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Hope is rising up from a dead-end street; rejoice!
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June 5, 2024
I’ve been waiting for a long time to write this column, and I rejoice in the writing of it!
Recently, an early-rising sidewalk advocate friend sent me a photo of the corner where we pray on Wednesdays for an end to abortion in the Red River Valley. The photo told me all I needed to know. The demolition has begun!
Let me go back a bit so you can enter more fully into my joy.
Not long after Roe vs. Wade fell, the local abortuary, the Red River Women’s Clinic, which had been operating in an old building in downtown Fargo, fled from North Dakota to set up camp in the neighboring state of Minnesota, just across the Red River.
The “clinic” had been anticipating for a while that it might need to exit our state. After years of legal battles, the signs were clear: North Dakotans don’t want abortion. They knew their days were numbered, so they began plotting their flight in advance.
The move happened quickly as they garnered support from near and far from those who’ve lost sight of the value and dignity of every human life. Sadly, I even noticed a former college roommate, now in the Twin Cities, begging support on social media for the facility that would have gladly robbed her of her children, had she not wanted them.
It’s been a couple years now, and so many people have asked me, “How’s it going at the new place?” I have shared the many differences of going from a city-center environment to praying at a desolate, dead-end street in nearby Moorhead; a neighborhood known for its illegal drug operations and other criminal activity.
It’s not a pretty place. But in that dark corner, where abortion workers have rejoiced over how greatly they’ve been able to confine our voices, God is about to show up in a big way.
The photo my friend Dave sent that day showed the building, just across the narrow street from the brick building where babies’ lives are lost each week, and where women’s souls are forever scarred, now reduced to a pile of debris; the results of the flattening of the abandoned building, which had likely been a shelter for drug users, as indicated by a recent local police raid.
It is there, in this space just feet from the Red River Women’s Clinic, that a new Women’s Care Center will soon be erected, thanks to the local pro-life community. Yes, that’s you!
Here’s the beauty of it all. Because this spot is a dead end, there will be no way for drivers to pass by without noticing the pro-life facility offering life-giving alternatives, resources and love just feet from the spot where the bodies of small children are callously discarded each week.
Every vehicle and its human contents, along with any passersby on foot, will be met with a stark option: life or death. Whether they are there to contemplate abortion, or simply passing by on their way to one of the nearby apartments, people who come to this area will be met with the real choice, as it is laid out in Deut. 30:19: “I call heaven and earth today to witness against you: I have set before you life and death, the blessings and the curse. Choose life, then, that you and your descendants may live.”
From the beginning of the change, from praying for abortion in the city center to this stark, lonely corner, where hell seems to thrive, we believed that somehow, God would show up. We have been patiently waiting for him, and his people, to bring hope; for his new life to be more evident. It has been a long wait filled with shovels scraping on pavement to drown our voices, and threats by escorts.
We have stood firm, and often, still, awaiting a sign. And it is here, in the sticks and cracked paint chips of a tired, useless shack, which is about to become a center of life, unavoidably close to the spot where death dances.
Rejoice, and get behind this project as you can. It is time for the people of God to make our hearts known, and to be the hands and feet of Christ in the most visible, vibrant way. Thank you in advance for whatever way you will play a part in this new life rising up!
To donate to the new Women’s Care Center, visit www.supportwomenscarecenter.org/locations/north-dakota-2/.
