God-Given Heart for the Jewish People
Dr. Donald K. Wood
Three people were instrumental in shaping my interest in global ministry and having a deep concern for the Jewish people.
Anna Brandner Wood (mother)
Mom was born January 10, 1900. She was the youngest of three children born to Margaret and Charles Brandner; both had immigrated to Chicago from Bavaria, Germany. My mother grew up in what is now Berwyn, Illinois. It was mostly prairie; from the front porch of their home the entire area to downtown Chicago could be seen.
In Anna’s early twenties, she attended a Congregational Church on Oak Park Avenue “by chance,” where a group of students from Princeton Seminary were holding an evangelistic meeting. The leader of the group was Harold Ockenga, who for many years pastored Park Street Church in Boston.
Also in the group was the grandson of Chicago Hebrew Mission’s[1] founder, William E. Blackstone.[2] In conversation with Anna, the younger Mr. Blackstone[3] gave her a Bible and told her to read Isaiah 53. She put the Bible under her cape and went home. There she got on her knees, opened the Bible, read the passage, and surrendered unconditionally to her Lord and Savior, Messiah Jesus.
Rev. Donald W. Wood (father)
My father was born in Renwick, Iowa, in 1908. After graduating from high school my father entered the Army in Fort Des Moines, Iowa, where he served as a musician in the 14th Cavalry Band. He was invited to hear a female evangelist at the Streetcar Men’s Auditorium and heard the gospel message for the first time. He asked the Lord Jesus to be his Savior and, when discharged, came to Chicago to study in the Pastors’ Course at Moody Bible Institute.
While a student, Donald worked at the Chicago Hebrew Mission for three years where, in God’s providence, he met and fell in love with Anna Brandner. Lacking resources for a lavish church wedding, they were married on Christmas Eve in 1932 by Pastor William McCarrell[4] in his office at Cicero Bible Church.
Before marriage and thereafter Donald and Anna visited Jewish cemeteries in the western suburbs of Chicago where they spoke with and gave literature to those visiting their loved ones’ graves. They lived for a number of years in the Crawford-Lawndale area of Chicago which at that time was a thriving Jewish community.
I was born in 1940, the second of two children. In 1946 (exact date unknown) my mother pointed me to the Lord Jesus. In trusting Him for my salvation, my life was changed from that time onward. This is my family heritage. I grew up in a home where the emphasis was on reaching the world for Messiah.
Mom went to be with the Lord in March of 1989. Dad graduated to his eternal reward in October 1991.[5] The value of being a “preacher’s kid” is a daily reminder of God’s goodness and grace.
“…but as for me and my house, we will serve Jehovah” (Joshua 24:15).
Rev. William E. Currie (pastor)
In 1966, my then-fiancée Linda Cruickshank had received her bachelor’s degree in nursing and I was starting my last year of medical school. Both of us were at the University of Illinois Hospital in Chicago. Pastor Bill Currie counseled us before marrying Linda and me on September 10, 1966, at Cicero Bible Church. In 1967 I graduated from the Abraham Lincoln School of Medicine in Chicago (later named the University of Illinois College of Medicine).
As newlyweds, Linda and I lived a block and a half from Cicero Bible Church. Pastor Currie loved to walk to our home on Sunday evenings and have a cup of coffee before the evening service. We had many wonderful conversations and yet knew the purpose of the visit was to encourage our attendance at the evening service. We became close friends over the ensuing years.
Cicero Bible Church had a vibrant global outreach program and Pastor Currie placed me on the committee. Throughout my training I never attended a single meeting of that committee. But the mornings after they met, Pastor would come down to the U of I Hospital and make rounds with me as I drew blood and did various tasks. He would discuss what went on in the committee.
I learned over time that Pastor was mentoring me and gently pointing the direction of my life and practice into paths I would have never followed on my own. He assigned me the adult Sunday School class and, though I was involved heavily in medical residency training, there were very few times I missed teaching that class. It caused me to dig deeply into the Word of God and build a library of books and commentaries. God called me to be a “ministry doctor.”
Initially, I had the sense I had to go to some very foreign and exotic spot in the world to fulfill that calling. Later the reality of my calling from God was that He placed me in the “ministry field of the University of Illinois,” both the Champaign-Urbana campus and the medical school in Chicago, as well as the Cook County Hospital, Westside VA, Michael Reese Hospital, and serving in local churches in the area.
After seven years of residency training, I received a faculty appointment in general surgery at the University of Illinois. From 1974–1976 I served as a Fellow in the Division of Surgical Oncology. In October 1976 I became a Fellow in the American College of Surgeons.
In 1973, William Currie was named the General Director of American Messianic Fellowship (later called AMF International, now Life in Messiah). The following year I became a board member. Pastor Currie continued to mentor me, nurturing my heart for both global outreach and Jewish ministry. But the untold story is how his family also was instrumental in mentoring our family.
A plaque in my home office reads:
AMF International
hereby recognizes
Dr. Donald K. Wood
for his years of faithful service and deep commitment to
“Building bridges of understanding between Christians and Jews”
Board member 1974–1993
President 1975–1993
Presented with much appreciation
August 28, 1993
John H. Hill Wesley N. Taber
Secretary General Director
I could also tell of my interactions with my Jewish colleagues. They taught me the background stories of Jewish people in Chicago and their remarkable contributions to the health and welfare of the Chicago area. Yet in bringing up anything related to a messiah or to Jesus, a stone wall would go up immediately. For me the best approach was committing them the King of Kings and living the life that God had given me through the atoning sacrifice of Messiah on the cross and His bodily resurrection.
It is now 2025. The ministry of Life in Messiah International is still part of my prayer life and financial support. That will not change until God calls me home.
Written by Dr. Donald K. Wood
Oncological Surgeon, ret.
Dr. Donald Wood and his wife Linda
1. Who are the people God has placed in your life who have been instrumental in shaping your walk with Him?
2. In this season of life, what would you identify as your “ministry field”?
3. Attempts to share the gospel or talk about Jesus with a Jewish person can often be met with resistance, but our Jewish friends need the Good News of Messiah just as much as you and I! Whether it’s through prayer, giving, or going, would you ask the Lord if He has a role for you in reaching the Jewish people?
Endnotes:
[1] Chicago Hebrew Mission was founded in 1887. The name was changed to American Messianic Fellowship in 1953, then AMF International (1993). Since 2008, America’s oldest continuing Jewish ministry is known as Life in Messiah International.
[2] William and Sarah Blackstone had three sons (James, Andrew, and Harry) and a daughter, Flora. In 1889, it was Flora who accompanied her dad in circumnavigating the globe, establishing clinics, orphanages, and Bible schools in Asia. It was seeing the suffering of the Jewish people in Czarist Russia that sparked the Blackstone Memorial of 1891, the petition given to President Benjamin Harrison and sent to European and Turkish heads of state, appealing for the reestablishment of a Jewish state in Palestine. For more on Life in Messiah’s founder, see
BLOG: www.lifeinmessiah.org/blog/jesus-is-coming;
BLACKSTONE MEMORIAL: www.lifeinmessiah.org/blackstone-memorial;
ARTICLE: www.lifeinmessiah.org/learn-gods-little-errand-boy;
PODCAST: www.lifeinmessiah.org/thetovpodcast/forgotten-founder.
[3] I do not know which Blackstone grandson gave my mother a Bible but would guess it may have been one of Harry’s, the son who went to minister in China, because early in their marriage Mom and Dad also were planning to go to China. They were good friends of John and Betty Stam at Moody. Their martyrdom changed the direction of my folks to pastoral ministry; they served the Lord in eight Chicago area churches over their lifetime.
[4] William “Billy” McCarrell was the founding pastor of Cicero Bible Church, which became the flagship of the Independent Fundamental Churches of America (IFCA). Billy joined the board of the Chicago Hebrew Mission and served as president from 1926 to 1934. When William “Bill” Currie succeeded Rev. McCarrell at Cicero Bible Church in 1959, he also succeeded him on the board of what was then American Messianic Fellowship.
[5] My dad always regretted not going to China or Tibet. But before either of my parents died, my wife Linda and I were able to go to Hong Kong and talk to the converts in Mawan Island where one of the workers supported by Cicero Bible Church, Stephanie Czechowitz, ministered. Our son Mark and wife Cinda minister in Mongolia. He has been to Tibet and Nepal for ministry meetings and after 14 years has seen the ordination of three pastors for the Mongolian church. You just cannot top God’s sovereignty in building His kingdom. Frankly, it blows me away.