Hope Pregnancy Centers of Brazos Valley is a well-known resource for men and women attending Texas A&M in College Station and Blinn College in Bryan, Texas. The pregnancy center has been seeing clients for 30 years, and in those three decades they have served more than 25,000 women and men. What began as a small pregnancy resource center near a Planned Parenthood abortion mill in Bryan has grown into a health center with multiple locations, volunteer doctors, full-time nurses, and many resources beyond pregnancy testing, counseling, and support.
Executive Director Tracy Frank displays some of the many baby supplies offered to clients.
Even with the addition of more medical services, STD testing, and post-abortive healing and counseling, Hope has not lost their ministry’s central focus. Executive Director Tracy Frank says, “Sharing the Gospel with people in crisis is the most important mission that we have.” Located in a university town, the center sees students from across Texas and the nation. They also see many international students facing a crisis pregnancy far away from home in a culture they don’t yet understand. While the mission of Hope is Christian, they serve people of all faiths, and Frank says they have maintained a reputation as a nonjudgmental place students can go for help.
In 2013, Hope had a unique opportunity to expand: After years of Pro-Life prayers, Planned Parenthood in Bryan closed. Though the task was difficult, the directors of Hope Pregnancy Center succeeded in purchasing the building that once was an abortion mill and began a transformation and expansion that has resulted in blessing for the community.
This room in the STD testing center was formerly a place of death, and the metal revolving door is the same door through which abortion mill workers passed the bodies of babies killed in abortion from the procedure room into the lab for examination.
Client Services Director Licia Kim describes how their many volunteers, who for years had prayed outside the Planned Parenthood building, bathed the center in prayer and wrote Scripture on the walls. These prayer warriors brought new life and hope to what had been a place of death. With more space, Hope was able to offer new services to the students in need of resources. Pro-Life physicians, Drs. Noreen Johnson and Haywood Robinson, volunteer and supervise Testing 4 U, a free STD testing service.
Drs. Noreen Johnson and Haywood Robinson
The new testing center opened last fall in the former Planned Parenthood building. Frank says, “It provided a totally unique model of cooperation, collaboration, showed a redemption for a building…and allowed us to provide those services in a very clean and sleek way that would be attractive to those college students who really need to be encouraged to do what they need to do to be tested.” Having physicians on the premises with whom to consult has been a great asset for the center. Kim says, “I think it’s really neat working with our doctors here.” She added that having them available to ask questions provides immediate assistance to their nurses and offers assurance to the young clients seeking medical advice.
While the expansion and development of Hope Pregnancy Center and Testing 4 U has been a success, Frank admits that they have had many struggles, including a shortage of funding. Hope offers services free of charge to all clients, regardless of the center’s budget. The blessing hidden in their struggle, says Frank, is that they have shared their story. If Hope had all the funding they needed, they would be busy helping students and the local community. Because they need to share their story in order to raise funds to continue their work, Frank hopes that people in other towns will realize that they, too, can transform their communities. As the workers and volunteers of Hope Pregnancy Center continue to serve their clients, their story of faith and transformation inspires Pro-Lifers in Texas and across the nation. To learn more about Hope and to partner with them in their ministry, visit their website, www.partnerwithhope.org.
