In the coming week people from all over New Zealand will participate in the largest ever world-wide 40 Days for Life.
40 Days for Life is a worldwide simultaneous prayer vigil that takes place outside local abortion centres with the intention of saving lives and to bring about the end of abortion through prayer, fasting and peaceful witness.
With 507 cities joining together in prayer and fasting for this most important intention, the effort will be a great grace for New Zealand and for the world.
This Lent, 40 Days for Life vigils will take place in Auckland, Wellington, and Christchurch from Wednesday 26 February until Sunday 5 April.
Participants have a massive impact on the local community as they peacefully stand and witness to the precious gift of life and the role of the community to be there in a woman’s greatest hour of need.
Lives are saved
To date, six lives are known to have been saved throughout New Zealand because of the prayerful sacrifice of hundreds of prayer volunteers. These are the known lives saved.
It has been noted by those who promote abortion that appointment no-shows increase when there is a vigil outside an abortion centre.
Robert Colquhoun, Director of International campaigns, recounts an encounter with a British Pregnancy Advisory Service (BPAS) employee who approached prayer volunteers at one UK vigil. “Your prayers are obviously working” the employee stated “because the girls aren’t keeping their appointments.”1
In Auckland, we have first-hand confirmation of how one woman decided against abortion because people were praying and present – offering hope – at the time her abortion was scheduled.
In 2018, at the beginning of the 40 Days for Life vigil outside AMAC, a young woman approached the prayer volunteers and shared her story.
The woman thanked them for being present and being a prayerful witness to life. Then she explained that the year before she had an appointment at AMAC to abort her newly conceived baby. However, when she turned up, people were praying and she was curious. Without telling anyone of her predicament, this searching young woman joined the prayer volunteers as she decided what to do.
When it came time to leave, she told vigil participants a year later, “I didn’t cross the road to keep my appointment. I got into my car and went home.”
“Today my son is 3 months old. Thank you!”
New Zealand needs prayer now more than ever before
In Deuteronomy we read that if we choose life our descendants will live (cf. Deut. 30:19). Our government has chosen death. Conversion of heart, embracing God’s law, is now the only real answer to the devastation that lies ahead.
Just how extensive the culture of death has pervaded our society became evident on Thursday night when Dame Margaret Sparrow was announced New Zealander of the Year. This woman literally has the blood of New Zealand’s children on her hands. Only a depraved society that has lost its way could celebrate such violence and inhumanity.
40 Days for Life is not a political protest. We can, however, use our time in contemplation and prayer at the abortion centres to pray for our political leaders, our medical practitioners and all those who perpetuate the injustice of abortion, both at the national and local levels.
Participants are encouraged to pray for the conversion of known abortionists and advocates, such as our Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern, Justice Minister Andrew Little and Dame Margaret Sparrow. We can and must pray that they will have the scales removed from their eyes, their hearts softened so that their souls may be saved.
The extreme ideological Abortion Legislation Bill is due to have its second reading in Parliament in two weeks. The proposed law dehumanises unborn children and ratifies their violent destruction. It denies the harm abortion inflicts on women and on families, preferring to celebrate so-called “women’s rights”.
Further, it attempts to suppress the freedom of medical practitioners in carrying out their duties in a way that respects their conscience. Also denied is the right of people to peacefully assemble to pray and offer practical assistance outside of abortion centres.
Divine Providence has seen that New Zealand would be shrouded in this most important prayer during this horrific historical moment.
The remedy to the abhorrent culture of death is found in Scripture:
“If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”
2 Chronicles 7:14-16
Join hundreds of participants in your local city and be a sign of hope!
Every day in New Zealand abortion takes the life of 36 pre-born babies.2
Will you stand for just one hour for one of them?
Will you stand for his or her mother who at that moment feels alone and that she has no other choice but to have an abortion? You may be her last sign of hope in this, her greatest hour of need.
Please join this positive, peaceful witness to the precious gift of life in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch. Be a sign of hope and help save lives!
Sign up and register your availability today!
Each vigil site has its own prayer hours. In order to assist with organisation, those who wish to participate are urged to contact their local vigil co-ordinator to register the time they will be present.
Auckland:
Sign up online at 40daysforlife.com/auckland
or contact Michelle Kaufman 027 526 1199, michelle@fli.org.nz
Wellington:
Sign up online at 40daysforlife.com/wellington
or contact Clare McClean 021 231 7954, clare.fli@xtra.co.nz
Christchurch:
Sign up online at 40daysforlife.com/christchurch
or contact Tony Jenkinson 022 507 3860, tonyjenkinson28@gmail.com
1 Carney, S.D. (2018). The beginning of the end of Abortion: 40 inspiring stories of God changing hearts and saving lives. Cappella Books.
2 This number illustrates the average number of lives lost every single day of the year when the 2018 reported surgical and medical abortions are divided by 365 days. In 2018, the Abortion Supervisory Committee reported 13,282 abortions. This figure divided by 365 amounts to 36 lives lost every day. More than a classroom of children.
Dear Michelle, wonderfully said thankyou. may God bless you from Anne