You may not have heard of the farm in Conyers, Georgia where Nancy Fowler once lived. For over eight years she said she was having visions of the Blessed Mother in her house. Each October 13th there has a been a public message and 1998's was to be the last one. Whether you believe her or not about the visions is a personal choice; the Church has kept it's distance, neither denying nor validating the visions. But a number of my friends have been there and the experience has borne fruit in their lives. For various reasons I felt like I should go there, too, so my family made plans to be there on the day of the last public message. I began collecting letters of prayer and petition from several of my friends as I had heard there was a place on the farm where it was appropriate to leave them. We also arranged for my mother to fly to Atlanta. This was to be a little pilgrimage for our family.

On Monday the 12th we met my mother at our hotel near the airport and after settling in ourselves, we all walked a few blocks to a restaurant for supper. Afterwards, we walked back to the hotel, talking and laughing. We planned on getting a good night's sleep so we could make an early start in the morning. As my wife and children were getting ready for bed, I went outside to walk and pray the rosary. An evening walk while praying the rosary has been a favorite part of my daily prayer for a good while.

As I began to walk along the street beside the hotel, a car passed me, then turned around, pulled up next to me and stopped. The man on the passenger side of the car rolled down his window and asked for directions to a certain motel. His voice was muffled so I had to 'beg pardon' and ask him to repeat his question. Even after the second time I still didn't understand him clearly. To save time I said that I was not from the area and I wouldn't know where anything was. As I walked away I heard his car door open so I turned around.

He had a gun pointed at my chest.
In a loud, shaky voice he said, "Gimme' it!"
I slowly extended my arms out away from my sides and said, "What?"

He repeated his command, "Gimme' it!"
Again I asked, "What?"
He said, "Yo' flip phone."
With a gentle "Ok" I very slowly removed it from my belt and handed it over to him.

He said, "Yo' movin' too slow! Gimme' yo' money!"
After I carefully handed over my wallet, he said, "Turn around!"

As I turned my back on him I thought that this would be the moment he would kill me. My thoughts were of my daughters and my wife. My only feeling was a pang of regret that I would no longer be there to help them.

Then he said, "Git' down!"

I knelt down on the street. Clasping my hands I asked him, "Can I say my prayers?" and my silent prayer was simply this; "Get ready God, here I come."

He said, "Gowan' an' pray you honkie mutha' f#cka'!" The sound of the gun shot and a stinging pain in my right foot were simultaneous. Next I heard the screeching of tires as their car sped off. I thought 'perhaps I am supposed to be dead' so I laid down on the street, turning my head slightly so I could see them as they sped away.

Once they were out of sight I went back inside the hotel and reported what had happened to the clerk. Within two minutes the police arrived followed quickly by an ambulance. After the police finally ran out of questions for me and before I would let them put me in the ambulance, I was permitted to go our hotel room and break the news to my wife. Considering the circumstances she took the news most courageously. She was able to explain the situation calmly to our daughters (something which I would not have been capable of) and begin to do the necessary things such as notifying credit card companies of the robbery.

I was able to finish my daily rosary silently, counting on my fingers, while waiting in the emergency room of Southern Regional. Eventually I was disinfected, x-rayed, bandaged, pronounced 'lucky' and released. My wound was no more than an ugly one inch stripe on the inside of my right heel.

It was after two in the morning when I got back to the hotel. My wife and I agreed to "do everything tomorrow just the way we planned it." I asked my wife not to tell my mother what had happened yet as I imagined her being too upset to let us continue with the next day as planned. We both thought that if obstacles of this magnitude were being placed in our path it must be important that we follow through completely with our plans. I especially did not want to fail to deliver the prayers and petitions that my friends had entrusted to me.

Before my mother joined us that morning we made a hasty trip to a store where we bought a cane. I wanted the crutches from the hospital completely out of sight as my mother tends to react very strongly and they would have just upset her even more. By avoiding the subject of what happened the night before (and whenever it was necessary to do so, walking very carefully!) we finally managed to bring ourselves within a mile and a half of the Fowler farm. We left our car in the parking lot of a church and began to walk. When my mother asked me why I needed the cane, I said, "We're going to talk about that along the way." All I can say is that it certainly helped me to have tens of thousands of people nearby while explaining all this to her.

Our time on the farm was pleasant and passed quickly. We found the right place to deliver the prayers and petitions. It was good to be there together as a family on our little pilgrimage. As we began the long trek back to the car, now tired and a bit sore, a good samaritan stopped to give us a ride.

One of the many ways I believe God used this situation was to single out someone very specifically who is in need of prayer; the anonymous young black man from Atlanta who robbed me, and then shot me. He will never know in this lifetime that each evening, as I begin my rosary, I will once again be asking the Father to arrange the circumstances of his life so that they will lead to his salvation. Each time I will "Gowan' an' pray" because from now on, I am his prayer partner.

Contributed by the author