Crossing another province

I'll try to make this quick. I'm in a mosquito infested place and they are feasting on me right now in the only place I can get internet access. Our time in Calgary was well spent. We headed into downtown Calgary. Not suprisingly, yet sadly there were not a lot of reactions from downtown Calgary. We were then on our way north before heading east to Saskatoon. We were headed towards the town of Didsberry. We were scheduled to meet a permanent deacon there for dinner. Another wonderful Catholic family. We had this music jamming session with a variety of musical instruments that they got. After the jamming we had a great conversation during dinner about the current state of abortion in Canada. We were honored to be joined by our temporary new member Jenna and a priest from Nigeria who was the parish priest in the neibouring city of "Olds". After dinner the deacon kindly obliged to open up the local chuch for adoration and benediction. It was great to spend time with Jesus after so many days of walking. We reached our quota for the week and we were next in preparation for our next diocese, Edmonton. Before heading to Edmonton we all had the opportunity to have confessions with the Nigerian priest and go to mass (which he celebrated). After mass we were invited to cake and coffee with the community at Olds. Each of us walkers shared with the whole community a bit of what we experienced and our background. They generously made a donation to our cause. What is probably one of the greatest acts of charity we have experience on this trip is when the permanent deacon, who owns a pharmacy decided to open up his pharmacy to us to let us pick whatever we needed from the pharmacy for free. The store had a ot of useful stuff for us which included foot ointmets, toilet articles, rain gear. All this helps us a lot in saving the donation money we receive for pro life causes.

We now set our sights for the big city of Edmonton! Two of the group members knew a friend in Edmonton and stayed with him. Four of us were with another wonderful Catholic family. What made their story interesting was that they were recent converts to the Church from the Lutheran denomination. They had the cutest kids who were all interested in soccer which was great because I got to see some world cup action, thanks to their interest! The father took us out to Fort Edmonton and we got a taste of Edmontons history through the ages. It was extremely inforamative and I highly reccommend it for anyone desiring to go on a journey learning about Canadian history. We got our taste of the West Edmonton mall which seemed to have everything from a "galaxyland" with a rollercoaster, ice skating ring, wavepool and an exact life size replica of one of Columbuses ships the "Santa Maria". It was good publicity for our "Pro life" message as we stormed through the crowded mall.

The parishes we targeted in Edmonton was St. Alphonsus, Holy family, Good Sheppard and St. Paul (Korean). The priests were very supportive and the people were very generous throughout the Edmonton parishes. One lady was so touched by what we were doing that she wanted to join our group to Ottawa. She had second thoughts, though, when we met with her the next day and told her the challenges of the journey. She said she might join our group later after she had a chance to think about it more. Considering she was in her 50's, I think that was pretty courageous of her to even approach us on the topic! The next day, we were set to pray around the abortion clinic in Edmonton. There is a pro-life house set up right opposite the abortion mill. It is called "The Back Porch" and is setup to help woman with pre and post abortion counselling. It was sad to see the number of woman go into the abortion clinic in our short time we were there. It was another Morganteller abortion clinic. There were 7 of us opposite the abortion clinic, praying the rosary much to the praise and admiration of many people that passed us. It was obvious that the woman coming out from the abortion clinic (after having an abortion) were hurt mentally, physically and spiritually. It really was a sad sight to see. I do know that God is doing something about this. We just can't see the effects of his plan yet.

We were then back to Calgary from where we stopped our walk. After a weekend of rest and being well fed, we were all anxious to get on the road and start walking. The results of our walk the past 3 days only prove this. We made it from just 40 km north of Calgary to 10 km past the Saskatchawan border in just 2 1/2 days. The prairies really have nothing to them. You cannot see any mountains in the distance. The fields are either brown or green. The land is tilled. You see the occasional house spread out over 10 or so miles. There is not much traffic either. It gets quite windy. There is sudden change in wheather. We even saw a tornado, which was a real treat. It is hard to find places with an internet connection here or even a Catholic church. We have not gone to mass in the past 2 days. We only wonder what other surprises Saskatchewan will bring. We met a guy the Saskatchewan border who told us that what we even encountered would be considered hilly. "It gets really flat". We drove an hour to get to mass today, only to find out the priest might be on vacation. Please pray for the rest of our journey, for our safety and the unborn. Till we meet again, adios, from the prairies!