Yesterday, 40 Days for Life kicked off in Little Rock and Fayetteville. This morning, I received the following email from Shawn Carney, one of the national directors for 40 Days for Life:
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The people who arrived for the 40 Days for Life kickoff event outside the abortion center in Fayetteville got a bit of a surprise — a brand-new sprinkler system, with the sprinkler heads pointed directly at the prayer volunteers.
“The owner of the business complex turned the sprinklers on as soon as we set up all our equipment,” said Tiffany in Fayetteville. “And they kept the sprinklers on for two hours.”
One co-owner spent the entire two hours “pacing and walking up and down the parking lot, yelling at us and telling the police to arrest us,” she said. “Needless to say, the police officers were polite and explained they could not arrest us.”
The prayer volunteers were then greeted with loud, obscene music from inside the building. “We sang and played worship music and lifted our voices to God,” Tiffany explained. “Our God songs drowned out the vulgar music.”
Through it all, the prayer volunteers refused to be discouraged. “The bottom line — God triumphed,” she said. “Praise the Lord!”
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40 Days for Life is a peaceful assembly. Participants gather on public sidewalks outside abortion facilities, and pray that God will end abortion in America in our lifetime. That’s really all there is to it. I don’t know why someone would feel the need to try to stop a group of people from exercising their religious right to pray publicly, but that appears to be what happened in Fayetteville.
Betty Ratcliffe