Springfield native builds center to house, teach children overseas

Springfield native Meredith Wood-Docena was still a student at Cedarville University when she began travelling to the Philippines over the summer for missionary work.

Her experiences on those trips would eventually lead to the founding of Obed’s House Ministries in 2013 that aims to help children living on the streets.

Wood-Docena is now a resident of General Santos City, Philippines, currently living in a two-story building owned by her organization that’s also the home of 14 children between the ages of 7 and 17.

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She was first inspired to start the organization in 2011 when she encountered four street boys while doing a six-week mission trip. After each of the boys’ consumed three plates of rice and received new flip flops, the experience was documented on her blog. A sum of $4,000 was raised for her mission in a period of six days after the incident.

Wood-Docena changed her major from psychology to social work with the plan to open a home for neglected children. After receiving a check for $15,000 from a Springfield couple, construction for her orphanage began in 2014 and it opened its doors on July 1, 2015, with nine children moving in.

The non-adopting orphanage aims to provide its patrons with basic necessities and life skills, she said. Less than half the children are actual orphans, Wood-Docena said, most of them were abandoned by their parents or experienced extreme neglect.

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“All of my kids have experienced abuse in some form,” she said. “Over half of my children are straight from the streets.”

The organization also offers each resident the opportunity to receive an education free of charge, with most of the children never attending school before.

The children are enrolled in private schooling, Wood-Docena said, and receive one-on-one tutoring.

“They were going to school with 80 students to one teacher, one textbook to five students,” she said. “They were still living in that same environment where they were coming from before they came to live with me.”

Three employees also live at the facility, two caretakers and a social worker. All of the organization’s activities are funded by charitable donations and fundraising events. A majority of the funding comes from the Springfield area and that’s where the organization’s board of trustees is located.

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The organization also works closely with local churches and recently received $33,000 from the Southgate Baptist Church, according to Jason Carrier, a pastor at the church who has visited the orphanage.

“Sometimes it is a big encouragement for them just to have someone from home to stop in and see their world,” he said.

Wood-Docena hopes to forge more connections for the orphanage and plans to take a more executive role while retaining her relationship with the children.

“I’m not trying to replace their real parents,” she said. “I’m just there to step in and say, ‘I believe in you and that I believe that you matter.’”

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