Back home safely! I apologize for not updating the past two nights; my computer wouldn't recognize wifi and insisted I attach a network cable.
Anyways, the second uiversity we went to was much more liberal than FAU. We set up a little later at the University of Southern Florida, because everyone's host homes were a minimum of forty-five minutes from Tampa, and some of us underestimated traffic.
At the second university, during set-up, a male student nearby began to scream and hurl profanities at us. He told us we were ruining his day.
As usual, one of the staff members, Cana, was videoing for security purposes, and when he approached the barricades, she turned it on him. She was outside the barricades still, though, and he yelled and swore and told us we were breaking the law for videoing him. Devorah pulled out her phone and began to video him as well, explaining calmly that it was a public place, and therefore, anyone could video him.
We all continued to set up, trying to ignore him, but we were all a little nervous. He told us to get off his campus and stop videoing him or we would call the police. Devorah encouraged him to, and he did.
Then, he swaggered right up to Cana and got right in her face, and Devorah sent a volunteer to grab one of the men, just to have a slightly more imposing presence. Adam left the signs and came to stand by the fence, and his presence seemed to make the guy calm down a little. Just then, the campus security arrived, and he immediately began to complain to them about us videoing him. The security guard looked amused. "Dude," he said, obviously trying not to laugh, "it's a college campus."
In any case, they told him to leave us alone, and eventually, he did, but throughout the day, he would swagger by, giving us the scariest look I've ever seen someone make. I felt quite unsafe. If he'd had a gun, we would've been in trouble, that's how obvious his hatred was.
Anyways, it was more difficult to engage the students on this, simply because they either didn't want to talk, or wanted to talk at us, not to us.
I had several good conversations with a few young men (the girls wouldn't talk to me mostly), which were lengthy, and had no real conclusion.
That evening, we returned to our host home, in a town called Weeki Wachee, a couple called Cecile and Philip Thomson, who live in what is called a 'gated' community. Caroline had to show ID at the entrance to the suburb before we could get in, and answer a few questions.
The Thomsons were fantastic hosts. Mr. Thomson showed me a map of Florida, where the Everglades are, and all the places we'd been to, as well as where Key West is (a place I've always wanted to see, which is less than four hours from Miami). That day was the 14th of February, and when we walked in the door, Mr. Thomson grinned and said, "Happy Valentine's day! I got all you girls chocolate, since I don't think you want to take flowers on the plane." Totally made my day.
Two really funny things happened before supper.
The Thomsons told us they have an alligator in the pond next to their house, and we went out into the enclosed pation at the back, and they pointed out where it usually suns itself.
Mrs. Thomason went back into the house, and Mr. Thomson was going to follow, and he walked right into the glass sliding door, bouncing off with a crash, staggering backwards. "Honey," he gasped, "why did you close the door?" Apparently, they always leave that door open. His glasses cut the bridge of his nose, and he joked about it all evening.
Caroline, Nicole, and I decided to do the risky thing and go out into the dark lawn with flashlights, to try see if we could catch a glimpse of it. We were a little on edge, especially me, since Nicole and Caroline were holding the flashlights, and not pointing them to where I wanted them to.
Suddenly, there was a strange sound in the tree next to us. I screamed in Caroline's ear, and Nicole bolted for the house.
It was nothing. We had a good laugh. Caroline said later, "In hindsight, if we're out in the dark searching for an alligator, and you guys scream and run, it might be smart for me to follow suite."
We had dinner together, and had a lively discussion, and watched the Olympic figure skating afterwards.
Yesterday, at USF, a guy who'd come the day before and talked to nearly everyone showed up again, using the same faulty analogies from the day before. He was trying to make it hard on us, and he was arguing for the sake of being contrary.
Devorah told us not to engage him if we could help it, simply because we were there to spread awareness and talk to a lot of people, hopefully changing hearts and minds through the pictures and simple logic, and not to argue and debate.
In the afternoon, we left for a bit, and came back with several friends and a handful of posterboard signs. The signs said things dumb people do, like 'Pours their milk before their cereal', with arrows pointing at the bottom, and they would stand next to the volunteers.
We ignored them, so they went to stand in front of the barricades in from of our display.
Finally, the first guy said something to his friends about the fact that the lawn we were on was public ground, and he could go on it, and he hopped the fence, holding his sign in front of our pictures. Immediately, Devorah and one of the security guards were over there, telling him to get out.
He insisted it was his right to be there, and the security guard explained that we'd reserved that space for that amount of time, and therefore, he had to leave. Eventually, he did go out, but not before trying to hit on Devorah.
The protestors remained there until we were done takedown, and two or three of the more energetic volunteers engaged them once again.
At each display, we set up something called the 'Free Speech Board', putting new paper on it every time, and markers, and people who don't want to talk can share their opinion. When our volunteers began to take down the support poles, the protestors came rushing over, sayng, "What are you guys doing? You can't take that down!"
We told them we'd put it up, and they were floored. The one guy actually sat down on the grass, blinking, shocked.
Aside from all the drama, however, the two days were filled with encouraging stories, some sad, some heart-wrenching, filled with personal experiences.
Cana set up her camera in a quiet place away from the display, and several of us went and recorded testimonies of changed hearts and minds, to be a future encouragement. I did a couple, and they're posted on CCBR's Instagram, @endthekilling, if you want to see them.
Last night, we all had supper at a place in Tampa where three single guys live. The place is like a big man cave, with couches and pizza and coke and praise and worship bands playing on the TV screen. They're evangelists, and they offered their house for our end-of-the-week closing and supper.
After supper, Devorah gathered us all together and said she wanted us to take home the reality of it all, because standing by those cruel, gory pictures for that long can cause you to build walls and forget the realness of abortion. She told us about how she became involved in pro-life, about a terrifying dream she'd had.
She told us in her dream she was walking down a sidewalk with her friends, just joking around an being silly, and she stepped on something, and it crunched under her shoe. She jumped back and looked down, and she saw a dead little baby girl, covered in blood, lying there. She was horrified.
And then she looked back up, and in her dream, the surroundings had changed. All around, stretching to the horizon in front and all around her and her friends, lay the dead little boys and girls, the abortion victims ofthis generation.
She heard a voice very clearly saying, "Rescue those being led away to death; hold back those staggering towards slaughter." And she knew that the voice didn't just mean her, it meant all of us.
By this time, most of the girls were in tears, and one of the fathers, and then Devorah gathered herself and she turned around and picked up a shining steel instrument from the table beside her. "These forceps," she told us all, "are from an abortion clinic, and were used to take the babies' lives. These teeth on the end were the only thing the child felt of the world." She passed the tool around the circle, to leave us with a firm knowledge of the reality of it.
I was the last to take that thing, and I didn't want to touch it. As soon as my friend Justin handed it to me, I couldn't stop crying. I barely noticed when Cana quickly came over and took it away.
After the closing, most of us went out to cean ourselves up, and I came back, and Justin looked at me and said, "You look like you need a hug." I took his offer gladly.
I love it when you can spend an entire week with complete strangers, doing something so terribly important and difficult, supporting each other and helping each other, and find at the end you know them almost better than even people you grew up with.
Saying goodbye to everyone was very hard. Mainly because I don't know when I'll ever see any of them again.
I believe that the Abortion Awareness Project was successful, because our goal was not to win an arguement or get a law made, but to show people what abortion is and spread awareness and hopefully change views.
When we get back, Esther and I are planning to make a presentation for the churches with our friend John, to show everyone what we did, and hopefully empower and ignite others to stand up for what they believe.
I've changed. You can't get so far out of your comfort zone and hear such heartbreaking stories and see so many hard-hearted people without changing.
Will you be willing to change?
Will you listen to the call of God in your life, to go out and fight, fight for the rights of those who are too young to stand up for themselves?
Or will you stay on the outskirts, choosing to ignore the call, as Jonah did, and continue your life as a million others are extinguished?
Like Devorah said, if you have feet, a mouth, and a heart, you can do it.
If you have any questions or want advice on how to approach different arguments, feel free to ask me at any time. I'm on Facebook, and my email is gwedhiel15@gmail.com, and I'd love to talk, as well.
"Before I formed you in the womb I knew you; before you were born I set you apart." ~Jeremiah 1:5
