New vigils testimonies

Eliasz Maciej Grubinski

Warsaw- Poland  

God touched me through the process. The first step was when He sent friends around me to join the pro-life initiative. The second step was when we spontaneously organized the event “let’s celebrate life” where we invited 40 DFL leaders from abroad. I didn’t have much time back then but I felt it’s important. The third and final step was when He touched my heart through the pictures showed by Pamela Delgado from Columbia. The pictures showed women with their saved from abortion children. Those women were so happy and thankful that it absolutely touched my heart and soul. That was the moment when I felt that God is showing me my path in pro-life movement. Instantly I knew I have to organize the first vigil in Poland. Today, after the vigil we had in Warsaw, Poland I am even more certain that God wanted me to do this and I’m really grateful for this miracle.

Daniël Gerard

Arnheim- Holland 

The division in the family stems from the division in the church. This was one of the cultural reasons why six years ago I became a Catholic in the Portuguese village of Fátima. As a Protestant I was without knowing, interested in the content of its prophecies: the conversion of Russia after communism. As a student of history I saw this as the reversal of the revolutionary process and a return to God. “Like Saturn, the revolution devours its own children”, has been said since the French Revolution, as we saw the massive murder of millions of people after the implementation of its radical ideals in the wake of the Russian Revolution. On the personal level, like the ancient pagan gods, the most revolutionary one can be, is to murder your own child.
The fight for the lives of the babies and against abortion is one of the best ways of evangelization. Many people do not realize that our culture would not know something like ‘human rights’ without faith in the Incarnation of Christ. Even though these ‘universal rights’ have been pushed by the revolution as a replacement for the Ten Commandments, the notion of the dignity of every human being, is only there because of Christianity. As the latter recedes, so does the worth of human life, as is becoming more and more evident every day. A pushback is more than necessary. Since my student days I have been working for different pro-life foundations and initiatives and to join hands with 40 Days for Life came as a natural next step.

Andrea Mazzi

Modena - Italy 

Personally, I got involved in the campaign because I felt called specifically.  In the summer of 2022 I calmly began to read the book of the international 40 days for life'campaign that I had purchased in 2019 when we had called Robert Colquhoun to join the Torchlight Procession for Nascent Life. I started reading an average of one chapter a day, as suggested by David and Shawn, the authors. Who also had said that this book would have brought graces.

At the end of (approximately) 40 days of the reading, on September 27th, that same evening, I open my email and find an email from Robert, who I hadn't heard from for 3 and a half years, asking me to organize a meeting with Italian pro-life movements to find leaders to start with the 40 days in Italy.

I'm normally a little wary of the 'signs' that many people say they read... but here how could I ignore such a precise signal? I then tried to get moving;  Unfortunately, at a national level I have not received responses from pro-life leaders.  At a local level, on the other hand, I proposed an initial meeting with Robert which was attended by several people, and then from that meeting, we started to give life to the Modenese 40 days for life journey which led us up to the vigil that began exactly a year after that day, September 27, 2023.
Thank God who guides us in his ways!

Aurora

Kiel - Germany

My name is Aurora, I am 23 years old, I come from Venezuela but have been living in Germany for 8 years, and I am studying to do social work. My calling for the vigil has been very slow.

God has planted many seeds in my heart, and one of them has been the fight for life, the importance of life in its most vulnerable state, like that of unborn children in the womb. Looking out at this society is so frightening. Watching the news is so scary, or looking at social media and realizing how dark the world is out there and the pain, what people suffer for not knowing the truth, for not knowing the value of that life.

It was a very beautiful seed for which I needed a lot of courage and bravery, which I could only obtain from God. At first, I experienced it with fear, humanly, something completely new. But I knew that I was guided by Him and that the adversities did not matter. Although I never imagined they would be even half of what they ended up being. I was entering this path through obedience and hand in hand with Him, and there is no fear or anguish or questions. Nothing.

How goes that saying? I don't know what the next chapter of my life will be like, but I do know who will be the author. How hard and what an honor it was to realize how important this topic was and to have been called to participate in the plan that God has for this city regarding such an impor- tant issue. It's clear how big the wound is, and that's why it had the response it did.
When they first talked to me to ask, I answered that I wanted to read everything there was about it. “I want to go to a march for life”, I thought. That's how I came to find 40 Days for Life.
I knew that I wanted to do something. I felt that need. It didn’t feel right to sit on the couch with my phone, and thinking this should be different or I would do this like that or this is happening in the world and this and that, like pointing out while doing nothing. I asked the Lord, what is my grain of sand here, God. Move me now!

In that search, then, the prayer vigil in Frankfurt appeared, and I saw the word “prayer” and I loved it. I went online to find out about 40 Days for Life, who they were, and I found out that they were opening the autumn vigil and as I read, I felt a fire inside me.

I believe that nothing great starts without being small, and that also applies to nascent life.

How can life not be the size of a dot? How can life not start with something so microscopic and small? And that also holds true with this initiative. Not for not having any influence or not knowing all the answers am I going to stop moving, because I won't get there if I don't start first.

With whatever I have, I'm going to give it all to God. That's all He asks of me. He doesn't ask for perfection. No. He asks for everything I have.

When I reviewed the whole form to become a leader, I felt dizzy. You feel very small at times. Microscopic. Who am I for God to be calling me like this?

And just at that moment, I prayed. I said this is for you and comes from you, so give me some sign because this is crazy. I scrolled down to the end, where the form to apply to be a leader was, and it said that the deadline was that same day. I think it was June 28th.

A friend told me: “if this comes from God, it will be whenever it will be”. It was a very beautiful moment. I am sure it is a seed planted and it’s not the end at all. There are many things that the team that was formed in the vigil would love to do. God united us in all that process and it is a very different relationship that you have with a person that you see once in a while or even frequently.

The vigil team, you see absolutely every day or most of the 40 days, no matter the weather, with rain, lightning, thunder, sun, cold, everything, night or day, facing 250 people against you, or enjoying, or dealing with the police. Relationships are greatly strengthened and it was very nice to work together.