Mark Copier | The Grand Rapids Press
Wings of Mercy founder Peter VandenBosch. The organization that provides free air transportation for patients to distant hospitals is celebrating its 20th anniversary.
ZEELAND — Of all those celebrating the Wings of Mercy’s 20th anniversary, Tim Bosch has the most to be thankful for.
“Tim has taken 56 Wings of Mercy flights with us,” said Peter VandenBosch, a retired Zeeland businessman who founded the all-volunteer organization that has flown thousands of patients who can’t afford travel to distant hospitals for treatment. “He’s our best customer.”
The 16-year-old Holland Christian High School sophomore and his family were on hand to celebrate the 20th anniversary of Wings of Mercy Friday night and thank VandenBosch for the help he and his volunteer pilots have given them over the years.
Rich DeVos and astronaut and Wings of Mercy supporter Jack Lousma of Grand Rapids spoke at the event.
“Wings of Mercy helped make my life better getting me to doctors hundreds of miles from Holland, sometimes four or five times a year,” said Tim Bosch who still needs treatment for osteogenesis, the brittle bone disease he always will have.
Today, he is nearly an all “A” student and helps as assistant sign coach on the school’s Maroons junior varsity football team. But he wasn’t given much of a chance to survive childhood when he was born in 1995 with a rare bone disorder.
“When he was born, his right arm was broken, his collarbone broken, his ribs were broken and his skull was fractured,” said his mother, Deb Bosch, who is a nurse. “At home, I would change his diaper and break his leg.”
Bosch found the only place in North America doing research on the disease was Shriner’s Hospital in Montreal, and VandenBosch agreed to set up the 1,400 mile round trip flight for the family.
“I had to carry Tim to the Wings of Mercy plane on a pillow, that’s how fragile he was,” Deb Bosch said of Tim’s first flight to Montreal for experimental treatment.
A new history on Wings of Mercy, titled “Earth Angels: The Story of Peter VandenBosch and Wings of Mercy,” was released at Friday’s banquet. It’s available from Deep River Books and Wings of Mercy.
The book tells how VandenBosch, 88, was enjoying the retired life golfing and fishing in Florida, when he got a message from above one day.
“I was out in a boat fishing in 1990 with friends when I heard clear as a bell a voice that said ‘Peter, there is more to life then this.’ My knees started to shake and I thought my mind had gone because no one else seemed to hear it,” he said.
VandenBosch said it was two weeks before he told his wife Joan about the voice. She suggested they sell their Florida house and move back to Michigan to pray for an answer to what God wanted them to do.
The answer came from flying buddy Les Slagh who suggested VandenBosch use his time and talent to “to fly low-income patients around the country for medical treatment for free.”
Holland Hospital was first to sign up for the offer and, on July 9, 1991, VandenBosch and Wings of Mercy made the maiden flight, taking a brother and sister Hector and Lulu Lara with Rothmund-Thomson Syndrome, an early aging disease, for treatment.
“I said to myself after that trip ‘this is your calling,” VandenBosch said.
Today, Wings of Mercy West Michigan has an East Michigan chapter, based in Frankenmuth, and one in Maple Grove, Minn. The three provide patient flights from Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, North Dakota and Iowa to areas east of the Rocky Mountains.
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