BETHANY, OK–The Children’s Center Rehabilitation Hospital, which the IPHC partners with as a trustee, recently dedicated its brand-new Adaptive Recreation and Fine Arts Center. Bishop Tommy McGhee, the IPHC’s board representative for the Children’s Center’s, joined Pastor John Reed and Children’s Center leadership in celebrating the milestone. (Watch a video report of the service on TCC’s YouTube page.)
“I’m always inspired when I come to this facility,” Bishop McGhee said of the Center. “There’s no better place in the world for [children] to receive this kind of care.”
According to the Children’s Center’s Web site, the new facility features an Activities of Daily Living (ADL) center, where children of differing abilities can explore, experiment and practice all of life’s important skills in a safe and realistic environment. It will also host recreational and arts facilities. This center is the first of its kind to be affiliated with a pediatric hospital.
Founded by Mattie Mallory as The Oklahoma Orphanage in 1898, the facility moved to the new town of Bethany in 1909. Mallory believed with George Mueller that God will provide for His work. “When the heart is filled with the joy of the Lord,” Mallory once said, “there is a heaven-born courage for the work He has put in our hands…a courage that knows no defeat because the Lord is with us. His joy fills our heart and strengthens us, for we realize if He is for us who can be against us?”
The Children’s Center’s history has borne out that truth. Mallory started the work with just 6 dollars, and God provided at every turn. The orphanage became a rehabilitation hospital for children in 1961. Despite financial instability that threatened the facility in the 1960s, the Center was able to continue–in part because of the IPHC’s intervention and partnership in 1968.
Today, the Children’s Center is one of the largest free-standing inpatient pediatric rehabilitation hospitals in the country. Each year, it provides medical services, rehabilitative care, social services and education to more than 1,500 children and teenagers with complex medical needs.
You can support the Children’s Center with your prayers (guide to prayer) and with your financial gifts.
