Our Story

Thirty Years Back

Long before there was an Oaks, there were horses. Back in Michigan, our older kids — Stephanie, Johnathon, Samantha, and Destiny — grew up in the middle of it. We'd go to the Shipshewana sale barn and buy horses out of the meat buyer's pen — animals headed for slaughter — bring them home, bring them back, and sell them to just the right family. And over the years, dozens of horses were surrendered to us by owners who couldn't keep them anymore, and we took them in too.

At its fullest we ran a boarding stable with about twenty-eight head in our care. The older kids ran it together, with Stephanie taking the lead as the oldest — back then, they all had the passion. That was thirty years of rescue work before anyone called it a ministry. It taught us everything we know about an animal in trouble: how to read one, how to feed one back, and how to match one with the family it belongs to.

Then life moved us on, and for ten years we sat idle from horses and animals altogether. The passion didn't die, but it slept. Until Hunter woke it up — and widened it, from horses to all of God's creatures.

Under the Florida Oaks

The Oaks takes its name from a stand of great live oaks on land our family held in Florida, near Keystone Heights. Under those trees the ministry first took shape — nature walks, wildlife workshops, visits that brought animals to people who needed a gentler hour — all of it built on one plain belief: you can meet God through caring for the creatures He made.

Life moved on, as it does. The family left Florida, and the work went quiet for a season. But the name, the logo, and the calling stayed with us.

The Journey to the Ozarks

Our road ran Michigan to Tennessee to Florida before it brought us here — and we believe every step of it was directed. We settled on twenty acres in Erbie, Arkansas, in the Newton County Ozarks, on a historic farmstead: the old Buchanan–Clagett place, with its spring house that once served the whole community. It's a piece of ground that has been about hospitality and provision for a hundred years. We didn't know that when we came. We know it now.

Here the vision came back together — a pet food bank for neighbors in hardship, a rescue, a rest stop on the county road for the travelers headed down to the Buffalo River. In October 2026 we incorporated The Oaks Animal Ministry, Inc. in Arkansas and began again, this time with the paperwork minded and the lessons learned.

The Heartbeat: Hunter

Truth be told, this ministry might have stayed a memory if not for our daughter. Hunter, fifteen years old, resurrected this whole dream. Animals are her language and her joy, and somewhere along the way this stopped being her parents' old project and became her calling — especially a heart for youth ministry — her own program, Grow In The Valley, helping other young people meet God through His animals. She is, in her father's words, the heart and soul behind the whole concept. The grown-ups hold the board seats; Hunter holds the heartbeat. More about her program →

God at the Center

We say it on every page because it's true on every page: He is the reason we are here. Nothing is accomplished without Him, and everything this ministry does — every bag of food handed over, every animal taken in, every traveler welcomed at the fire — must honor God. This is not a business with a Bible verse on the wall. It's a ministry that happens to run on feed sacks, gravel, and grace.

“The righteous care for the needs of their animals.”Proverbs 12:10

The Family and the Board

The Oaks is a family ministry with a real board, run the plain way: directors serve unpaid, ministry money is kept entirely separate from family money, and every dollar is receipted. The founding board is Brent Yoder, Tracie Yoder, and Stephanie Shears, with Hunter serving as an honorary junior member — the next generation learning the work from inside it. And the roots of all of it are the older kids — Stephanie, Johnathon, Samantha, and Destiny — founding members of this story, the ones who planted it thirty years ago.