Dr. Bill and Susan Morehouse
A message from Dr. Bill
(given at the 2018 Annual Banquet on April 2)
Before Susan and I met in the early 1970s, we were both apprehended by the Lord’s grace and independently surrendered our troubled lives to Jesus Christ. I was a caring but spiritually confused family physician fresh out of training who was working hard serving as the medical director of an inner city poverty clinic in Rochester, and she was pursuing her undergraduate premedical studies in Indiana.
Over the next couple years after our conversions, we were each sovereignly given visions of a place that we had never seen before, a clinic where patients could be comprehensively cared for and experience the love of Christ in a safe space. Sharing this vision became part of our courtship and engagement, and discovering its outworking has been a commonly-held feature of our marriage and family life for the past 40 years.
During that time our lives, family, neighborhood, community and nation have gone through many changes. Changes in the ministries of His Branches – comprehensive family medicine, sexual counseling, and community outreach – have been dramatic, especially in recent years. Since opening in 1978 our small “Mom and Pop” ministry has grown into a Federally Qualified Health Center with 6 medical providers and over 20 staff serving some of Rochester’s neediest people at several locations. God’s grace has been abundant, and His plans for the future are unfolding in very faith-inspiring ways.
Graduating into retirement
As Susan and I move toward “graduating into retirement” this summer, we’re confident that the leadership and service teams our Lord has gathered are prepared and poised for a fruitful future of deeper ministry and further growth to meet the needs that face us, needs for wisdom, comfort, guidance, and healing.
We live in a divided nation, walking hand-in-hand in unity with our loving Savior and guided by His unfailing Word. If He is for us, who can be against us? Our community and land desperately need a deep revival of truth and faith, birthed by the conviction of His Holy Spirit and carried into practice through heart-felt repentance. Will you join those who will be carrying our legacy forward in living out as well as praying for and underwriting His ambassadors to our fallen world?
We believe that the best is yet to come. This is His work: He is the Vine and we are His Branches. May He prune us all that we may bear more fruit and bring glory to His Name!
God bless you all!
