Help Brent & Tammy Howland with medical expenses

Brent Howland has made an impact on countless lives over the years. He made a huge impact with jr. high and high school students as a Bible teacher at Xenia Christian High School (Legacy Christian Academy) and now a missionary with International Messengers.

This past year Brent has had a health issue requiring multiple hospital stays, trips to the Mayo Clinic and many doctor appointments with specialists. They're still waiting to get a lot of the medical bills, but have incurred expenses traveling long distances to medical appointments, gas, hotels, food away from home...etc. Medical bills are estimated to be in the 10-20k range.

Brent and Tammy have invested so much in furthering the Gospel over the years and have loved so many people. Let's help them in their time of need.

Here's what Brent shared in his recent prayer letter:

"Friends,

The first half of 2022 has been full of surprises and challenges. We were still doing the “uncertainty dance” with the airlines about covid flight requirements, and then on February 24th, Putin invaded Ukraine, creating a crisis on a much higher level for our International Messengers staff members there. While working through evacuations and all sorts of complications, I had a crisis of my own on March 5th.

While driving about 30 minutes from home my vision became blurry, my hands felt numb, and I started feeling confused; this seemed like a big deal, so I pulled off in

a small town but it kept getting worse. I wasn’t able to think clearly enough to do simple things like call 911, or open the car door. I was finally able to get inside a

local store, but when I found someone to help, I wasn’t able to talk anymore. The store employees quickly called an ambulance which took me to a hospital about an hour from our home. After three days in ICU, and four more days in the hospital, the doctors determined that my disorientation and inability to talk were due to a virus that was attacking my brain. I went home on lots of meds, but I was sure that I would be fully recovered in a few days.

Exactly two weeks later I had the same set of symptoms while eating lunch with a friend. It was a much less intense episode, but still pretty scary. I couldn’t say what I wanted from the menu or respond in the conversation. The initial crisis was a shock and scare to my family, but the second episode was much more alarming to me because from that point it seemed like I could “lose my mind anytime and anywhere.” Since my initial hospital stay, I’ve had seven more of these full episodes, but all of them were less severe than the original. I’ve had a few symptoms most days, but the full episodes have been less frequent.

After hunting diligently for a firm diagnosis, on May 11th I finally got transferred to Mayo Clinic where I have had the opportunity to see some of the best neurologists in the country. After over a dozen visits with countless tests, they are still trying hard to figure out what is causing my symptoms/ episodes. The next steps are to get more tests on my heart and to schedule an appointment with a cardiologist there. I’m still in process, without a firm diagnosis or treatment plan. Please continue to pray.

One of our toughest issues right now is how to pay for all of this. We use a medical sharing program that Mayo Clinic has stopped working with, causing us to have to “self-pay.” Our med-sharing program will reimburse what we pay, but only to approximately 75%, leaving us to truly self-pay the remainder. I’ve been in the ICU, the ER at three hospitals, several hospital beds, two ambulances, and countless labs/exam rooms and machines, so we can only imagine what the total cost will be. We just know that the bill—even 25% of the total bill—is way beyond our means.

The money part of this situation is a stressor for us even though we have seen God provide miraculously for us in these last few years. We’re always learning to trust Him more. He keeps pushing us into these places where we have no choice except to depend on Him and we keep learning He is always trustworthy. If you would like to help us with these costs, it would be a huge help and encouragement to us."