The Story of Uncle Ivan Fowler

Family and Friends,

God has a way of giving you exactly what you need exactly when you need it.  As missionaries we are deeply committed to the calling God has placed on our lives and the people He has given us to serve.  However, we are still human, and from time to time we need a new infusion of passion and energy for the work.  Sometimes the best way to get that is to receive a clearer vision from God of how connected we are to the big picture of what He is doing in the world.  Specifically, God recently gave us a picture of how intertwined we are with the entire tapestry of World Missions in the present, past, and future.  Please enjoy this story and be inspired!

I always knew very little about Uncle Ivan Fowler, my late Grandma Grimm's younger brother who died in a plane crash as he prepared to be deployed as a missionary.  The most important part of that story for our family narrative had been the way that this shocking news came at a very unfortunate time.  My grandparents, Betty Fowler and Dean Grimm, were planning to get married that same week in 1950.  After the family lost Ivan everything was scaled back, and in fact it was just the bride and groom, the pastor, and a few others who attended the brief ceremony.  Famously, it took place at 7:30 or 7:45 in the morning just before the Pastor had to help out with VBS at church.  It was a very sad time.  

Last week my dad and I went on a little road trip.  He wanted to show me where his grandparents (Fowlers) were buried in a little country cemetery in southern Iowa.  On the way we recalled some of the famous family stories and called up uncle Jim, who was Grandma Grimm's (and Ivan's) youngest brother and a a brilliant and impressive man in his own right.  Uncle Jim served in the military and was stationed in Georgia.  After that he married and took a job as an engineer with Lockheed-Martin.  He moved up the ranks and eventually was selected to be a cabinet member of the Georgia state government during the period when Jimmy Carter was governor.  My dad tells stories of how after designing and building airplanes and jets, Uncle Jim could take apart any car and put it back together like it was nothing. 

Uncle Jim shared more of Ivan's story with us over the phone as we drove.  Ivan was a WWII vet, just barely, because he was only 18 when the war ended.  He was a pilot.  After that he went to Moody Bible Institute and studied for ministry.  He was preparing to be deployed for overseas ministry work and was engaged to be married.  The part of the story that absolutely blew me away was to hear that Ivan was involved in the early stages of planning a team to be sent to Ecuador, a team that included Jim Elliot and other famous missionaries.  This is the very team that famously was speared to death a few years later by the Waodoni Indians, the same people who were later led to Christ by the families of the men who were killed.

Uncle Ivan never made it to Ecuador.  In May of 1950 he was taking off with one passenger from a small airport in Illinois to fly to Chicago.  The engine of the small plane began to smoke, and smoke began to fill the cockpit.  Ivan circled around and tried make an emergency landing.  Just before reaching the landing strip he passed out and hit the fence surround the airport.  The plane flipped over and burst into flames.  According to Jim the family was notified that Ivan had been "seriously injured in a flying accident."  They ran from the newly planted cornfields, jumped in the car, and took off speeding accross Iowa into Illinois.  Then they heard a news report on the radio which announced the same accident and the confirmation that, in fact, no one had survived.  The family was devestated and finished the trip at a slower pace.

After that Jim Elliot and the others continued to make plans, and eventually Nate Saint was added to the team as the pilot, and most of you know the rest of that story.  The woman who was engaged to Ivan remained in contact with my Grandma for the rest of her life, telling my dad at Grandma's funeral that she "always felt a part of the family." 

It was heartbreaking to hear all of that story, and yet for me 60 years later it was a great blessing from God to learn more about this fellow missionary in our family.  I had always felt a kind of connection with Ivan, almost as if my family's calling was a fulfillment of his, but this took it all to a whole different level.  Thank you, God!

I hope to find out more about this story in the years to come, even researching the newspaper articles and such that must have been written.  I need to find out if Ivan had a journal and if it still exists.  If that research ever gets done I'll be sure to keep you posted on this blog.  But for now we are just so thrilled to be serving God's people and helping on the front lines of his ever-expanding kingdom.  Many have paid hefty prices to have a chance like this, and we cannot take that lightly as we seek to remain faithful to God's call.

May God Energize Your Calling Today!
-The Grimm Family Adventurers