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Source URL: http://www.lifesite.net/ldn/2007/mar/07030604.html |
By John-Henry Westen 
KITSAP COUNTY, WA, March 6, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) - An ambitious and well-organized pro-life initiative bringing churches together to fast, pray and hold a vigil for the unborn outside Planned Parenthood all the 40 days of Lent has become the talk of the town and is changing hearts and minds. Kitsap Human Life, an affiliate of Human Life of Washington has coordinated volunteers to keep vigil outside the abortion centre from 8am-8pm Monday through Saturday Feb. 21 through April 7.
In addition to fasting, prayer and the vigil, the group has undertaken 40 days of outreach. "The pro-life message will reach every household in Kitsap County through person-to-person outreach, announcements in church bulletins and the secular media, letters to the editor of local newspapers, a local newspaper advertising campaign, and through many other channels," explains the group's website.
The ongoing vigil has attracted the attention of the local paper, the Kitsap Sun. In a Sunday full-page story dedicated to the vigil, Kitsap Human Life President Jack McGowan says, "People don't know what Planned Parenthood stands for." McGowan adds: "We're standing for those who can't stand for themselves."
The program has also attracted the attention of national pro-life leadership. Fr. Frank Pavone, National Director of Priests for Life, said that the ongoing 40-day vigil of demonstrators outside the offices of Planned Parenthood of Western Washington is doing more than raising awareness for the pro-life cause.
"What Kitsap Human Life is doing this Lenten season does more than make people aware that Planned Parenthood is the nation's largest abortion profiteer," said Fr. Pavone. "This vigil is a sign of what Lent means in the first place; self-sacrificing love to save the helpless. Groups across the nation should follow the example of Kitsap Human Life."
Andrew St.Hilaire, a pro-life supporter connected to Kitsap Human Life commented to LifeSiteNews.com on the remarkable potential of such endeavours. "This is an excellent opportunity to gather support from Christians and pro-lifers across the board," he said. "I am strongly convinced that after a person's first or second time participating in prayer outside an abortion facility, they will be increasingly more active in the pro-life movement. It is on the streets in prayer outside the modern day concentration camps that people recognize for the first time the gravity of the situation. It is then they realize that action must be taken."
For more information see the Kitsap Human Life website at:
http://www.kitsaphumanlife.org/