Prayer is a vital aspect of pregnancy help ministry, and one Maryland clinic uses a distinctive space to engage the Lord on behalf of clients, staff, and community.
The Women’s Clinic in Severna Park, Md., located eight miles north of Annapolis, between Baltimore and Washington, D.C., needed a new location. Prayer brought the leadership to a then-unprecedented site.
The Women’s Clinic occupies a former late-term abortion facility called Gynecare Center. When the Women’s Clinic team took over the building, they discovered the Gynecare staff departed abruptly, leaving several items.
“They left behind client records, private client records,” said Pamela Palumbo, executive director of three Maryland pregnancy help medical clinics, including the Women’s Clinic at Severna Park.
“They left behind blood stains on the floor,” Palumbo said. “They left behind notes on the sink of how they operate. It was very dark and foreboding as far as the atmosphere.”
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Prior to moving into the former abortion facility, which was four times larger than the pregnancy clinic’s location, but also four times more expensive, Palumbo said, the staff and board sought guidance from God.
“I brought it before the board,” she said. “We have a very prayerful board.” “They met and prayed,” said Palumbo, “and they came back unanimous that we should reach out with the seeds the Lord had shown us, that we should stretch our tent pegs out, and seize the land as He has shown us, and redeem it for the Lord. So, we went ahead and signed the contract.”
That was not the end of prayer regarding the building.
“We had a prayer service in which we specifically invited numerous pastors in the area,” Palumbo said. “Everybody that came showed up with Bibles and scriptures and went to all the rooms, praying over the rooms and wrote scriptures everywhere. Then we started renovations.”
All this took place in 2006. Seventeen years later, the pro-life clinic remains open, and prayer continues to be a vital part of the ministry.
A special room of prayer
Although the building was renovated 17 years ago, one room stayed as it was – and remains the same today.
“There was one particular room that had a large accordion door to it,” said Palumbo. “This was where they did the later term abortions, where they would need stretchers to come out of that room.”
“In that particular room, there were also considerable blood stains on the floor,” she said, “and we made the decision that we would not renovate that room, that we would leave it like it was.”
“We got a large rug and covered up the blood stains,” Palumbo said, “but we left everything there, including the mounting for the suction machine on the wall and … it became our prayer room.”
A room of darkness is now a room of light, love, and prayer.
“There are Bibles on the table and a container of pencils for people to write scriptures on the walls, and it’s continued like that to this day,” Palumbo said.
The former abortion room continues to speak to people new to the ministry, from teens to older adults.
“We've had new pastors in the area, and, while to us this is kind of old news, it’s not to them,” Palumbo said.
“We've been able to have them come in and give them tours over those 17 years,” she said. “There are youth groups that still come – they came back then, too. Now it's almost a whole new generation of teens.”
is a reminder of the abortions committed there
Women's Clinic
“It's a very sobering place to be,” said Palumbo. “But it's also very powerful and beautiful, to come in and be able to sit there and pray and see the place that was once death and darkness turned into a place of light and life.”
In 2018, football great Benjamin Watson and his wife toured the Severna Park Women’s Clinic, then known as the Pregnancy Clinic. The couple witnessed first-hand the transformed building and the untouched late-term abortion room, altered only by scripture verses and a large rug. Each wrote their own words on the walls, adding the light of Christ to a room once filled with horror.
When the Women’s Clinic first opened, women would call or walk in, seeking an abortion, believing Gynecare still occupied the building. That hasn’t changed.
“It's rare, but we still get people calling,” she said.
“We've had people walk in that said, ‘This is where I had my abortion before.’ or girls that said, ‘My mom had her abortion here,’” said Palumbo. “That place was in existence for a long time. We've been here for 17 years, almost a whole generation already.”
Recent changes
In those years, some changes have taken place.
“We have undergone two rebrandings in the last few years,” Palumbo said.
Once known as Pregnancy Clinic Ministry, the umbrella organization’s official name is now Wellspring Life Ministry. And what was known as the Pregnancy Clinics is now Women’s Clinics. There are three locations: Annapolis, Bowie, and Severna Park, the building that once housed an abortion clinic.
A family nurse practitioner started working in May. She rotates between the three centers, providing well-women services and STD testing, including HIV. Hiring such a professional was another answer to prayer, Palumbo said.
“We trusted and began praying, and now we have this sweet, darling nurse practitioner that helps and only wanted a few hours that we could afford,” she said. “I think it's going to be another game changer for us in the community. We're really happy.”
“A lot of these women receiving our well-women services are very likely some of our future clients,” She added. “And we're going to have an opportunity to build a relationship with them. If they can see us and trust us, they're going to share that information with their circle of influence as well with women in the communities that we serve.”
The power and armor of prayer
About 1,200 new clients are seen at the three pregnancy help medical clinics every year, Palumbo said. Numbers dipped between COVID and the Dobbs decision, but are scaling back up to normal levels, she said.
“We see a high percentage every single day of abortion-minded women,” Palumbo said. “They are calling and coming in, and so our prayer every day when we start is for those women.”
There is power in prayer, especially persistent prayer, and that should be a daily habit, said Palumbo. Persistence honors God. The Dobbs decision overturning Roe v. Wade, while it took nearly 50 years, showcases the power of persevering prayer. That power is also revealed in pregnancy help ministry work.
“We just need remind ourselves to buckle up with the full armor of God every day before we go to battle,” Palumbo said. “In doing that, we can bring glory to God.”
