Wrapping up the summer

As most of you know I have spent my summer walking across the United States with Crossroads. Our mission was to change hearts and save lives by bringing the pro-life message out to the streets.

 Crossroads was started by a group of students from Franciscan University of Stuebenville who took John Paul II's challenge seriously to bring the pro-life message to the highways and byways of our country.  In 1995 those students travelled to San Francisco and began walking across the US. 

This was Crossroads 14th summer and there were 3 walks that began May 24th : a northern beginning in Seattle, the central beginning in San Francisco and a southern beginning in Los Angeles.  I walked the central walk beginning in San Francisco and continuing through, Sacramento, Reno, Salt Lake City, Denver, North Platte, Omaha/Lincoln, Kansas City, St. Louis, Columbus, Indianapolis, Pittsburg and finally to Washington DC.    

We walked Monday through Friday around the clock with half the group walking days and the other walking nights (otherwise known as the 'batman shift').  We had an RV for the shift on break and a support vehicle with the shift out walking.  Each person walked about 15 miles a day, each shift covered at least 30 miles and so every 24 hours we travelled 60 miles.  On the weekends we would stop in the major cities:  Saturday mornings were spent praying outside of abortion mills and saturday night/sunday mornings were spent speaking after masses to the parishes that invited us.

We would ask those we spoke with to get involved with the pro-life movement in anyway they could - example: to pray outside of abortion mills, pray for a culture of life with their families, or even come and walk with Crossroads.  We asked for financial support.  And we asked for their prayers to help us continue our mission.  The difficulty with Crossroads was not so much the blisters, the hours and hours walking under the hot sun or stumbling down the highway at 3am when you wish you were sleeping, or even being in a small RV with 8-10 other people ... It was the spiritual battle where satan tried all sorts of things to keep the message from being spread.  We were on the forefront of a spiritual battle ground and as much as we Satan lashing out we also saw God preforming miracles daily to keep us going.  People would after mass write down prayer intentions in a book which we would keep with us to pray for them - at daily mass, morning and evening prayer and during the 20 decades of the rosary we said as we walked each day.

I fly home on Sunday and I am very much looking forward to seeing my family again.  This summer has been an amazing one that was filled with as much learning, adventure, and spiritual-growth as I could ask for over several years.  But it has also left me more ready to begin whatever God has in store for me next!