I Sat Where They Sat

By Arn Bowler

There have been few missions books that will touch your heart as will this story of how a young Canadian couple responded to the call of God to go to Africa as missionaries and ended up spending over 50 years ministering to a people with whom they had fallen in love. This book will take you deep into African daily life with all of its hardships but also into the beauty and joy that Africa has. It contains the stories and experiences that Arnold and Elsie lived through, including the hardships from poverty, sickness, witchcraft, wild animal attacks and even from corrupt governments like Idi Amin. This is also an account about people’s lives being changed through Christ and how hundreds of churches were started and nations were changed forever by the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The church in Africa is alive and strong today because people like Arnold and Elsie Bowler sacrificed and responded to the call of God to give their lives for others. Jesus said, “Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13 NASB). They gave their lives so they could sit where others sat!.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Castle Quay Books
• Release date: Nov 15, 2011
• ISBN: 9781894860789

Arn Bowler

Arn Bowler, with his wife Elsie, served as missionaries in Africa for 50 years. Their lives were never boring as they witnessed amazing moves of God in three countries and lived through a military coup or two. They experienced God’s faithfulness first hand and know the crucial part of prayer in missions. They are now retired (sort of) and living in Oshawa, Ontario, Canada.

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Part 1: Life Before Africa

Family Background

Early History

Family Beginnings

My mother, Catherine Faught, was born in Eaganville, Ontario, in July 1889 to Albert Faught and Elizabeth Blackburn. Catherine trained as a schoolteacher and taught in Cobden district in Ontario, Canada, for a while. About 1914 she went to teach in a small school in Saskatchewan. She was at Prince School for a short time and then moved to Panmure District near Wilkie, Saskatchewan.

My father was born in 1875 in Belleville-Point Ann area in Ontario. He worked with the Grand Trunk Railway and then moved to the United States of America and lived in Chicago. I am not sure where he worked while in Chicago.

In 1910 my father moved to Saskatchewan and filed on a quarter section (160 acres) of land in that part of the country. Homesteaders were given land, and they had to build some buildings on it and break or plow a stipulated number of acres for farming. When they did this, after some years they would get the deed.

While Catherine Faught was teaching at Panmure School, she met William West Bowler, who was a homesteader-farmer in the area. My father was on the school board where Catherine Faught was teaching. This was where they met. They were married in 1918 and settled on a farm near Wilkie, Saskatchewan, where they lived for fourteen years.

Six children blessed their home, and I was the fifth one born into the family. I was born on October 13, 1929, in a new hospital in Wilkie, Saskatchewan. Because I had the distinction of being the first baby born in the new hospital, the hospital board awarded me a bond of $5.00. In 1929 the Great Depression was just starting, and five dollars was a significant amount. Unfortunately, the family was very poor so they had to use the money to survive and therefore I never saw it. With the Depression came a drought—no rain, no crops—and the Bowlers were not exempt from all this.

Firewood

On the prairie there was not much wood to burn to keep us warm in winter. My dad had made friends with the Indians in the area—Cree or Blackfoot, I can’t recall which—and they helped us survive. Often they would allow us to come to the reservation and fill a sleigh full of wood, which we would then have to cut smaller for firewood. My brothers and I would take turns sitting on the sawhorse as Dad cut the wood with a handsaw called a swede saw—much like the old bucksaw.

One time after my father had gone for firewood a storm hit. Mother waited and waited for him to come home. Finally, late at night, the horses came into the yard dragging the sleigh loaded with wood. My father was nearly unconscious—he fell off the horse almost frozen. My mother got him in the house and started to warm him up while my older brother, Walt, took care of the horses.

Often Indians would come by, and sometimes, if they were hungry, they would come to the kitchen, and Mom would feed them what she had. One time the chief (Chief Joseph) and his wife, a very large (tall and broad) woman, came for a visit. My mother cooked up about a dozen eggs, and the chief’s wife spooned the whole lot onto her plate and dug right in. My mother had to go back and cook some more for the rest of the visitors.

We were grateful for the friendship of these people. I believe it was in part due to them that we survived the winters at that time.

Covered Wagon Journey

In 1934 my parents decided to move off the prairie and locate further north in Saskatchewan. A hayrack was transformed into a covered wagon—not the classic Conestoga but more like a canvas one-room house on wheels. They used to call these Prairie Schooners.

On October 13, 1934, my fifth birthday, we set out with help from neighbours. My older sister and brother went on horseback, driving the cattle and horses, and a friend drove the covered wagon carrying my mother and us younger children.

My father, William Bowler, drove in a buckboard or buggy supervising the whole trip. The move took about two weeks, as we had to move through towns, around other towns, and ford rivers with the animals. It was quite interesting.

That long trip was my earliest memory of anything: running beside the wagon, sleeping in or under the wagon on the prairie. What a wonderful time that was! I realize now how fortunate I was. To look back on it is wonderful. We had our meals around the campfire, and it was such a relaxing and also exciting time for me. I think it was a very trying time for my mother, trying to feed and look after six children, herself, her husband and a couple of other men. It was quite the trip.

When we arrived in the Cochin area, Hillside District, the only place we could find to live in was an old log cabin in the bush of Northern Saskatchewan. The place had not been lived in for some time, and all the chinking (plaster filling the cracks between the logs) had fallen out. It was a very cold place for a very cold winter. There were eight of us in that little log cabin. Through that time one thing we had was lots of firewood, so we could keep warm. Food was our problem. I don’t know how we survived—but my father was an innovator, a survivor.

Rescued by My Big Brother

While we were living in that small, very old log cabin in the bush of Northern Saskatchewan in Canada, I was five and very adventurous. One day I looked out our little window. There was a lot of snow, and more was falling. As I watched, I saw a rabbit in the snow in front of our cabin.

I went out, not dressed very warmly, and tried to catch the rabbit. When I got near to it, it would hop away from me and then stop. I would follow it. Each time I came near, the rabbit would hop away.

I kept after it until I was a long way away from our cabin. The rabbit hopped away and kept going. I looked around and did not know which way our cabin was. The snow had covered my tracks. I was lost! I sat down and cried, but that did not help. I didn’t know what to do.

Meanwhile, back at the house my mother realized that I was gone. She rallied the family, and they looked all around where our cows and horses were kept. Sometimes I would go into the chicken coop, so they looked there—but no Arnold.

My big brother, Walter, said he would look for me. He could see a slight trail, an indentation in the snow, where I had followed the rabbit. He followed it and finally found me. I was very cold so he picked me up and carried me home. They could not believe the long distance that I had traveled following that rabbit.

I have used this story a couple of times to illustrate how we can wander from God, trying to find something to make us happy. Then our Big Brother, Jesus, comes and rescues us and takes us to a safe haven.

Northern Saskatchewan

In the spring, we moved farther north and lived on a farm as sharecroppers. That meant that of whatever we raised on the farm a percentage went to the farm owner. We lived there for eight years. During this time, we went to school three and a half miles away through the bush at Lost Horse Creek School. The creek where it was situated was named by the Indians because of horses being lost in some quicksand years before. The school was situated not far from its banks.

When we moved into the northern section of Saskatchewan, we were 150 miles north of Saskatoon. In 1930 this area was not well known, and the roads were really trails through the bush. When I was just under six years old, I started school in grade 1. There was no kindergarten in those days. I walked through the bush with my brothers and sisters, three and a half miles each morning, and back home again three and a half miles to our house. It was quite a hike for a six-year-old.

Early School Days

The school was a one-room schoolhouse with one teacher for all eight grades. There were two other boys in my class. I was so proud that I was always the top of the class. On my first day of school, I was sitting dreaming, not having much to do, and I was making strange noises as I dreamed (so they tell me). The teacher came up behind me and asked, Arnold, what are you doing?

I said, Just thinking.

She answered, But the noise you are making, what was that?

I said, I was howling like a coyote. Have you not heard them?

The teacher then instructed me that I should do that outside: in the classroom I must be quiet. She was very kind and did not get angry. I always liked her because she was so patient with me, and many times I think I tried her patience.

I’m told that I was always precocious (whatever that means) and would do my own thing. I never felt that I should follow the ways of others. I set my own style and did not care about any peer pressure.

When we were a few years older, my father got a two-wheel cart and allowed us to drive it to school. Three of us in that cart was a great adventure. Another family at the school had a horse also. At noon we would have races on horseback. Our old horse did well, but I think we wore her out.

We were raised to know what hard work was. On the farm I had to work from a very early age. My father had a blacksmith shop, and from eight or nine years old we helped in this work, turning the forge, bringing charcoal for the fire, doing different little jobs. I also had to milk cows. In the daytime I herded cows, looked after chickens, dug gardens and hoed them—to name a few of the tasks I had to do from an early age.

From the age of seven or eight I was allowed to ride horses bareback, and I was quite a good horseman. We used to go into the pasture and catch the horses to ride them. We even had races on the back side of the farm, which my dad called the back forty. My father did not know that we were doing this.

Contented Cows

When I was herding the cows out on the open range or fields in the back half of the farm with no fences, sometimes the cows would be satisfied—they had eaten enough grass, so they would lie down to rest and chew their cuds. Several times as they were resting like this, I would carefully come up and jump on their backs and throw my arms around their neck or grab the horns if I could reach them. That cow would take off like a shot. Talk about a ride! This was about as good as it got for excitement for a ten-year-old.

After several days of this my father said, Something is wrong with the cows. There must be something bothering them. You must watch and see what is happening there.

I asked, How can you tell that something is wrong?

My father said, When cows are nervous, they don’t rest well. Their milk is not as good, and they don’t give as much milk.

I guess that saying, or maybe it’s an advertisement, about milk from contented cows has something to it after all.

I never told my father what I was doing. I was just very careful to keep the cows away from anything that made them nervous.

First Christian Influences

When I was eight or nine years old, a Christian lady living about two miles from our farm started a Sunday school for all the children in the area. We went faithfully every Sunday through the summer months. In winter there was too much snow, so we stayed home. Some winters, we never even went to school!

It was at this time that three students from a Los Angeles Bible school came into the wilds of Canada to conduct Vacation Bible School in the area. Usually these fellows would stay at our house, and we thought this was one of the greatest events of life. Strangely enough, three of those young men from Los Angeles went to Africa as missionaries, and two became well known in many sections of their work there. They were Howard Wakeland, Joe Nash and Abe Gwenter. They used to sit with us, play their guitars, sing and tell stories of God and of what He was doing around the world. They would tell exciting missionary stories of Africa.

The early training of my mother (who was a Christian), the influence of a Sunday school lady, and the tremendous impact that these three young men had on my life are probably factors that pointed me to the mission field.

Before I had committed my life to Christ or really knew much about planning for the future, I was asked, What do you want to do when you grow up?

I answered, I want to be a missionary. Another time, after reading a book entitled The Autobiography of a Super Tramp, I answered the same question with I’m going to be a Super Tramp and travel.

Indian Friends

From my earliest days I remember the Indians coming around our farm. Often in tough winters Dad would help them out with whatever we had to spare. Sometimes we would find the hindquarters of a deer on our back porch. Other times we’d find a few large fish waiting for us. I guess we helped each other.

As kids we used to enjoy sitting and watching the Indians when they came to chat with our father. They were a colourful bunch. I remember their unique hats.

One time one of them asked my father if he could use our corral for a while. Naturally, Dad said yes. Soon a bunch of Indians came driving a herd of about thirty horses in front of them and guided them into the corral. That was quite a sight! They didn’t stay long, but I remember those horses!

Bowler Hat

When I was a boy, my father would tell me stories of our ancestry. One of his favourite stories was about the Bowler hat. Three generations back the Bowler brothers were commissioned to make a hat for the aristocracy in England. They fashioned the first hat from dried rabbit skins. It became very popular and was worn by many of the upper class in Britain. Until just a few years ago it was not uncommon to see the Bowler hat being worn by parliamentarians as they walked down the streets of London. It seemed that it was also the style to carry a small black umbrella that looked much like a walking stick.

I really did not believe this story about the hat until a friend in England sent me a copy of the London Daily Mirror. In it was a history of the Bowler hat and all about how it was made. This confirmed the story that Dad told. I was quite enthralled with this, and years later when I saw one in a shop in South Africa, I bought it and have it today as a keepsake.

Here’s the story: The Bowler hat was devised in 1849 by London hat makers Thomas and William Bowler. (These were my great great-uncles.) They developed the hat for a customer who wanted a close-fitting low-crowned hat that would protect his head. The Bowler brothers were asked to make such a hat. To test the hat, the buyer placed the hat on the floor and stamped on it to see how strong it was.

Contrary to popular belief, it was the Bowler hat, not the cowboy hat, that was the most popular hat in the American West. In fact it was called The Hat that Won the West.

The Bowler hat has also been worn by the Quechua and Aymara women in Peru and Bolivia since the 1920s when it was introduced to Bolivia by British railway workers.

Move to Ontario

In March 1941, my parents decided to leave the farm and move back to Ontario, where our relatives lived. There was a very big auction, everything was sold, and we boarded a train to travel to Oshawa. When we arrived, the children were sent to different places to live with relatives until a house could be found. I was sent to live with my mother’s brothers, the Faughts, on their farm in the Pembroke area.

When we were back in Oshawa, on the first Sunday after we were settled, my mother looked up the Pentecostal church, and we started to go there. Rev. R. A. Bombay was the pastor until after I grew up and was in Africa serving God. I feel that his teaching and example had a great deal to do with me giving my life to serve wherever God wanted. Pastor Bombay took an interest in me and always helped me. He was a great role model and the greatest mentor anyone could have had.

I used to give Pastor Bombay a hard time. He tended to preach long sermons, and I was not the most patient person. I was not saved at this time, and some of it was boring. I would sit at the back and talk and act up with a couple of other fellows. We thought it was great sport. Now, when I see kids doing this, I think, What brats! Why do they act like this? Don’t they know this is God’s house?

I remember sometimes when the pastor would look at me, I would put my watch up to my ear to see if it had stopped, and then I would take it off and shake it. The final straw was when I brought a calendar to church and held it up during the sermon to ascertain what day it was.

At the end of the service Pastor Bombay wanted to talk to me. He was very firm and told me that was it—not to do those things again. I respected him very much and realized I had gone beyond just having fun. I never did it again.

One day my mother was scrubbing the stairs in our house in Oshawa, a big basin of water sitting on one of the higher steps as she worked her way up the stairs. I had to go up to my room, and as I passed her she said, Don’t spill that water, boy. That gave me an idea. I reached back and kicked it down on her. I would not have thought of it if she hadn’t suggested it. My mother grabbed a stick, and up she came after me.

I jumped up on the windowsill and told her, You come one step nearer and I’ll jump. She came, and I jumped. The ground was frozen, and I almost broke my ankle. I was afraid to come home until late that night. I was fourteen years old then.

Isaiah 30:1 Woe!

My brother, who is two years older than me, surrendered his life to God quite a while before I did, and he used to talk to me and tell me that I should serve God. I was under conviction, and though I wasn’t a professing Christian, I would read some of my Bible each night. I guess I thought that this would give me brownie points with God. But I really wanted to walk my own way, not God’s.

One day, shortly before I was saved, I was in our kitchen, and my father was there. I was talking to my mother, and my father said something derogatory to me. I answered him in a very impudent way. Like a flash, he backhanded me across the side of the head. (I learned early that I should try and keep out of my father’s reach, especially when I was impudent. He was quick with his hands.)

I went up to my room and dropped on my bed. My Bible was there, and I just flipped it open, feeling sorry for myself. I looked at the Bible, and some words stood out as if they were a neon sign. The Bible was open to Isaiah, the thirtieth chapter, the first verse, Woe to the rebellious children (KJV).

I had been feeling sorry for myself, and my head was still hurting, but when I saw that verse I said, That came too late. I already got woe. I started to laugh.

That was the first time that God spoke to me in this way. And I realized that there was a God who sees and cares for me. Since then many times God has spoken to me through many verses and in many different ways and situations.

Early Aspirations

Growing up, we were poor, and I had never seen stores or big shops before we moved to Ontario. We had always lived on farms in the bush of Northern Saskatchewan. So in the big town of Oshawa I was overwhelmed by all the things in the shops. I was fourteen years old and a tough little kid. As I walked around downtown Oshawa, many times I saw things that I coveted; I wanted them so badly that I started to steal. I would wander through a store—especially Woolworth’s—and when no one was watching I would slip things up my sleeve and walk out. It was okay, I figured: no one saw me, no one was hurt, and the stores could afford it.

I was restless and loved to prowl the streets with some other guys (this was before street gangs). I loved the excitement and fights. There was hardly a week that my brother and I didn’t have black eyes and fat lips.

I had three cousins on my father’s side who made a good living boxing. One was the heavyweight champion of the Royal Canadian Navy Volunteer Reserve. He boxed under the name of Dempsey. His real name was Vernon Bowler, but everyone called him Demp after the boxer Dempsey.

I roamed the streets and had a lot of fights at that time. I was interested in track and boxing. I thought that it would be a great life to be a boxer and started to box. But the man who organized the fights wouldn’t let me go in the ring until my mother signed a disclaimer saying if I was hurt she could not sue. I was underage, and my mother refused to sign.

It really bothered me that my mother would not sign the paper for me to enter the ring. Many nights when I was sixteen or seventeen I would come in late, and my mother would be kneeling in the front room praying for me. I would get angry and say, Don’t pray for me! Sign that paper.

My Father

My father and I didn’t really get along too well. He was a very hard and no-nonsense person. If I was hurt I did not dare make a fuss about it. If I did, he would call me names and tell me I was no man. Consequently, I got so that I never wanted to show my emotions. I cut my hand badly once, and he looked at it, put salt on it, wrapped a handkerchief around it and said, Get back to work. Do your chores. I learned to keep everything inside and let people do what they would.

When we moved to Ontario, we went to school in Westmount, east Whitby. Almost every day someone would pick a fight with my brother or me: they wanted to see how tough these farmer boys from the west were.

One day I saw the school bully picking on one of my classmates. His name was Gord, and he was very small and didn’t bother anyone, but the bully had to show he was tough. I went over to them and told the bully to leave Gord alone. He turned on me, and we had quite a fight. I hit him in the side of the head and broke my hand. After about fifteen minutes he quit and ran home. I never told my mother or father about it, because this was not the way a man should act.

About a week passed, and my mother noticed that I was not using that hand. She made me go to the doctor. In fact, she took me to the doctor. I was fourteen at the time. The doctor found I had broken a couple of bones in the side of my hand, and they were impacted down almost to my thumb. I had not told my father because he would have cursed and belittled me.

When I started to go to church, my father told me that he did not want me going to that *&%$@ place and ordered me not to go. Because I was stubborn and he was so adamant that I should not go—I went!

One night I came in and he swore at me and said, Well, what did they tell you at that place tonight?

I answered, They were talking from Romans in the Bible about crucifying the old man. They said that I should go home and crucify the old man.

He was very angry and exploded from his chair, and I exploded out the door and did not come back for two or three hours.

Salvation

Before I became a Christian, I had visions of doing great things. I had quit school when I was fifteen years old because our family could not help me with educational needs. Instead I took a trade in ceramics, much of it on weekends and nights. Then I realized that there was not much money in ceramics, and I had decided I would not be poor. Consequently, at that time I started to work at, and took a full apprenticeship in, graphic arts (printing and publishing). (More on this later.)

Then, when I was seventeen, God answered my mother’s prayers. I was going to church only to please my mother and to spite my father. An evangelist came to our church from the USA, Rev. Ozzie Jones. He was supposed to be with us for two weeks and stayed the whole month of March in 1946. A Sunday school teacher, Mr. Alan Shank, kept encouraging me to come to church.

On the last Sunday night of March, I went forward and surrendered my life to God and asked Him to come into my life.

About that time, God spoke to me and called me to missions. I had always said I wanted to be a missionary even before I was saved. I felt that would be an exciting, fulfilling life.

I also had been a voracious reader of all types of books. Several missionary biographies and autobiographies came into my hands at this time, and two that stand out the clearest are Charles Cowman, Missionary Warrior, founder of the Oriental Missionary Society, and The Life of David Brainard. These men had an impact on my life along the lines of consecration and dedication, but, strangely enough, neither had anything to do with Africa.

God’s Early Lessons

At this time I really wanted to please God and wanted to know Him better. However, many times as I was praying there seemed to be a blockage that kept me from going deeper with God.

One evening when I was on my knees praying, God spoke to me: What about those things you stole? What are you going to do about them? I was surprised; I thought no one had seen me. Each time I prayed God continued to remind me of those things. God had forgiven me all my sins, but now I realized that, as a Christian, I should make this right.

I sat down and wrote a list of all the things that I could remember stealing: pocketknife, flashlight, batteries, chocolate bars, etc. I had pictures of having to go to jail, and it was a real struggle to go and face the store owners.

I finally felt brave enough to go to the store and ask for the manager. I told him what I had done and added,