“From Life to Death”

My husband and I have been involved in starting crisis pregnancy centers in several counties in North Carolina. Ed is a pastor and we felt the call to come to Fayetteville, North Carolina. We started the Agape Pregnancy Support Services in a house on Cedar Creek Road. After we had been there for two years something happened to change our location. Fayetteville was the home of an abortion clinic that had been there for twenty-seven years. Many thousands of babies died in that clinic. Many Christians in the community would drive by the clinic and pray that the doors would close. God did answer their prayers and the doors of the clinic closed. The building was abandoned and the homeless would sneak into the building at night. It was a horrible place.

One night I was restless so I decided to read. My daughter had given me a book called “The Dream Giver” by Dr. Bruce Wilkerson. In the book the author talks about getting out of our comfort zone and walking in faith. The next morning God asked me to get out of my comfort zone and go purchase the old abortion clinic. I told God I didn’t want that building. I asked if He didn’t have a new building we could have. I said, “Lord this is a place of death.” God said, “I have a special plan for this place. I am going to take back what Satan has used for evil and redeem it. I will bring life from this place and it will bring glory and honor to me.” I called the number on the building and asked the price. The price was $120,000. I reminded God that I was a kindergarten teacher and I only had a few dollars until payday. I knew that God would have to provide the money. God promised if we walked by faith, He would provide the money.

Ed and I went to the old building; it was a horrible mess. It was trashed with drug needles; beer, wine, and liquor bottles; rags, condoms, and human feces where the homeless had stayed. The windows were boarded up and it was very dark. We walked into the building carrying flashlights. You could feel the demonic powers in the place. We walked through the building shining the light into each room. each room had a plan and God revealed what it would be used for. At the back of the building, there were two procedure rooms with Formica walls and drainage in the floor. One procedure room had equipment left with blood on it and blood on the Formica walls. I stood at the door feeling as if I was going to throw up. God said, “You have to go into the room. You must feel what I feel.” As I walked into the room, I could feel the pain and sorrow. I heard the babies crying because they didn’t get to live the life God had planned for them. They were also crying because they missed their moms. I heard the moms crying because they had killed their children. The third voice I heard in the room was my Lord and Savior weeping for all that was lost. My answer was “Yes”. He reminded me that it would be hard and the cost would be great. The answer was still “Yes!”

One month later my mom died. God revealed that these two procedure rooms would be an ultrasound room and the other a chapel. The chapel would be a place for women to come and find forgiveness for their abortions. It would be a place to come out of the darkness into the light of Jesus. A man in our church did purchase the building and we make payments each month. (Today, the mortgage is paid off.) We started working on the building. We anointed every room in the building. We prayed, painted, and cleaned all for the glory of Jesus.

The first room to get the boards off the windows was the chapel. As the boards came off, the light of Jesus flooded the chapel and the building. You could feel that Jesus had reclaimed what the enemy had for a season. I told my husband, “Look Honey, there goes the Devil with his packed bags and he will not be coming back to this place.”

The Agape Pregnancy Support Services is on the tough side of town. We have prostitutes, drug addicts, pimps, and the homeless walking the street in front of the building. I had a dear Christian lady ask me if I knew what side of town the center was in. I smiled and said, “Yes, I do. I am exactly where Jesus would be.” We know that God has placed us in this place. We are able to minister to the people of the streets and our clients. I see God taking people from death to life eternally just as He did with this old abortion clinic. God is the author of Life both physical and eternal.

-Helen McLeod Rogers, director of Agape Pregnancy Support Services

Published with her permission from “God Loves You Better Than Mac and Cheese” Copyright 2012