Orchards pregnancy center opens doors at strategic location

By JOHN FORTMEYER
CNNW publisher

    ORCHARDS, Wash. – Strategically placed next door to a Planned Pa-renthood clinic, a new pregnancy care center here will work to save unborn babies’ lives.
    Four years of prayer came to fruition on May 3 as more than 200 guests, friends, and dignitaries attended the opening of the Options 360° Pregnancy Clinic in Orchards.
    The vision to open a pregnancy resource center at this location had begun some four years earlier when Dr. Bob Semuth took out a seven-year lease on the office space at 5500 N.E. 109th Court. His desire, as well as that of many others, was to see a pregnancy resource center move to the location because it would share a common wall with Planned Parenthood. People began to pray at the office space weekly for God to work out the details.
    Last fall, Semuth contacted Renee Wooten, the executive director of the Battle Ground Pregnancy Resource Center, and asked if she would like to assume his lease to open a new office in Orchards.
    Wooten contacted KPDQ talk host Georgene Rice in Portland to initiate a giving campaign to raise the $150,000 needed to secure the office space, do the build out and take care of the legal paperwork.
    In a step of faith, Wooten told KPDQ listeners that if they fell short of the $150,000 needed, all their money would be returned. The radio campaign began Oct. 1, 2006 and ran for two weeks. On Oct. 15 the final gifts were counted and the community responded with $151, 000.
    Legal paperwork began in January with remodeling starting in March and the grand opening on May 3. Rice broadcast live from the new office, and state Sen. Joe Zarelli and Larry Gadbaugh, executive director of Pregnancy Resource Centers of Portland congratulated Wooten and the Options 360° staff on the new location and the impact it will have next door to Planned Parenthood.
     At the end of the day— 7:15 pm after the center closed — 10 staff, board members and spouses held hands and prayed, thanking God for answered prayer.