One, we are pro-life

Two, a little bit louder
Three, I still can't hear you
Four, more more more! 

PRO LIFE FLASH MOB!!

Maybe you've seen the videos online of the pro-life flash mobs.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x_uGRcwgG0w  At about 1:25, you can see a man in front of the pro-life group wearing a bright green jacket- his name is Peter and he organizes these flash mobs around the country.  Franciscan was blessed enough to have him come here to Steubenville to organize a flash mob in Pittsburgh.

5:25 am: the alarm went off.... We got ready and ran (literally) to the chapel.
6:00 am: food for the journey, aka mass. :)  It was a wonderful way to start and it gave us the energy we needed for the entire day.
6:50 am: gathering behind the chapel, and moving us all toward cars.  It was quite an experience trying to get everyone into vehicles..... as far as I know, God provided and we had (cramped) room for everyone!
7:10 am: We leave the campus behind and get on the road towards Pittsburgh!  I was lucky enough to ride in a car with Peter- he taught us some chants and songs that we'd be singing.  It was a really fun car ride.
8:00 am: We arrived at the Home Depot parking lot and walked over to the abortion clinic.  There were already some people there, so we joined their circles.  All together, there were about 6 circles of 15-30 people each.  Each circle prayed separately- my circle prayed 2 rosaries, a chaplet, a litany, a couple other prayers, and sang lots of songs.  Our counselors were able to talk to a few of the women going into the clinic, and each time another woman approached the door, we knelt down and prayed the next decade on our knees.  Powerful, to say the least.
10:50 am: We were getting towards the end of our time at the clinic, so our group decided to pray one last chaplet, but we wanted to sing it.  We began on our own, then by the second decade the group next to us joined in.  As each group ended their own prayers, they joined our group, so by the third decade we had about 150 students singing the Divine Mercy Chaplet.  Wow.  What an amazing experience.  The really neat thing was, we were standing right in front of the clinic, so I'm positive that they could hear us singing inside.  :)
11:20 am: procession back to the parking lot, singing Immaculate Mary the whole way. :)
11:30 am: (hot) pizza arrives for hungry, tired, and cold pro-life students!  We were able to talk and have a good time (still in the parking lot) while eating..... good times.
12:30 pm: (ish) we finished filling balloons with helium and headed down the road.  We made a stop at the abortion clinic, sang a song, got some bright yellow Life balloons stuck in the tree right outside, and continued on our march.  We came across lots of support- honking and thumbs up from other pedestrians.  And there was adventure- we took about 3 wrong turns and ended up by a Whole Foods where there was a Radio Disney broadcast going on... we kind of interrupted it.  Ok, ok, kind of is an understatement.  We completely messed up their event.  We were polite, yet excited, but one man in particular was rather mad at us.  Oh well.  Hopefully we gave him something to think about!  We finished our march through the streets and ended up at the top of a hill by an apartment building, that happened to have a handy little "lookout" thing over the street.  We packed onto it and sang an Ave Maria, then went back down the hill towards the center we had gone through.  There was a small protest going on concerning Iraq, so we let most of the balloons go there.  It was awesome to see them flying away.
1:30 pm: back in the parking lot after going back by the abortion clinic.... we also gave a bunch of balloons to little kids on the way.  One last song, one last prayer, and we were on the way back home.  The ride back was significantly more comfortable!
2:40 pm: arrival back on campus, where we stumbled out of the van and back to the dorm, promptly fell into bed, and took a nice long, much-needed nap.

This evening we spent doing odds and ends around.  I played a board game with two other girls- Quelf.  Oh. my. goodness.  Most hilarious game, like, ever.  We're definitely playing again.

Well, I'm off to bed...... 10:30 mass tomorrow (or, i guess, today!) and then some homework.  Joy!

xoxo,c