Tell Your Story
Share your connection with Bethesda and why helping people with intellectual and developmental disabilities matters to you!
Tell Your Story
Share your connection with Bethesda and why helping people with intellectual and developmental disabilities matters to you!
Read stories from supporters just like you!
Patricia: Thank you for all you do for this family
I write this on our daughter’s 53rd birthday and she has lived at Mosquero House in Mission Viego, California since December 1999. When she was...
Patricia: Thank you for all you do for this family
I write this on our daughter’s 53rd birthday and she has lived at Mosquero House in Mission Viego, California since December 1999. When she was born, the doctors said she would not live beyond adolescence, but God has been good and He has seen her through many life threatening circumstances. I was heartbroken when I left her there that day, but I knew it was right for her to seek some kind of independence and have her own life. Six month’s later, my husband had a heart attack, leading to many years of ill-health, when I would have been hard-pressed to care for them both.
I will be everlastingly grateful for the care with which Bethesda has blessed us all these years and I cannot imagine how we, as a family, would have survived without them, knowing that we could depend on them to give Frances the love and care she deserves. Since March 2020, the Day Program has been closed and Frances’ life, together with thousands of other’s has been upended. The burden has been placed on the shoulders of the Bethesda organization and I applaud their constancy and commitment to our loved-ones.
Thank you for all you do for this family and for hundreds of other families up and down the country, may you be allowed to continue this sterling service!
Paul: Remembering Thomas Boenisch
As a member of the Lutheran Church- MO Synod growing up we always heard about and had people visit to talk about it and the work that was done, but...
Paul: Remembering Thomas Boenisch
As a member of the Lutheran Church- MO Synod growing up we always heard about and had people visit to talk about it and the work that was done, but until I met my husband, I didn’t fully understand. His brother, Thomas Boenisch, lived there until his death. It was very hard for my in-laws to send him there from Sheboygan, WI. at the age of 8. They made many visits and brought him home for visits. He was a special groomsman for our wedding. He seemed to like it there most of the time. The school had a hard time placing him in the right section at times. He had a very low IQ, but mimicked everything he saw. He was VERY observant. Bethesda’s staff for the most was excellent at helping him to improve. They were cutting edge at the time Tom joined the school. You are still one of the leaders in teaching special education techniques. We still miss Tom and want to thank you for all the work that you do.
Andrea: Bethesda – Part of my Life – Always
I grew up in Watertown Wisconsin. Our home church Good Shepherd was quite involved with Bethesda. I volunteered there when I was old enough. My...
Andrea: Bethesda – Part of my Life – Always
I grew up in Watertown Wisconsin. Our home church Good Shepherd was quite involved with Bethesda. I volunteered there when I was old enough. My sister did too, and so did my Mom. She was a nurse. Every Christmas we went to Bethesda to help residents open gifts and keep record of what they got and who it was from. It was our way to share Jesus with others. Bethesda has always been close to my heart. My prayer is that every human is shown the love of Jesus and treated with respect and kindness.
William: What a Gift Bethesda Provided!
I knew of Bethesda and its ministry at an early age growing up in a Lutheran congregation in Neenah, Wisconsin. Years later as pastor of Redeemer...
William: What a Gift Bethesda Provided!
I knew of Bethesda and its ministry at an early age growing up in a Lutheran congregation in Neenah, Wisconsin. Years later as pastor of Redeemer Lutheran Church, Winona, MN, realizing the services provided developmentally challenged persons in our community was lacking any spiritual care, I contacted Bethesda for help. Bethesda responded by providing the services of a deaconess, who working with an ecumenical committee Redeemer formed, provided direction, materials and the training of volunteers to lead Christian education and worship for persons with disabilities in Winona County. Redeemer congregation has hosted this ecumenical ministry for the past twenty-five years. Another great benefit of Redeemer’s connection with Bethesda was the involvement of Redeemer’s youth who volunteered a week each summer at Camp Matz. It was a great bonding experience for our youth who came from different high schools. More importantly the experience of working with disabled persons was a life changer for our youth. They came back with a different perspective of life, as to what is really important and what really matters. At one time Redeemer youth had the most volunteer hours of any group serving the Camp. What a unique hands on experience Bethesda gave the youth of the parish that impacted their lives in a positive ways.
Pam: Bethesda inspired me!
In 1968- when I was a college student - I took a summer job at Bethesda. My provided recreation for non-ambulatory residents. I enjoyed it so much...
Pam: Bethesda inspired me!
In 1968- when I was a college student – I took a summer job at Bethesda. My provided recreation for non-ambulatory residents. I enjoyed it so much that I changed my college major so I could become a Special Ed teacher. I met many wonderfully special children during my career – thanks to Bethesda!
Pam: Teacher
In the summer of 1968, I worked at Bethesda. I was 20 and a college student. As a result of that experience, I switched schools so I could major in...
Pam: Teacher
In the summer of 1968, I worked at Bethesda. I was 20 and a college student. As a result of that experience, I switched schools so I could major in special education. I spent many years teaching special children, and I am now retired.
RoseMarie: The story of Winford.
I was going on 10 years of age when my brother Winford was born. My parents under a lot of pressure from so called friends and relatives put him in...
RoseMarie: The story of Winford.
I was going on 10 years of age when my brother Winford was born. My parents under a lot of pressure from so called friends and relatives put him in a Nursing home for “retarded people” for about 6 months. We kids kept asking where our brother was and they brought him home to live with us. Back then, the so called experts told my parents that he would maybe learn to feed himself but not tie his shoes. That he might only live to the age of 21. When he got to be about 6, my mother sent him to the country school where we went to but the teacher had never had anything to do with handicapped children and so never told him to sit down. She made my parents take him out because “he was disturbing the other children”. So my mother really got involved in the Retarded Citizens Association. With her help and others, they got a school going that helped my brother and others around that were like him. She also got a workshop set up for them and also a bowling team started. My husband and I were the teachers. When we started, we had about 10 different people and they had a lot of fun. We had picnics and parties. In Midland there was an organization that helped the handicapped and they had a bowling tournament once a year. We went there and they received trophies, lunch, and dancing. The people loved it. Then our county finally got really going and got many things going for all the handicapped people. My brother after he graduated from school went to work at a Workshop where he learned the machines so well, he was showing the so called helpers how to work the machines. After my mother died, I also helped my father with Winford. The Community Mental Health Authority was starting to be able to get some of these workers to help in the regular businesses. My brother went to work at the bowling alley for 3 days a week. He was there for about 10 or more years. They loved him and he did much more than they had him start with. But slowly, he was not able to keep up with all this. He went back to CMH and worked there and slowly that had to stop too. He was able to go to associate with others and also to another area unit that worked with the handicapped. But he got Alzheimer’s Disease, took medication to slow it but is now in Autumnwood in Deckerville, MI because I can no longer take care of him. When my father died, Winford came to live with me and was here for 16 years and my family loved him very much. My husband and I adopted 4 children and two of them are also somewhat handicapped. My husband also help start the Special Olympics in our county and got quite a few involved. My daughter worked at CMH and was taught many things. Then she went to work at McDonald’s and has been there for about 23 years. My son has been taught many things too and now works at a factory. So God has been good to all of us and our efforts. I am so thankful for Bethesda for helping these people all these years. They are so blessed.
Gary: Teaching others to give thanks
I lost my dad when I was only 9 yrs old when I was 27 I joined Lutheran Brotherhood to help others with Life Insurance and investments I learned...
Gary: Teaching others to give thanks
I lost my dad when I was only 9 yrs old when I was 27 I joined Lutheran Brotherhood to help others with Life Insurance and investments I learned about Good Shepherd Home and did some fund raising and loved the mission
Reuben: Rebekah works at Day Services Watertown
My daughter, Rebekah, has been going to the Watertown, WI Bethesda Workshop/Day Services program for the past 17 years - ever since she was 16. This...
Reuben: Rebekah works at Day Services Watertown
My daughter, Rebekah, has been going to the Watertown, WI Bethesda Workshop/Day Services program for the past 17 years – ever since she was 16. This is something she has always looked forward to doing and is a huge part of her life. Even though the jobs there can seem pretty basic to many, they match her ability level and she finds great satisfaction in being a part of the group and helping out each day. She comments repeatedly that she needs to go to work in order “To go help Judy”. She knows that people are counting on and depending on her to be there and to do her part. While she has not yet developed the skills needed to work in in the community, she has and continues to learn alot every day from the tasks and staff at the Day Services program. My wife and I are very thankful for the this program, as it has made a tremendous difference in our daughter’s life. I know that Rebekah is waiting very anxiously for Covid to settle down so that she can return to work soon.
Dan: Son Philip Goes to Bethesda By Elsie Lillian Kunert
Son Philip Goes to Bethesda By Elsie Lillian Kunert In 1947 our seventh of eight children arrived. Two years later, our 3rd child, Philip, was 12...
Dan: Son Philip Goes to Bethesda By Elsie Lillian Kunert
Son Philip Goes to Bethesda
By Elsie Lillian Kunert
In 1947 our seventh of eight children arrived. Two years later, our 3rd child, Philip, was 12 years old and by now the Lord was making me see that my steadfast refusal to even consider an institution for Philip (“How could anyone love my little boy the way I do?”) was not fair to him. He would stand at the window and cry when the other children left for school. “Why can’t I go to school, Mama?” “Well, honey, we’re asking the Lord to find a nice one for you.” At the time Detroit had no facilities for children with developmental and intellectual disabilities with the exception of an expensive private day school on the west side. Even if we’d been able to afford it, he could not have attended. They tested him and refused our application. “Too distractible”, they wrote.
Philip would go out to play and would come in crying, “They call me crazy, Mama!”. The older children – how cruel some can be – would laugh and jeer. The little ones, blissfully unaware, gladly accepted him, but their parents were understandably apprehensive. In the house Philip played boisterously with Danny, Gracie, Mark and Chuckie, his younger siblings, but sometimes it was disastrous. Always good-humoredly, he would coax them to the top of the stairs leading to the second floor, and then gleefully push them down. Once, outside, he pulled his little red wagon up to Harper Avenue and calmly walked into the busy traffic, narrowly escaping injury. Another time he was struck by a car in front of our home. The result was that we felt he could no longer be left outside alone, so he was confined to our yard, with the gates secured with rope. Then he would shake the gates forcibly and cry in a loud voice, “They lock me up!”
A reverse incident – working in the kitchen one day I heard Grace and Philip up in the bathroom directly above and connected by a sort of inter-com provided by a clothes chute. They were evidently “playing house” and their giggling ricocheted down the metal lining of the chute. Gracie, a very tiny four year old was always “Mama” and Philip her little boy. How she loved to pretend. She even mothered me. If she thought I was working too hard, she would push me into a big easy chair and say. “Now just wewax, Mama, just wewax!”
But I was concerned about their playing in the bathroom. There were too many possibilities of danger there. I knocked on the “inter-com”, “Grace and Philip, come down and play in the sun-room!” Suddenly a blood curdling scream propelled me up the stairs – to find the bathroom door locked! The screams – Philip’s, I knew – continued as I tried to coax Grace to unlock the door. Frightened, too, it took her a few moments. I found Philip sitting in the tub in scalding water (Grace could only reach the hot water handle) – his little buttocks and feet so badly burned that for weeks he lay naked on his stomach on a bed in the sun-room, an improvised “tent” from which a light bulb hung his only covering. Large 12-inch square pads spread thickly with ointment were applied at intervals after the pitifully burned area was delicately sponged with a disinfectant. The deep scars never disappeared.
But God was working and, having heard of the fine facilities for children (with disabilities) at Bethesda Lutheran Home in Watertown, Wisconsin, we made application for Philip’s entrance. It was strange that despite our life-long connection with the Lutheran Church we had never heard of Bethesda. Evidently their waiting list was so long that they shunned publicity. And the same waiting list dampened our hopes. “Yes, we will consider taking Philip, but it will be at least 2 or 3 years”.
Little by little, in God’s dealings with us, we come to lean harder on His promises. “My grace is sufficient”. . . . “He will not suffer you to be tested above that you are able to bear it but will . . . . make a way of escape. . . ”
My “way of escape” came several weeks later when another letter arrived from Bethesda. “We have reviewed Philip’s case”, it stated, “and because of all the little children in the family we have reconsidered. As soon as you are able to submit complete physical and dental records to us, Philip will be accepted.”
And so in April of 1949, Dad and Philip and I drove to Watertown. We took Philip directly to the office of the large complex of buildings bordering the Rock River on the outskirts of town. To make sure that Bethesda could be trusted with the life and nurture of our precious little boy, Al and I stayed at a small hotel in town for 3 days and spent part of each day observing Philip’s reactions, inspecting the facilities, and getting acquainted with the staff. Our first tour through the wards was a shaking experience for me. The tears ran down my face uncontrollably, partly I suppose at the prospect of leaving Philip, partly because I had never seen such a great number of people with developmental and intellectual disabilities. In my many successive visits I learned that for the most part they were very happy people.
In recent years, a number of NBC documentaries have documented the excellent care, high standards and happy atmosphere at Bethesda, and that was certainly our impression. But just then my senses were numb at the sight of so many with such disabilities. And now the trauma of having to leave Philip was an agony I felt I couldn’t bear. But how good God is! I’ve used the phrase before, “He tempers the wind to the shorn lamb”, but nothing else so aptly expresses His mercy to the vulnerable. Instead of our leave taking being unbearable, it took an almost humorous twist. Philip had arrived at Bethesda three days before, and the boys in his ward had been primed for his coming, and so instead of the rejection he had felt at home, he was surrounded by eager faces and welcoming gestures; “Hi Philip!, we’re really glad you’re here! We’ll be your buddies!”. This was a wonderful new adventure for Philip, and he was reveling in it. They were not abnormal to him, and he was not abnormal to them. And so, while I was tremulously trying to formulate a suitable farewell speech without breaking down, Philip’s attitude was almost, “Let’s get this over with, Mama, you’re cramping my style!”. It certainly changed the atmosphere and I left with a lighter heart than I had thought possible earlier, and confident that our loving Heavenly Father was again proving Romans 8:28 a reality.
(Submitted by Daniel Kunert, Member of the Bethesda Lutheran Communities Auxiliary Board)
Donna: For Mom
Donna Hedin knew at the tender age of three that she wanted to be a nurse when she grew up. And for an astounding 50 years, she did just that,...
Donna: For Mom
Donna Hedin knew at the tender age of three that she wanted to be a nurse when she grew up. And for an astounding 50 years, she did just that, caring for people of all ages at Children’s Minnesota Hospital in St. Paul. During her career, she personally helped the smallest and most vulnerable of babies.
Over the years, Donna observed how advances in technology gave more preemie babies than ever the chance to survive. Yet many go on to have special challenges, including intellectual and developmental disabilities that last a lifetime. While people with these disabilities may receive support as children, when they become adults they can be left to fend for themselves – and their needs can go unmet.
“I saw a lot of babies that would need the help of Bethesda,” said Donna. This is why Donna has chosen Bethesda as a place she has entrusted her charitable dollars.
It turns out Donna is not the only person in her family who has had a special place in her heart for Bethesda. “I was really close with my mom – she was very important to me,” Donna shared. “I didn’t have any idea she liked Bethesda!”
And like Bethesda she did. Lynora Hedin gave many gifts to her favorite charity, dating all the way back to 1975. “I’m really proud of my mom for doing that,” Donna said.
Today, in retirement, Donna continues that tradition of giving in honor of her mom, and is involved with Bethesda in many ways. Her gifts have helped many important projects and have enhanced the supports we provide. Donna has visited the Watertown campus, including the original chapel, as well as Camp Matz. Naturally, Donna also talks to her friends about Bethesda whenever she can.
Dennis Vanden Heuvel, development director for Bethesda, has known Donna for years and greatly appreciates her commitment to Bethesda. “Donna is so generous, but in the end she wants to know that her generosity has a purpose,” he said.
Through her ongoing engagement with Bethesda, Donna is adding to her 50 years of caring, and continuing to impact lives along the way. “Bethesda services aren’t going away because the needs aren’t going away,” she said