"YOU'RE NOT SO TOUGH"
 
To me they were a modern-day Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn - two small fourteen-year-old boys sitting on a five-foot wide ground area next to a fence smoking cigarettes across the street from the school we had just leafleted (LEONARD HERMAN JUNIOR HIGH in San Jose). They were resting from the heavy load of boxes they were carrying. As I walked back to our car, one of the boys hailed me as I came near him, obviously very upset. "WHAT'S THIS?" he said, pointing to the pictures of abortions. "HOW CAN THEY DO THIS?" He was outraged. There followed an almost comical use of obscene words - at least twenty to every thirty of normal vocabulary, as he looked down at the ground. His companion began to giggle in embarrassment over what he was saying - also looking downward..
 
     I began to explain the literature to them, saying how wrong abortion is, and they both agreed in no uncertain terms. Then I told them how important it was for them not to have sex before they were married and that the only way they were sure of being able to do this was to say close to Jesus. The one who had been giggling pulled out a religious tract saying that he goes to the church on the top of the hill - "AND SOMETIMES I BRING HIM ALONG," he said, pointing to his friend. "IF I EVER SEE ANYONE HAVING AN ABORTION, I'LL BEAT THEM UP!" the one with the vulgar mouth said. As the boy continued to use bad language, I tousled his hair as he was looking down and said, "WHY ARE YOU USING SUCH DIRTY LANGUAGE? YOU'RE NOT SO TOUGH!" He looked up at me and began to talk about his personal life - how his mother had left his father. The other boy said his parents, too, were divorced and he told me how bad he felt. By then my friend Luz came to look for me and I made a move to leave. "LET'S TALK SOME MORE," the boys said several times ad we made several overtures to go as we still had another school to reach. "CAN YOU GIVE US A RIDE TO OUR HOUSE?" they finally asked. "THESE BOXES ARE HEAVY" (they were filled with soap they had sold for a school project.) "SURE," we said, and as we dropped them off at their houses (they were next-door neighbors), we said goodbye and God bless you!. "GOD BLESS YOU!" the boy with the bad language said at least three times as he struggled under the weight of the heavy box and entered his house.
 
U.C. BERKELEY - SATAN'S STRONGHOLD
 
The University of California in Berkeley, our first school of the semester - immoral, resistant to our literature - and thousands of minds to reach.
 
     We arrived around 11:00 AM on a Friday in September - Luz Otico, Adeline Choi, Edna Tefft, Mary Carter and I - loaded down with literature and a case carrying the large pictures of abortions which we began to set up on a raised planter box in front of the entrance to Sather Gate. (Many of those who refused our literature couldn't help glancing at the pictures as they walked by.) A street singer was there strumming his guitar and singing ballads in a pleasant, muted voice with his guitar case open for contributions. His music provided the background for our two-hour stay.
 
     There seemed to be a little less resistance to receiving our pro-life literature than the last times we had been there. Possibly it could have been the softening reaction to the pleasant background music, or more likely, the fear that AIDS has already begun to instill in some hearts. ("The fear of God is the beginning of wisdom" - in this case, the judgment of God.) There were still the hard core people who took instant umbrage to our article on moral purity especially. I could hear one young man reading the words aloud, "Recognize the power of sex. Do not assume you can handle it. It is like nitroglycerin." He then began to make remarks to his friends which I couldn't hear.
 
     One young female student became sarcastic as I handed her the literature. "IS THIS SOME MORE OF YOUR BOGUS MATERIAL?" (She was referring to the recent court case in San Francisco where a pro-life group was charged with false advertising by not revealing their pro-life identity in trying to help the girls.) "NO, THIS IS PRO-LIFE, ANTI-ABORTION MATERIAL," I said as I handed it to her. "WELL, AT LEAST YOU'RE NOT TRYING TO COVER UP," she said petulantly as she took the literature. "WHAT'S MORE IMPORTANT?" I asked here as she turned to leave. "WHAT ABOUT THE BABIES THAT ARE BEING SLAUGHTERED EVERYDAY?" She didn't answer.
 
     One young male student came up to me saying, "I'M GLAD YOU PEOPLE ARE HERE. I'M A STUDENT AT THE UNIVERSITY OF MICHIGAN, AND WHEN I GET BACK THERE, I'M GOING TO POST YOUR LITERATURE ON THE BULLETIN BOARD." Almost immediately a young girl joined us and began to tell the story of her girlfriend, a student at Stanford who was raped by two male students. "YOU CAN'T TELL ME SHE SHOULDN'T HAVE HAD AN ABORTION. YOU OUGHT TO SEE THE SHAPE SHE'S IN NOW OVER THE WHOLE THING." "VERY LIKELY MOST OF HER TRAUMA IS CAUSED BY THE ABORTION," I quickly said. "YEAH, " the young man from Michigan said, "THE RAPE WAS ONE BAD THING, BUT WHY SHOULD SHE MURDER HER OWN CHILD?" "WELL, SHE HAD A SCHOLARSHIP AND COULDN'T TAKE TIME OUT TO HAVE THE BABY," she answered. "DO YOU MEAN A SCHOLARSHIP IS MORE IMPORTANT THAN HER BABY'S LIFE?" I asked. She couldn't think of a good answer.
 
     As I distributed literature, I stood just a few feet away from the street singer and a circle of young men sitting practically at my feet. Most of them were listening to the singer and one was doing his homework. I approached them with our material. Instantly, one of the boys threw the literature up in the air, strongly reacting to the article on purity in mock protest. I picked up on his semi-humor and told him this revealed a great deal about what was going on in his life. He then became angry and stuck out his tongue at me, curling the end of it for several seconds. I told him Satan must be running his life. The male student who was doing his homework chimed in, "WHAT RIGHT DO YOU HAVE TO TELL PEOPLE THEY'RE NOT LIVING RIGHT?" "I'M A BORN-AGAIN CHRISTIAN," I told him. "IF I DON'T TELL YOU, WHO WILL???" I answered. Again I continued, "YOU'RE ON THE WRONG ROAD - THE ROAD TO HELL. I'M SAYING THIS OUT OF LOVE AND CONCERN. IF I SAW YOU DRIVING A CAR TOWARD A CLIFF, WOULDN'T I TRY TO WARN YOU?" "I CAN SEE YOUR POINT," the student answered. I told both of them that Jesus Christ is the only answer to their lives and that they could only serve him or Satan - nothing in between. As I spoke, I noticed several of the young men sitting in the circle were looking and listening. Later the student who was doing his homework got up to leave and approached me in a friendly manner. Half apologizing for the remarks he had made, he said he knew that I was sincere. (He had been sitting close enough to overhear some of the conversations I had been having with other students.)
 
     As the street singer paused to rest between his songs, I noticed he was staring directly at me. I took this as a cue to hand him our literature saying that I enjoyed his singing. He took one glance at the material, was obviously upset, and put it in his guitar case mumbling, "I'LL LOOK AT IT LATER." I could hear a few chuckles in his audience.
 
     ED NOTE: More and more we feel the article on moral purity (SIX SUGGESTIONS THAT WILL HELP YOU KEEP YOURSELF MORALLY PURE) is vital to our work. God must be brought in to all of our discussions on purity. In order to repent there must be a conviction of sin - impurity is the root cause of abortion! All the soft sell messages of saying "NO" to sex without bringing the Lord into it will mostly fall on deaf ears. But the message that will stir up the conscience is the message that we must give to these young people, and the name of Jesus has the power to convict the hardest heart!
 
 
QUESTIONS AND ANSWERS AT IRVINGTON HIGH
 
During the lunch break the teenagers at IRVINGTON HIGH SCHOOL made their way down Blacow Road, a busy thoroughfare in the city of Fremont. They formed large groups, like swarms of bees, at the corner where Rose Binns and Paulette Labrie stood with their tote bags full of literature. Paulette and Rose had all they could do to keep up as they passed out pro-life literature to the students before they crossed the street. As they were standing there, a truck pulled up, and while the driver was waiting for the signal to change, he yelled for a copy of the abortion packet. As he was reading it, he apparently overheard some bad language by some of the students and hollered at Rose and Paulette, "YOU DON'T HAVE TO TAKE THAT!"
 
     Shawn Jipp, Larry Lorenz and I were waiting for the kids as they walked into the parking lot area of the shopping center, which was the lunch time gathering place for the students. Most of them had received the literature by then, and soon the inevitable started happening - the question and answer session on abortion in which many of the students took part. Their questions revealed the humanistic teaching they were apparently receiving at the school and their lack of knowledge about God: "WHY DID GOD MAKE MARIJUANA IF HE DIDN'T WANT US TO USE IT?" - "WHAT ABOUT THE GIRL WHO HAS BEEN RAPED - WHY SHOULD SHE HAVE TO RUIN HER LIFE OVER THE BABY?" - "IF YOU WERE RAPED RIGHT NOW, WOULD YOU HAVE THE BABY?" The questions became so intense that several students were speaking at once. One young man shouted (with obscenities) to knock it off because he wanted to hear
 
     A young girl asked, "WHY DO WE CALL MARY A VIRGIN WHEN SHE WAS THE MOTHER OF JESUS?" At first I thought she was being blasphemous, and I refused to answer the question. Later she came to me again and said she really wanted to know the answer. I told her the birth of Jesus came about without a human father because the Holy Spirit overshadowed Mary to work a miracle. She seemed satisfied with the explanation.
 
     Toward the end of the lunch period, when most of the kids were leaving to return to school, a young man (about 19 years old) wearing a leather jacket approached me. "I JUST WANT TO TELL YOU THAT I ADMIRE YOUR GUTS IN DOING THIS. (MAYBE IT WAS BECAUSE OF THE BIBLE I WAS HOLDING UNDER MY ARM. I HAD GONE BACK TO THE CAR TO GET IT IN RESPONSE TO ONE OF THE STUDENT'S QUESTIONS.) "OH, I REALLY ENJOY TALKING TO THE KIDS - ESPECIALLY ABOUT JESUS," I answered. "I DON'T FEEL IT TAKES GUTS." "I REALLY CAN'T SEE GOD IN ANYTHING," he began. "OH, BUT I DO! I quickly answered. "LOOK AT THE HUMAN BODY." I showed him my finger (recently injured) with the slight scars on it showing the healing process. "ISN'T IT WONDERFUL THAT THE BODY REPAIRS ITSELF? I WAS LISTENING TO A COMMERCIAL ON TV THE OTHER DAY ABOUT CAMERAS. THE CAMERA BEING ADVERTISED WAS THE FASTEST OF ITS KIND - NEXT TO THE HUMAN EYE, THEY SAID. LOOK AT THE HEART AND OTHER ORGANS OF THE BODY - HOW MARVELOUSLY THEY WORK. DON'T YOU SEE THAT SOMEONE HAD TO PLAN THIS?" Then I witnessed to him about my relationship with Jesus Christ and the wonderful change it made in my life. "TAKE THIS LITTLE BOOKLET AND READ IT (SMILE - JESUS LOVES YOU)" as I tried to put it in his shirt pocket. It didn't fit so he put it in his pants pocket. "EVEN THOUGH YOU SAY YOU DON'T SEE GOD IN THE WORLD, START PRAYING TO JESUS - ASK HIM TO REVEAL HIMSELF TO YOU." He said he would. Later as I talked with Shawn and Larry who had also been speaking with him, they told me the young man said that he knew about the power of Satan.
 
A DAY IN SAN FRANCISCO
 
The following San Francisco schools were visited by members of VOICE FOR THE UNBORN on a Thursday afternoon in early October. (Earlier that same day we stood on a busy thoroughfare in front of SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY where students were coming and going in all directions. Approximately 800 pro-life packets were placed into the hands of university students.):
 
     Abraham Lincoln High School
 
     I began distributing literature to the large clusters of students talking and laughing, standing on all four corners of a residential street in San Francisco. At least three-fourths of them were black children. They were students at ABRAHAM LINCOLN HIGH SCHOOL, most of them waiting for school busses to come.
 
     One black student upon receiving the literature and looking at the pictures of abortions became so excited he could hardly talk: "WHY DON'T YOU DISTRIBUTE THIS ALL OVER THE SCHOOL." "ALL OVER THE SCHOOL! WHY DON'T YOU GO INSIDE AND GIVE IT TO THE SEX EDUCATION TEACHER?" I asked him whether or not he had seen pictures like this before. "NO!" he answered. "WELL, THAT'S BECAUSE THEY DON'T WANT YOU TO SEE THEM - THEY'RE TOO CONTROVERSIAL - AND THAT'S WHY WE HAVE TO STAND HERE ON THE SIDEWALK AND DISTRIBUTE THEM," I explained.
 
     Another black teenager became angry at seeing the pictures of abortions. "HOW CAN PEOPLE DO THIS?" he said to me with a shocked look on his face. A girl with a heavily painted face was irate at the mention of God in our literature. "THERE IS NO GOD!" she said. "YOU AND A LOT OF PEOPLE LIKE YOU HAVE BEEN BRAINWASHED INTO BELIEVING THAT THERE'S A GOD." "THERE IS A GOD WHETHER YOU BELIEVE IT OR NOT," I told her. "AND THERE'S A HEAVEN AND A HELL - WHETHER YOU BELIEVE IT OR NOT." Again she denied believing in Heaven or Hell as she began walking away. "WELL," I told her, "YOU HAD BETTER THINK ABOUT WHAT I'VE TOLD YOU ABOUT HELL, BECAUSE IF YOU DON'T CHANGE," calling after her, "THAT'S WHERE YOU'RE GOING." She continued to walk away
 
     St. Ignatius All Boys' Catholic School
 
     I dropped off Paulette Labrie in front of ST IGNATIUS SCHOOL as I looked for a parking place. I parked the car a block away from the school and proceeded to walk toward a steady stream of boys sauntering in my direction. They were above average in their behavior, most of them accepting it politely. I could see them studying it as I glanced back, some of them standing and sitting in groups..
 
     As I pulled up in front of Paulette after I had finished, she was just emptying her bag, and as we had just enough time to get to another school, we quickly pulled away. Paulette agreed with me that the boys were behaving well. "COULD IT BE THAT THEY ARE ACTING BETTER BECAUSE THE GIRLS ARE NOT THERE TO DISTRACT THEM?" she wondered. Paulette told me in her usual down-to-earth manner that she informed some of the boys that they were just as responsible as the girl when she has an abortion. "STAY PURE UNTIL YOU'RE MARRIED," she told them.
 
     A. P. Giannini Middle School
 
     It was our first visit to A. P. GIANNINI MIDDLE SCHOOL located just a short mile from the Pacific Ocean side of San Francisco. Busses were lined up in front of the school and around the corner as the kids proceeded to walk out in all directions. I walked as fast as I could to catch up with them as they came out along a pathway in front of the school headed for the busses.
 
     As I began to distribute our literature to the students, a tall, black male teacher confronted me with the words, "DID YOU GET PERMISSION TO PASS OUT THIS MATERIAL?" I told him my usual story about our civil rights, suggesting that he look into the matter for himself if he didn't believe me. He said he would as I handed him the literature, and he turned around headed toward the front of the school. A half-minute later I looked and saw him standing still, watching the kids coming out. Apparently, he had looked at the literature and decided not to pursue the matter. "HE PROBABLY AGREES WITH US," I said to myself.
 
     I began to hand large bunches of literature through the school bus windows to individual kids as many of them were already sitting in the busses. At my suggestion that they pass them out to the kids on the bus, they all agreed and kept asking me for more literature. Two black girls wanted more literature for their relatives. "SOME OF THEM ARE PREGNANT," they said.
 
"CAN'T YOU SEE WE'RE STONED?"
 
CAPUCHINO HIGH SCHOOL located in San Bruno, California is a tough school. We soon realized this as we stood around the corner exit - Larry Lorenz, Paulette Labrie, Luz Otico and I. The kids were headed for a Jack-in-the-Box Restaurant a block away on busy El Camino Real. Their language-particularly some of the girls-was gutter level. One small group of girls yelled their way across the streeet: "YOU'VE GOT NO RIGHT TO TELL US WHAT DO DO" interlaced with F___'s and profanity. They tore up some of the literature in little pieces as they took off down the street.
 
     Several cars driven by the students rolled by with their windows up. Some of them accepted the literature through their open windows with wisecracks and swearing. I noticed three boys sitting on a cement wall about a hundred feet away. In front of them lay several tiny torn-up pieces of literature. I approached them and picked up a few packets which were still intact. I began to talk to them. "WHY ARE YOU TALKING TO US? CAN'T YOU SEE WE'RE STONED?" one of them asked. "YES, I CAN SEE THAT," I answered. "BUT THERE ARE MORE IMPORTANT THINGS IN LIFE THAN DRUGS. I PREFER TO HAVE MY MIND CLEAR SO I CAN THINK - AND, MORE IMPORTANT THAN THAT - PRAY. WHAT DO YOU THINK ABOUT WHEN YOU'RE ALONE AT NIGHT AND YOU DON'T HAVE YOUR FRIENDS AROUND YOU TO SUPPORT YOU?" I asked. "YOU'RE BOTHERING US," one of them said. "GO AWAY." "I'M GLAD I'M BOTHERING YOU," I answered. "THAT'S WHY I'M HERE." Some more smart remarks followed. I had to talk louder in order to get my point across. "LISTEN," I said, "THE ONLY PER SON STRONG ENOUGH TO HELP YOU IS JESUS CHRIST. TRY CALLING HIS NAME WHEN YOU NEED HELP," I said. "HE IS THE CREATOR OF THE WORLD WE ARE LIVING IN. HE MADE YOU AND ME AND EVERYTHING IN IT. THERE'S A BETTER LIFE THAN THE ONE YOU'RE LEADING. BELIEVE ME, JESUS IS THE ANSWER." "WHY IS THIS GOD YOU BELIEVE IN PUTTING YOU THROUGH THIS?" one of the kids commented, referring to their outrageous behavior. "OH, I'M USED TO THIS," I said. "I'VE EVEN BEEN SPIT AT. I DO THIS BECAUSE I WANT YOU TO KNOW JESUS TOO. I REALLY CARE ABOUT YOU."
 
     At one point a group of girls was passing by. "HEY, YOU'RE THE CAUSE OF ALL THIS - WITH YOUR MINISKIRTS!!! one of the boys yelled. This was followed by an obscene comment. The girls seemed embarrassed as they kept walking. "REMEMBER ME AND WHAT I'VE SAID TO YOU KIDS. YOU DON'T NEED DRUGS. THERE'S A BETTER LIFE, AND THAT'S IN JESUS CHRIST," I said again. I could see that some of their antagonism had softened as they got up to go back to the classroom.