Over 40 college students have passed their half-way point on their 3 simultaneous pro-life treks across America.
Walking with a group called Crossroads, these young people have finished 8 of the 12 weeks it takes to walk across America. On May 18th, the 3 groups began walking from Seattle, San Francisco, and Los Angeles. This weekend they will be stopping in Detroit, St. Louis and Jackson, Mississippi.
In just 4 weeks, these young college students will conclude their 12 week walks on August 10th in Washington, D.C with a “Rally for Life” on the steps of the US Capitol Building. Crossroads has sponsored these walks annually since 1995.
With the various means of modern transportation, a walk across the country is rather extreme, especially for a college student who usually enjoys summer vacationing, or earning money for school. These students, however, are not walking for the thrill or shock value. They walk to share a deeply held belief with their fellow Americans – that each and every human life, from the very beginning in the womb until natural death, deserves dignity and the full protection under the law. A message that, in a culture that denies life and threatens religious liberty, will only be heard if drastic actions are taken up in its defense.
While Crossroads originally began these walks in order to help build a Culture of Life, a special theme was added this year, to defend Religious Liberty. “We chose the theme of this summer’s walks because we feel like we are at a critical point in the history of our nation” said Jim Nolan, president of Crossroads. “Never before have the rights and freedoms of Christians and other people of faith been under attack as they are now. If we don’t stand up now and draw a line, we will lose these rights and the result will be nothing short of catastrophic for our culture and country,” continued Nolan.
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Over the course of 12 weeks, these walks will pass through over 36 states and hundreds of cities and towns. While they walk in shifts during the week, on the weekends they stop to peacefully pray at abortion clinics and speak at local churches. By the end of the summer, they will have spoken at over 1,200 religious services, reaching thousands of Americans at the grass-roots level.
They are easily identified by the t-shirts they wear, with the words “PRO-LIFE” in large letters written across the front, a clear and unambiguous message they have dedicated a summer on the road to share. Drastic as such actions seem to be, they believe it is necessary to effectively capture the attention, and hopefully hearts and minds of others.
