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Rev. Flip Preaches Message to Abortionist's Neighbors

Nightmare on Nevis Road

Put yourself in their shoes.

You’ve worked hard to get where you are:  namely in the quietly upscale Bethesda neighborhood of Bannockburn, where a typical home, nestled on a large, wooded lot, goes for a million or so, and at least one Porsche or Mercedes Benz sits in the driveway.

It’s a tranquil, peaceful neighborhood, where everyone minds their own business – until last March, when this pack of fanatic anti-choicers suddenly shows up with their big, lurid signs of aborted fetuses, claiming that one of your neighbors is an abortionist.

Well, so what?  That’s his business, isn’t it?

You scream your sentiments at the fanatics when you drive by them.  You call the police, who come, but say they can’t make them leave – First Amendment rights, for heaven’s sake!

Every month after that, these religious nuts have shown up with their signs.

But August is almost over, and you think – you hope! – that this month, maybe they won’t come.

On Saturday, August 28, a little before 9:00 in the morning, a huge, white horse trailer, followed by three smaller vehicles, turns off River Road onto Nevis Road.

They park at the first intersection and unload their passengers:  a dozen or so people, two horses and a donkey.

The group assembles at 7116 Nevis Road, home of Earl McLeod, self-proclaimed aborter of 200,000 babies, target and out-of-court settler of two wrongful death lawsuits.

The Rev. Flip Benham, head of Operation Save America, leads the white horse, which bears a saddle blanket with the word, “Judgment.”

Curtis Fenison follows with a brown horse, whose blanket reads, “Justice.”  Pastor Rusty Thomas leads the donkey, with “Mercy” printed on its blanket.

Jonathan Benham, Flip’s 13-year-old son, carries a “broken” model of the Ten Commandments, and a young girl carries a small coffin representing a baby killed by abortion.

This group is on the final day of their Walk Across America Prophetic Tour, which began in San Clemente, California, in March and, six months and 2,400 walking miles later, has reached its ultimate destination:  Washington, D.C.

With their “living parable,” they say, they are painting a graphic picture and a warning for the nation:  We have broken God’s laws, and we will suffer His judgment and justice; but if we repent and turn to Him, He will have mercy on us.

Missy Smith, who has been coordinating the local protest against McLeod, invited them to make this extra stop at Bannockburn.

“We thought we should utilize the energy that would come with them,” she explains.

As they assemble on the roadway, an irate resident confronts them.

“You are disturbing our peaceful community!” he charges.

Pastor Flip tells the man that it is really McLeod who is disturbing their peace.

“He is no respecter of the ‘neighborhood’ where little baby boys and girls reside,” says Flip.  “He doesn’t even knock on their door.  He enters their neighborhood with a suction machine and rips off their arms and legs!”

At 9:00 a.m. Missy arrives at the entrance to Bannockburn, parks her car just off River Road and is surprised to learn by cell phone that the group is already at McLeod’s.

She runs down Nevis Road to catch up with them.

When she arrives, Pastor Flip calmly hands her his horse’s leash.

“Here, you take care of him,” he tells her, then boldly walks up McLeod’s front walk and rings his doorbell.

No answer.  Benham glances over and sees a man washing a Bentley parked in McLeod’s driveway.

“Do you know that a murderer lives here?” – an abortionist, he tells the man.

The man is taken aback.  He is a good Christian, he tells Benham, an off-duty policeman – and it is McLeod’s wife’s car he is washing.

By now, many of McLeod’s neighbors have come out of their houses to gawk.  Their initial astonishment quickly turns to anger.

Two police cars arrive, with four officers.

“Do something!” a woman in a bathrobe implores them.

“They said we had to keep moving, so we just kept walking around and around in a circle, in front of McLeod’s house,” says Missy.

“One woman was going crazy.  She kept running back and forth on her porch, screaming, ‘Get out of here!’ at the top of her lungs.

“Flip told her, ‘It’s all right, calm down, we’re just telling everybody there’s a murderer in the neighborhood.’”

Another agitated neighbor tells a woman in the group that she has had an abortion herself.

“It was sad; these women were so distraught,” says Missy.

Throughout the neighbors’ firestorm of anger, Reverend Flip and Pastor Rusty remain calm, even cheerful.  They are used to this:  nasty confrontations with pro-abortion and pro-gay opponents were the norm on their cross-country hike.

“They were very comfortable,” says Missy.  “They would evangelize – talk about Jesus.”

Their audience is in no mood to listen.

At one point, Pastor Flip remarks with a half-grin, “I don’t think they like Jesus in this neighborhood.”

But the heat and humidity are debilitating, and the Walk Across America team are hot and tired.  They are also eager to move on to their final stop.

So they load their animals and themselves back into their trucks, and head for the White House.