Giving credit where credit is due

By Patty Rice Groth

Inquirer Cor­re­spon­dent

When Char­lene and Christo­pher Andrews of Tuc­son, Ari­zona, planned their wed­ding they chose a mean­ing­ful date — Novem­ber 7, the anniver­sary of the loss of Charlene’s mother, Tonya Wel­don. They wanted to honor her life when they started a new one together.

Until she was 9 years old, Char­lene and her mom lived in North­ridge with her uncle and aunt, Rick and Anna Marie Fowler. Char­lene looked to Fowler as a father fig­ure, ask­ing him to give her away on her wed­ding day. Of course, he agreed, and travel plans were made.

At the wed­ding venue, Fowler was in the men’s room chang­ing into his tuxedo. Next thing he knew, he was in the emer­gency room of the Tuc­son North­west Med­ical Cen­ter hospital.

Christo­pher had found Fowler passed out on the floor of the rest room.

“I was in the right place at the right time,” says Fowler. The staff of the venue included peo­ple cer­ti­fied in CPR and use of an AED. After they arrived, emer­gency med­ical tech­ni­cians were able to deliver addi­tional shocks to Fowler’s chest before load­ing him into the ambu­lance for the trip to the hos­pi­tal. On the way, EMTs shocked his heart four more times. Going into the ER, an EMT was up on the gur­ney strad­dling Fowler’s body while CPR was per­formed. On arrival at the emer­gency room, he was shocked again, judged to be “dead on arrival.”

“You just beat the widow-maker,” said the physi­cian of Fowler’s ven­tric­u­lar defib­ril­la­tion. Fow-ler assured the physi­cian the sit­u­a­tion “was in God’s hands.”

Fowler was hos­pi­tal­ized for sev­eral weeks then moved to a reha­bil­i­ta­tion facil­ity. His hos­pi­tal­iza­tion included a surgery to implant a pacemaker.

At the end of Decem­ber, 2011, he was able to catch a flight home to Ohio. Today, he is able to climb stairs and walks reg­u­larly. Some­times he gets short of breath.

His biggest chal­lenge today is work­ing with the Vet­er­ans Admin­is­tra­tion about the costs of his med­ical care in Ari­zona. “Angry” is the word Fowler uses to describe his feel­ings about how VA per­son­nel have responded to him, even telling him he did not have pre-approval for the hos­pi­tal­iza­tion in Arizona.

When all is said and done, how­ever, Fowler hap­pily gives credit for the expe­ri­ence to God. Why else would the heart attack have hap­pened in a facil­ity with staff newly cer­ti­fied in CPR, that had a defib­ril­la­tor on hand and the knowl­edge to use it? Why else would the groom have come to check up on him? Why else send a team of EMTs who would not give up?

Fowler wants to share his story to rein­force his tes­ti­mony of Jesus Christ. Because of the nature of the visit for this story, he told of his U.S. Navy expe­ri­ence in the mid– to late-1960s in the rivers and har­bors of Viet­nam. The USS Thomas­ton LSD 28 was used to carry heavy equip­ment in and out of the war zones.

Fol­low­ing his first heart attack in 1996, says Fowler, it was deter­mined the dam­age to his heart is the result of expo­sure to “Agent Orange” while in ser­vice to his coun­try. Thus began his inter­ac­tions with the VA.

He remem­bers when his life changed.

“There’s got to be some­thing more,” Fowler remem­bers say­ing to his parish priest, who had just told him that if he lived a “per­fect” life, the best he would achieve would be pur­ga­tory, await­ing admit­tance to the King­dom of God. The length of the wait was not to be known. Like so many young peo­ple of that era, Fowler turned his back on the church of his upbring­ing. He still believed in God, but admits he was not a per­son of faith.

Fowler tells of his var­i­ous careers over the years. Now liv­ing in Flat Rock, Fowler has worked as an inde­pen­dent truck dri­ver, and has worked in a pack­ag­ing plant and a tool & die shop. In 1996 his declin­ing health prompted his retire­ment in 2002.

In 1980 the Fowlers owned a thriv­ing busi­ness located in Med­ina. The “deal of the cen­tury” was at hand, says Fowler; easy street was just around the corner.

God had other plans.

After the Fowlers had mar­ried in 1970, the cou­ple vis­ited a num­ber of churches of a vari­ety of denom­i­na­tions. Still not big on “orga­nized church,” says Fowler, he did not keep up the vis­its. His wife, how­ever, did and “stum­bled” into her path to salvation.

The couple’s chil­dren were invited to attend a vaca­tion Bible school put on by a Men­non­ite con­gre­ga­tion. They allowed the chil­dren to par­tic­i­pate. The chil­dren had a great time. Not long after, a Bap­tist min­is­ter vis­ited the fam­ily farm, invit­ing the chil­dren to VBS at his church. The chil­dren accepted, and enjoyed the expe­ri­ence so much they began attend­ing reg­u­lar services.

Fowler says he was will­ing to allow the chil­dren to choose this path for them­selves, but he did not join them.

The announce­ment by the chil­dren that “we got saved!” raised his ire, and he instructed his wife to go with the chil­dren to check out this “cult” his chil­dren had joined.

“As a duti­ful wife, she did and the good Lord led her to con­tinue to go with the chil­dren,” says Fowler, Still, he declined to join his fam­ily at the thrice weekly ser­vices and classes. He also declared that the chil­dren and their mother should not talk about their church activ­i­ties in his pres­ence. Fowler had dug his heels in hard.

Then, Anna Marie and her sis­ter Tonya also reported they had been saved.

“What does this mean?” he asked, “Saved from what?”

“I know heaven is mine,” said Anna Marie.

“I think I’m going to heaven when I die,” he responded.

“No, I know,” said Anna Marie. She told him she would be pray­ing for him, and she did.

Fowler recalls his refusal to be included in an orga­nized church as get­ting to the point when he actu­ally ran a vis­it­ing min­is­ter off his farm at the point of a gun with the admo­ni­tion, “Don’t come back!”

Jump ahead to 1980 when this life-changing busi­ness deal was in the works. As the two com­muted to their offices in Med­ina, it was Anna Marie’s habit to read the Bible aloud in the car.

“Can’t you read that to your­self?” Fowler challenged.

“No, I don’t under­stand it with­out hear­ing the words,” she replied, and kept on read­ing aloud.

And then it hap­pened — his eyes teared up so badly he had to pull to the side of the road, directed by Anna Marie as he could not see. Forty-five min­utes had passed before the tears cleared. Dur­ing that time, Fowler says he felt some­thing hap­pen­ing in him­self he did not under­stand and to this day can­not describe.

As he arrived at the office 45 min­utes late — some­thing that had never hap­pened before — he could see fear in the eyes of his staff, wait­ing for the explo­sion which would surely accom­pany what­ever had made him late. Fowler says he had a hot tem­per which, unfor­tu­nately, his employ­ees had seen all to often.

Instead, he bor­rowed Anna Marie’s Bible and locked him­self in his office, hav­ing instructed every­one not to dis­turb him for the next two hours. Fowler opened the book and read the Book of Revelations.

Fowler chuck­les as he says he has since been told no seeker of the truth would be told to start with that par­tic­u­lar book, but it worked for him. He says he under­stood, for the first time. Com­ing out, he told his wife he believed “every­thing between those cov­ers is true.”

At home that evening, he asked a Chris­t­ian friend to come over to help him grasp what was hap­pen­ing. With help, Fowler accepted that he was now saved, and he felt true joy.

Over the years since, Fowler has come and gone from fel­low­ship. When Anna Marie was pro­nounced to be ter­mi­nally ill, he begged God to take him instead, telling God “I am not a good tes­ti­mony; let her con­tinue to spread your word.”

Still, Fowler found com­fort in know­ing he was “per­ma­nently saved,” and would be join­ing her in Heaven one day.

Jump for­ward to Novem­ber of 2011 when he found him­self in the hos­pi­tal fight­ing for his life. Over the years, Fowler said, he had been a reluc­tant spreader of God’s sav­ing grace. Inter­act­ing with the staff, how­ever, shar­ing his belief God had a plan for him he found him­self sur­rounded by other believ­ers. Their care and vis­its to his room strength­ened him immeasurably.

Fowler con­tin­ues to use the health and strength he enjoys now to share God’s word at every oppor­tu­nity. At a recent visit to the VA Hos­pi­tal, he became engaged in a dis­cus­sion of faith with just one man that attracted such a gath­er­ing around him a secu­rity guard came over to make sure there wasn’t a problem.

Per­haps the con­flicts regard­ing his hos­pi­tal­iza­tion last fall were all part of God’s plan to put Fowler where God needed him to be! This story has not yet ended.

Posted by Patty Rice Groth on Aug 17 2012. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS Feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.