Healing Garden Ministries Inc

As children my wife and I were very sickly, spending more time in and out of hospitals than most people will do in a lifetime.  Our experiences as sick children and now working in the school systems have taught us that much hasn’t changed for sickly children.  They are still bullied, harassed, and often left to feel alone because they feel odd.  Nothing and usually no one around them represent them.  Some of these students are bright, vibrant, children locked in an unusual body.  Many of these children have unique gifts and talents lying just beneath the surface of their infirmities. Often their intellect is over looked because they walk, talk, or look different.   

   The Light at the End of the Tunnel fund will allow us to go to hospitals in all fifty states providing books with real life characters that represent children with challenges in a positive light.  Promoting literacy in spite of deficiencies with our lives as real life evidence as proof.  At the age of three a tumor the size of a tennis ball was discovered on my spine causing me to lose the ability to walk.  Through surgery my tumor was removed and thank God found to be non cancerous.  After surgery I was left with a pronounced gait.  For the next ten years I wore back braces for severe Scoliosis and a Forrest Gump leg brace.  Believe me you can’t break it by running. I was an alien to the other children, no one had ever seen anyone like me and this is the plight that we want to help to eradicate.   In spite of my pronounced gait I was able to find a place in society because I was given hope that my deficiency didn’t define me.  I have spent the last 25  five years as an ordained Pastor, served as a Chaplain for the Seminole County Sheriff Department, and gone to countless hospitals to encourage the sick with the message that God’s Grace is Sufficient in spite of your deficiency.   

   My wife was diagnosed with Epilepsy from 3 years old.  Her next 20 years were spent suffering through Grand mal seizures.  As a youth one of those seizures caused her to fall off a performance stage and landed her in a coma for five months.  The doctor’s prognosis was that she would never acquire over an eighth grade education.  In spite of the doctor’s negative prognosis, (even during her coma) she always dreamed of becoming a teacher. Today as an 18 year veteran teacher with BA in early childhood development/elementary education, and 48 hours in special education. She now feels the burden to help those who now have the task of overcoming a negative prognosis.  Against all odds she overcame her setbacks to accomplish her goals.   

    As a team we started Healing Garden Ministries Inc. to help those who are still sick and suffering with any deficiency.  The books that we author and illustrate have characters with deficiencies, but whose character, virtue, and positive attitude towards life allow them to overcome any and every obstacle.   We now feel the urgency to go back and leave some breadcrumbs in the form of books, free tutoring, and encouraging those who are still behind hospital walls everywhere to dream.  Our goal is to visit major children’s hospitals in all fifty states and Canada providing books, seminars on living with a pronounced deficiency, and hope for a brighter tomorrow.  As this calling is an expensive missionary act we are in need of donations for book publishing, travel, and lodging.  Please give to the Light at the End of the Tunnel Fund and in case you ever need us we’ll leave the Light at the End of the Tunnel on for you!