Un sábado en Emily's

Los sábados, Doctor Emily's es un día muy entretenido, hombres, mujeres y niños de distintas iglesias, vienen a rezar para el fin del aborto.

Es un día en el que se consigue que muchas mujeres no entren, o que se acerquen y al ver a tanta gente en la puerta de la clínica, no se atrevan a entrar.

Por otro lado, es también más difícil poder hablar con las mujeres que quieren abortar que es un día en el que hay más security intentando que no hables con las mujeres y convenciéndolas para que tengan el aborto,  a pesar de todo siempre estamos allí intentando convencer a las mujeres para que tengan el bebe.

The Civil War in Virginia

This week in Virginia we visited a lot of Battlefields of the America`s Civil War.
More major Civil War battles were fought in Virginia than in any other state.
From the first battle of ironclad ships at Hampton Roads in the east to the adventures of Stonewall Jackson in the west; from the first major battlefield near Manassas in the north to the fight over salt mines in the southwest, Virginia's Civil War experience extended to every corner of the state.
Five National Parks and an equal number of Civil War Trails' regional programs highlight hundreds of stories, stitching colorful threads into Virginia's rich historical tapestry.

One of the places I liked the most was the Richmond National Battlefield Park.
Two major Union campaigns came close to capturing the Confederate capital in Richmond during the war. Richmond National Battlefield Park highlights the Seven Days Battle, including Gaines' Mill, which ended the first attempt in the summer of 1862, and Cold Harbor, the bloody battlefield that blunted General Ulysses S. Grant's effort to break through to the city in 1864.

Battlefields

On this trip to Virginia, we have deepen into American history, the causes and consequences of these wars that have written American history and determined the American spirit.

On the one hand, we have visited battlefields of the war of independence in Williamsburg and Yorktown. They fought for the freedom of the American from the English. This was a hard war as people from the same family and close friends had to fight against each other as they took opposite sides in the war.

 

On the other hand, we went to the Shenandoah national park and Richmond where we were able to see battlefields from the civil war. It really surprised me how they made the freedom of the salves and black people the main goal of the war but it was actually only a militar strategy.The Union troops were losing battles and needed more soldiers. At the same time, slaves from the south left to fight for the north, leaving the Confederacy without labourers.

In front of the Whitehouse

Last friday we participated in a prolife's demonstration in front of the whitehouse.It was the day when Obama's healthcare reform is going to be accepted.We stayed during a half an hour praying and showing prolife's sentences with signs.It's time to stand up for freedoom, everyone has the right to live, we have to show the truth and move on with the movement.

Even we were few people defending this principle,I was thankful because tourists who were crossing and visiting the whitehouse could at least see that some people think that life is worthy and it must be defended.We must speak for these babies that none cares because they are still not outside

Prayer to God the Father of All Life

Prayer to God the Father of All Life

Eternal God, You have revealed Yourself as the Father of all Life. We praise You for the Fatherly care which You extend to all creation, and especially to us, made in Your image and likeness.

Father, extend Your hand of protection to those threatened by abortion, and save them from its destructive power. Give Your strength to all fathers, that they may never give in to the fears that may tempt them to facilitate abortions.

Bless our families and bless our land, that we may have the joy of welcoming and nurturing the life of which You are the source and the Eternal Father. Amen.

Frank Pavone, Priests for Life

Protesta en Washington DC

El pasado miercoles nos unimos a una protesta delante de la Casa Blanca, en contra del plan de salud de Obama.
Este plan consiste en que los organismos como la iglesia catolica estaran obligados a pagar impuestos que financiaran el aborto y los anticonceptivos.
Fue una experiencia interesante, yo nunca habia estado en una protesta asi.
Nos pusimos a rezar ahi delante y vino la policia. Nos dieron el primer aviso, pero nos quedamos ahi de pie. Cada vez llegaban mas coches y furgonetas de policias y nos acordonaron.
Despues del segundo aviso ya nos marxamos porque no queriamos que nos detuvieran, aunque hubo unos valientes que se quedaron, dispuestos a que los arrestaran.
La gente que pasaba por alli nos hacia fotos. Fue una experiencia unica.

The Angel of Marye’s Heights

Yesterday, we visited the battlefield of Fredericksburg. After the war, most of it was sold and houses were built, as well as an asphalt road. However, some of it is now part of the National Park Service, The Sunken Road.

 

The battle brought face to face General Robert E. Lee's Confederate Army of Northern Virginia and the Union Army of the Potomac, commanded by Burnside. It started December 11,1862. After two days of fighting, the Confederacy troops defeated their enemies . No Union soldiers touched the wall or made it into the road.

There were heavy casualties on the Union attackers. The wounded made their way to the field hospital while those who were disabled were forced to remain on the battlefield. Richard Rowland Kirkland, a soldier from the Confederacy, when hearing the moaning of the ones remaining in the battlefield, gathered all the canteens he could carry, filled them with water and then went back to the battlefield. No one fired a shot. He helped either Union and Confederate soldiers.

The courage of this soldier and his compasion and generosity towards the members of the other army, made him get the name of  the Angel of Marye’s Heights.

Holocaust Memorial Museum

Last week we had the opportunity to visit the holocaust museum in Washington.It was a very great experience in which we realise the bad treatment, injustices ,discrimination and torture jewish people received.We could hear the judgment at Nuremberg,we saw many Hitler's speeches,the uniforms they wore,etc.We also learned of the Nazi ideology related to the Aryan race and its ideals.

Indeed it was a great visit which you left being more empathethic,having more compassion and praying for all the victims.
Not far from this,we can compare with the victims of abortion.Both of them are helpless and defenseless against oppresion.

Holocaust Museum

Last week, before we joined the protest in front of the white house, we had the pleasure to go to the Holocaust Museum in DC.
It was quite an impressive experience. This museum was built in honor to the people who were killed in the II World war by the Nazis.
I liked it a lot, because I learned lots of things and details about the war that I didn`t know before. It was very interesting but very sad too, as there was for example a room with all the shoes found in the concentration camps of the prisoners burned.

Yorktown

Esta semana hemos visitado varios lugares donde tuvieron lugar los campos de batalla durante la guerra civil.Vimos las distintas armas y canones que utilizaban los dos bandos y tambien los instrumentos para curar heridos y soldados enfermos.Fue una visita muy interesante donde aprendimos quien governaba cada bando:The Union  y The Confederacy y quien lo lideraba.

Tambien tuvimos la suerte de poder hacer una ruta en coche por los sitios donde hubo encuentros y reuniones en distintas casas coloniales de personajes historicos como G.Washington o Abraham Lincoln.

Prayer for the unborn children

O God, our Heavenly Father, You sent Your Son into this world that He might Bless and Consecrate all life to You.
Your constant Love protected Him as the Ever Virgin Mary bore Him in Her womb for nine months.
In His mission He taught us the Greatness of Your Love and the Sanctity of Life.
We pray that we may always cherish the Life that You give us.
In a special way we ask and pray that You Grace and Protect all unborn children with Your ever caring Love.
We pray this in the Name of Jesus, Who is Lord, Forever and Ever. Amen

Dr.Emily's

   What say about Dr.Emily 's? I think it is not necessary and explain what those two words mean. Although if I'd like to explain my experience there.

   Since few interns returned  of the Minneapolis trip, where we attended conferences about "sidewalk counseling", we have been dedicated entirely to improve our tactics in this type of "counseling" and put into practice what we learned.

   It is still difficult to try to persuade women not to abort, but to innovate in your work have more possibilities to get it and restart again with the same enthusiasm with which we began this beautiful work.

Dr.emily's

¿Qué contar sobre Dr.Emily's? Creo que no hace falta ya explicar que quieren decir esas dos palabras. Aunque si que me gustaría explicar mi experiencia alli. 

   

   Desde que unos cuantos internos volvimos del viaje a Mineapolis, en que asistimos a conferencias sobre "sidewalk counseling", nos hemos dedicado enteramente a perfeccionar nuestras tácticas en este tipo de "counseling", y poner en práctica la aprendido. 

   Sigue siendo difícil intentar convencer a las mujeres de que no aborten, pero innovando en tu trabajo tienes más posibilidades de conseguirlo y de recomenzar de nuevo con las mismas ganas con las que comenzamos esta preciosa labor. 

USHMM

Esta semana, junto mas internos, tuve la oportunidad de irme de excursion. Estuvimos en Washintong DC y fuimos al  Museo Conmemorativo del Holocausto (USHMM). Este museo es el 'monumento oficial' conmemorativo de todas las víctimas y sobrevivientes del Holocausto en los EE.UU.

Es adyacente al National Mall en Washington, DC, la USHMM se dedica a ayudar a los líderes y ciudadanos del mundo para  promover la dignidad humana, y fortalecer la democracia.

Cuenta la historia cronológica del Holocausto nazi a través de videos, imágenes y testimonios reales, objetos recogidos de campos de concentración como una representación a tamaño real de las "cabañas de madera" donde vivían los miles de refugiados.

Otras partes de la exposición permanente son la Torre de rostros y el Salón del recuerdo. Este ultima parte es la que mas me gusta ya que es el monumento oficial a las víctimas y sobrevivientes del Holocausto en el Museo.Y ademas es posible encender velas en memoria de los víctimas del evento en esta sala.



Tras esas imagenes se palpaba el dolor y sufrimiento atroz de tantas y tantas personas que sufrieron sin causa razonable alguna una progresiva degradacion de su dignidad humana.

El hecho es que no hay que remontarse a tan lejanas fechas para encontrar ejemplos de atentados contra la dignidad humana, ya que el aborto es una realidad actualmente muy extendida y que tambien supone una violacion de aquellos derechos basicos que siempre hemos defendido a lo largo de la historia.

 

Saturday with the Franciscans

Last Saturday, the A Team went to Emily's. There were not many girls going in, so our job, apart from waiting alert, was to pray for the babies, the mothers and also for the clinic's staff.

There were a lot of people on the outside. 6 pro-choicers were trying to make us feel nervous and to interrupt us when trying to talk to mothers coming.

But the good news are that there were also many people, like 15 or more pro-lifers praying intensely. Basically they were south-americans and Franciscans.

Other than that, I managed to talk to a woman. I saw her in the distance, and then approached her. I asked her if she was going to Emily's, and then we started talking.

I offered her all the help EMC gives to expectant mothers, but then a pro-choicer joined us and started giving her misinformation about us to persuade her not to talk to us.

Finally she went in saying she was only looking for medication.

My first day

My first day was very impressive. A few days before, a woman with a very difficult life had had a baby and we threw a baby shower in her and the baby's honor with the adopting parents and all the counseling girls in queens. Nobody knew she was pregnant, not even her 2 kids.
It was everything very emotional, but everything went perfectly and she got to see her baby as she hadn't seen him since he was born in the hospital.
We were all very happy for the adopting parents, who were very nice, but sad for her as she couldn't keep the baby because of some difficulties in her life.

Welcome to the world!

Welcoming baby Valentino Vittone to the world. Born May 7th, 6:35 AM.

Valentino

So, as I said in my last post, yesterday in Queens we were able to experience first hand a little miracle of life. His name is Valentino. Carolina filled me in on his mom's story. She was 22 weeks pregnant when she went into an abortion clinic. She paid for a sonogram only to have them tell her that there was no heartbeat and it was just a blood and undeveloped tissue in her uterus. As she was in the waiting room in order to pay $1700 for an abortion, she saw our ad in a newspaper. She called our office and Carolina counseled her to choose life. When she came into the office yesterday to visit Carolina, she was so joyous. You could tell that her little 3-month old son is the center of her world. Her smile and his giggle were infectious.Maggie


Picture above, left to right: Maggie, Valentino, Ruben, Fatima

Hope

            Esta cita formaba parte del memorial a Martin Luther King que visitamos en Washington D.C. Hoy, al repasar las fotos que he ido sacando a lo largo de mi estancia en New York, me he acordado de ella y me he dado cuenta de la profundidad que realmente encierran estas pocas palabras, pero con un gran calado.

“Out of the mountain of despair, a stone of hope”. Martin Luther King sabía bien de lo que hablaba, porque era consciente de que estaba librando una batalla dura, cuyo final se encontraba muy difuminado. Lo más fácil para él podría haber sido desistir, tirar la toalla. Sin embargo, en ese caso, las condiciones para la población negra se habrían mantenido igual. ¿Por qué? Porque nadie habría tenido la esperanza como arma indispensable.

Por ello, cuando pienso en nosotros y en lo que hacemos, me gusta pensar que también estamos librando una batalla, dura, frustante, pero que poco a poco las cosas pueden empezar a cambiar como lo hicieron para las personas de color. En un principio, el cambio se veía como algo impensable, pero los tiempos van cambiando, y quizá nosotros podemos ser los motores de ese cambio importante. Eso sí, siempre de la mano de la esperanza.

Thomas Edison

                 Otra figura importante figura que conocimos en la visita al Henry Ford Museum fue Thomas Edison. En el pueblo que forma parte del museo, se le dedica un espacio muy importante, dado que Henry Ford empezó a trabajar en su compañía eléctrica y su admiración por él le llevo a tener siempre como referente la perseverancia de Edison en la investigación.  En una de las casas del poblado, se reproduce con bastante fidelidad el laboratorio en el que Edison desarrolló sus diversos inventos, e incluso se puede encontrar la silla en la que Edison estuvo hablando con Ford en su última visita a la fábrica de automóviles. Un actor que interpretaba el papel de Edison para los turistas, se encargó de explicarnos que Edison no fue el primero en inventar la bombilla, sino que fue el que más perseveró para conseguir un prototipo útil de bombilla. Esta idea me ayudó a reflexionar acerca de la importancia del esfuerzo, y de cómo puedo aplicarlo a la hora de cumplir con mi trabajo.

Blessed in Queens

Over the past eight weeks, I have worked mostly in the Queens office. While working there, I have been able to learn so much from Carolina, who directs that center. Carolina works so hard for all the girls who come into the office. Her attitude toward this work is wonderful-she realizes the gravity of our responsibility but also doesn't take things personally or let the bad days stress her out. In the past few weeks especially, I have been able to see some of the tangible fruits of all her hard work. We just lived through an amazing adoption story and yesterday we were blessed enough to encounter another little miracle of life. Read my next blog! 

El sentido de la abstinencia

             Una chica que pensaba que podía estar embarazada ha acudido a la 149. Tras hablar con ella, nos explicó que no se planteaba el aborto directamente, y realizamos la prueba de embarazo para estar seguros.

            La prueba dio negativo, y comenzamos a hablar sobre el valor de la abstinencia y la castidad durante el noviazgo. Ella nos explicó que se había sentido utilizada por su novio ya que este solo la había visto como un objeto durante su relación. Tras explicarle el sentido de la abstinencia en el noviazgo, se fue decidida a comenzar de nuevo, dándole un enfoque diferente a su vida afectiva. Sin duda, un counseling distinto.

  

Rosanna

        She was a small and pretty girl of 15 years old. She was alone with her handbag between her arms, waiting, thinking. Her name was Rosanna. I felt like I could hear her thoughts. “My mum is gonna kill me. I can not be pregnant…”. She only spoke spanish so the counseling went directly for me. What a pleasure!

         First, I gave to her the pregnancy test. Her first option was getting a termination. But the test was negative. Anyway, I decide to talk to her about the abortion issue and I also about sex, love and marriage. She was too young and, beacuse of this, more vulnerable. This fact gave me the opportunity to talk as a friend but also as a mum. Moreover, I showed her a video about teenagers, sex and pregnancy and she, so she seemed to be interested on the topic because she made a lot of questions. Finally, she left saying tahat in the case of getting pregnant in a future, she would not think in more choice instead of abortion.

Times Square

                   

                 En la oficina de Times Square atendimos a 4 chicas. El novio de una de ellas la acompañó y empezamos a hablar un rato. Le sorprendió bastante que me ofreciera a hablar con él, pensaba que lo importante era su novia. Cuando empezamos a tocar el tema del embarazo de su novia, se estremeció al escuchar la palabra aborto.  Me empezó a contar que en su anterior relación no atravesaba por una situación económica estable, y la chica con la que salía decidió realizar un aborto.

            Cuando se explican los riesgos de un aborto, se hablan de las posible secuelas que pueden ocasionar en los hombres,  se encuentra el de depresión e inmenso dolor, pero no fue hasta esta vez que lo experimenté.

Brooklyn

           

            Mi primer día en Brooklyn fue una de las mejores experiencias que he tenido desde que estoy en EMC. La oficina estuvo repleta de chicas desde primera hora de la mañana, aunque gracias a Linda, pudimos ayudar a todas. Yo realicé mi primer counseling a solas. La chica tenía dos hijos y no se encontraba preparada para  tener un tercero. Tras empezar a hablar con ella, empezó a plantearse su situación y su visión sobre ser madre por tercera vez comenzó a cambiar. Todo iba a depender de los ultrasounds. Y, qué sorpresa. ¡Era un chico! En los ultrasounds, se apreciaba claramente. Tras sus dos hijas, tenía muchas ganas de tener un niño. ¡Finalmente decidió tenerlo!