus the liberty to butcher babies in utero. ´In God we Trust´ printed on over a billion dollar bills exchanged for abortion. Bagels. Yellow cabs. Metropolis. Necropolis. The zenith of the Empire State Building and the nadir of modern ´civilisation´: the right to choose to have one`s own baby killed.

The trip itself raised mixed feelings for me. I absolutely wanted to go. It was however hard to reconcile a visceral desire to try to save mothers and babies from the horror of abortion with the anticipation of the adventure that living in NYC would be. I was very excited about New York but at the same time felt guilty about this, given the gravity of the work. How would I square the poignancy of the pregnancy centres with the wonder of the city??

New York: a teeming metropolis. `The city that never sleeps´. Why? People are too busy living. Living. Living life to the full! Yet, alongside this metropolis lurks a necropolis. That same sleepless city summarily sentences and violently dispatches babies to their sleep. NYC is the country´s abortion capital. No fewer than 250 abortuaries peddle their ghastly baby-dismemberment and baby-killing services. Metropolis. Necropolis. Metropolis. Necropolis. Metropolis. Necropolis.  My brain struggled to make sense of it all. NYC is a majestic city. She is breath-taking but if you´re a babe in the womb, she can literally, and brutally, take your breath away.

. Photo: Myself, Claire and some of my fellow interns Hannah and Michelle in our centre in Brooklyn.