Walking into Winnipeg

We spent the rest of our weekend with Regina giving talks at many parishes. We were scheduled to speak at 6 parishes with 7 of us. All of this has given me a good exposure to many priests, their style of operating and preaching. It has also given me exposure to the liturgy in many churches which include the lay people helping at the liturgy and the choir. We prayed outside the Regina hospital and got an interview there with one of the Catholic reporters. It was good to show our support for pro-life as a large group.

Even though we spoke at 6 parishes, none of them gave us the opportunity to speak to youth. We really wanted to hit the youth in Regina. We went to the divine mercy chapel in Regina and prayed about it. I guess God must have wanted that too, since at the chapel was a retired priest who was going to celebrate a youth mass at the Regina Cathedral! We admired his dedication because though he was a retired priest, having had multiple surgeries and clearly weak, he did celebrate mass. He gave us one of the biggest welcomes ever. He asked all of us walkers to come up to the front of the cathedral and he allowed us to exit the church with him. I think we touched a lot of people because we got a lot of donations including a young man, Kevin, who wanted to walk with us that night. Now, given that we had to cover a huge distance from Regina to Winnipeg, we considered this to be a huge blessing.

We set forth that night on the long road to Winnipeg. Kevin was a huge help to our walk and we thank him for his spontaneous response and desire to walk with us. We set a record in distance that night. We covered 135 KM! Our walk on the road to Winnipeg can be summarized as heavy winds, limited reaction and lack of cell coverage.

We did stop by Portage La Prairie and Brandon. We went to another beautiful Ukranian liturgy in Brandon. The Ukranian priest in Brandon gave us $70 in donations and another lady in the parish matched that. The donations they said was just for our breakfast that day. The Ukranian priests, liturgy and lay people continue to amaze me with their generosity and hospitality.

We reached Winnipeg on Friday to a blistering 31 degrees! The heat just sapped the energy out of me. When I reached my last of my 5 KM shifts, I was ready to pass out and happily welcomed an iced cap. A lady came up to us on our first stop in the city of Winnipeg and she was so pleased with what we were doing, she gave us a $40 donation. Pretty good for someone who just randomly noticed us in the parking lot of mall!

Our time in Winnipeg has been short, but busy. We got to pray outside the woman's hospital in Winnipeg, where they do abortions. My highlight of Winnipeg was experiencing the traditional Latin mass. We were scheduled to speak at Pope Pius the X. I really enjoyed the liturgy, especially the reverence and respect that they have for our Lord. I spoke about our walk and they asked us several questions about our journey. A young man from Pius the X took us out to dinner and we had an interesting talk about the differences between Pius X being in schism with Rome. Needless to say, there was no blood drawn and the 3 of us took of unscathed!

We attended an amazing BBQ with a Catholic family that knew 3 of the walkers. I spoke with the mother of 9 at the BBQ and she shared with me how much she would like to show others how much love there is in the Church.

Finally, I was scheduled to go to St. Vital parish for the 8PM mass. The priest there wanted me to strictly keep to the script when I gave my talk. I was a bit dissapointed with this because you usualy show a lot of enthusiasm and draw more people when you speak from the heart and share a bit of your own personal statements. However, out of obedience, I did this and the results for somewhat poor given the number of people at mass.

That's it for Winnipeg. We are onwards to Kenora and then to Thunder Bay today. Should be a long journey. Another 700KM atleast from Winnipeg to Thunder Bay. We are now half-way through our journey. Another 40 days to go. We are now in our second lent. Should be exciting!