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\u201cMy flesh and my heart may fail, but God is\u00a0the strength of my heart and my\u00a0portion\u00a0forever.\u201d \u2014 Psalm 73:26<\/p>\n <\/em>Clayton and Sarah Owen, two of the founding members of Fellowship\u2019s Cabot Campus, chose a life verse for each of their four children. They would do so before the child was born. Psalm 73:26 is the verse they selected for their daughter Eloise.<\/p>\n She was born June 15, 2006, with a severe congenital heart defect, called HypoPlastic Left Heart Syndrome (HLHS), often referred to as \u201cHalf a Heart Syndrome.\u201d At nine years old, on January 7, 2016, she passed away due to complications from HLHS.<\/p>\n Eloise\u2019s diagnosis went undetected in utero, which means her parents had chosen her verse before they ever even knew<\/em> she had a heart defect.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cTrauma is a mark on your timeline,\u201d Sarah says. \u201cAny traumatic matter is. But it\u2019s how you allow that to affect you and how you allow that to mold you as you move forward \u2014\u00a0and it\u2019s only through Christ.\u201d<\/p>\n The first mark on Sarah\u2019s timeline was when she was ten years old, on Christmas Eve of 1984 in the Dominican Republic. Her parents were missionaries for six years in different countries, and the majority of their time was spent in the Dominican Republic. Sarah, her parents, and her three younger siblings were in the car on their way to another missionary friend\u2019s house to spend Christmas Eve lunch together, when a drunk driver hit them.<\/p>\n The entire family experienced severe injuries as a result. Her father broke a few vertebrae in his neck. \u201cMedically, anatomically, he should be paralyzed from the neck down,\u201d Sarah says, \u201cbut he is the one that had to evacuate us all from the vehicle.\u201d The car struck the passenger\u2019s side, so her mother broke nearly every bone on the right side of her body. Sarah had a traumatic head injury that caused her to lose nearly every memory from her childhood prior to the accident. Her younger brother and sister each had a leg that was severely broken in many places, and her youngest brother \u2014 who was almost two years old, in a car seat \u2014 broke his nose. They were medically evacuated back to America, where they received treatment.<\/p>\n Due to his injuries and his wife\u2019s, Sarah\u2019s father was not able to work for a year. He was the sole caretaker of her mom, who couldn\u2019t walk until years after the accident. At the time, the doctors weren\u2019t sure if she\u2019d ever walk again. Meanwhile, Sarah had to step up to help her father around the house. \u201cI\u2019m the oldest of four kids, and it was just a really traumatic season in our life where I was forced to grow up very quickly, and I raised my three siblings.\u201d Thankfully, their church stood faithfully by their side. \u201cThe church really supported us financially\u2026 the body of Christ just stepped up and supported us and encouraged us.\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah also reflects on how that devastating time in her family\u2019s life helped to mold her personality. \u201cThat is a pivotal moment in my life on shaping who I am today. Although I do regret having to grow up very quickly, [I] did not have a childhood past that, that moment gave me \u2014 the Lord opened up the gifts of leadership and administration from an early age to use those giftings in confidence and grow in them as I led my family.\u201d<\/p>\n Although Sarah has had many trauma marks on her timeline, she has also had several marks of God\u2019s kindness. One such instance was a memory that the Lord allowed to be preserved in her brain from before the accident \u2014\u00a0her baptism. She was nine years old. \u201cOne of the things that I do remember is that my dad baptized me in the Atlantic in the Dominican Republic. The same day that I was baptized, an older senior adult aged man was also baptized. I don\u2019t know how old he was, but I knew he couldn\u2019t walk and he was blind. And he was carried by men into the ocean to be baptized. So what a beautiful picture of, no matter what the age is\u2026 just the beauty of being born again, whether you\u2019re 9 or 90.\u201d<\/p>\n Another mark of kindness has been her husband, Clayton. The two were set up on a blind date by mutual friends while Clayton was in dental school and Sarah was finishing college, and they got engaged after just three months of dating! \u201cAnd here we are 25 years later with four kids, four beautiful kids,\u201d Sarah says. They share three boys, Sam (21), Abe (20), and Zeke (10), as well as daughter Eloise, who would have turned 18 this year.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Cabot is the Owen family\u2019s home, through and through.<\/p>\n Clayton owns an Orthodontic practice in Cabot, and Sarah has been serving on the Cabot School Board for the past ten years. It was a difficult decision to run, but ultimately she knew it was what she needed to do. \u201cAt that time, we had four kids, and they were all young, and they were in the schools. I asked myself, \u2018Why wouldn\u2019t I want to serve something that directly affects our family?\u2019 \u2026[Clayton\u2019s] support is what platforms me to do what I do. \u2026I love it. I get to be an advocate for students. I get to be an advocate for faculty and staff. I get to be an advocate for education changes within our state and speak to that. \u2026When you\u2019re doing what God has you to do, using the gifts that He gives you \u2014 even though it\u2019s hard \u2014 you just receive joy and fulfillment from that, and purpose.\u201d<\/p>\n The Owen family had attended a non-denominational church in Alabama during Clayton\u2019s orthodontic residency and enjoyed their experience there. So, when Fellowship Elder Mike Marquez, a friend of Clayton\u2019s from college, called them up in late summer of 2005 and asked them to pray for a potential Cabot Campus, they were fully \u201con board\u201d \u2014 literally. The founding members had a playfully affectionate nickname for the earliest iteration of the campus: \u201cWe launched in what we called \u2018the dinghy.\u2019 It was our very first building,\u201d Sarah says. \u201cIt looked like a dinghy of a ship,\u201d Clayton echoes.<\/p>\n Sarah fondly recalls a moment from the early days where again, the body of Christ came alongside her and her family. The Cabot Campus Pastor at the time, Charlie Loften, who was new to the area, was informed by then-Teaching Pastor Tim Lundy that there was a family who\u2019d just had a baby with a heart condition. \u201cHe went to Arkansas Children\u2019s Hospital, walked in not knowing anybody, trying to find a family who was part of the praying group [for] Fellowship to start in Cabot.\u201d<\/p>\n Starting a new campus was a stretching yet rewarding experience. \u201cIt was all hands on deck,\u201d Clayton says. \u201c\u2026when you\u2019re planting a church, it\u2019s using the giftings of the people who are in that original planting group\u2026to create that one body,\u201d Sarah says.<\/p>\n The Cabot Campus had its very first Sunday service on August 20, 2006 \u2014 the culmination of much hard work, prayer, and people willing to step in and wear multiple hats to get the job done. Since then, the Owen family has delighted in watching the campus flourish. \u201cYou know, it has multiplied, God\u2019s Word has carried forth very fruitfully,\u201d Clayton explains. \u201cWe\u2019ve seen many people come to the Lord, baptized over the years, and just families \u2014 [it’s] a very family-friendly atmosphere. I think people always seem to feel welcome. \u2026But we\u2019ve watched it grow from its infancy to where it is today, and just, you know, the Spirit of the Lord is definitely in this place.\u201d These days, you\u2019ll find Clayton on a Sunday morning volunteering with the Connection Team, helping with parking, greeting, and door holding, and Sarah you\u2019ll see helping lead worship. The two also co-lead a D-Group with another couple for young marrieds.<\/p>\n This strong community in Cabot has been a vital support system in the darkest days of their life.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \u201cWhen she was two and a half days old,\u201d Sarah says, \u201cshe just started acting a little funny.\u201d Delivery went well, and Eloise was doing great right after birth and when they first came home. Then, things began to shift. Eloise became lethargic, and Clayton describes that she started turning a grayish color. When they went to the emergency room at Arkansas Children\u2019s Hospital (ACH), Sarah recalls \u201cthe person working the check-in desk saw the color of my infant and called a code, and they came and got her.\u201d The next few moments were surreal. \u201cAnd I remember the resident came, it was a female, and she knelt down in front of me and was sitting there, while we were in shock. \u2026She said, \u2018we don\u2019t know what\u2019s going on, but we\u2019re trying everything we can to save your child.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n The late Dr. Tad Fiser, who was an elder at Fellowship, and his team at ACH, took exceptional care of Eloise. They determined she had HLHS, and she had open-heart surgery at just 12 days old. \u201cThat started our journey. Her first year of life she had two open-heart surgeries,\u201d Sarah says. \u201cWe spent, in that first year of life, a total of almost seven months in and out of the hospital.\u201d<\/p>\n From there, Eloise would go on to have more complications, surgeries, illnesses, and hospital visits over the years, but she sure packed in a lot of life in between. \u201cOoh she was full of sass and personality,\u201d Sarah says. What didn\u2019t she do? Ballet, hip hop, tap, basketball, majorette baton twirling, volleyball \u2014\u00a0anything active or on a stage! \u201cShe was mean as a snake on the basketball court,\u201d Clayton jokes. \u201cI mean, you\u2019d have parents going, \u2018she\u2019s stealing the ball!\u2019 You know she\u2019s six years old, seven years old, she\u2019s taking the ball away from others, and you can hear parents going, \u2018she\u2019s fouling her!\u2019 And I\u2019m like, \u2018she\u2019s got half a heart!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Sarah explains that the nighttime after a full day of being Eloise would always be trying. \u201cWe would have setbacks, nights would be really hard, because she would crash really hard and cry and be in a lot of pain, but the next day I could not tell her that she could not go jump on the trampoline. Or she shouldn\u2019t ride her little razor scooter down the street or go play with her friends. She just, she didn\u2019t know anything different. And I love that about her.\u201d<\/p>\n Most of the providers on her medical team, understandably, would have preferred Eloise to live more cautiously, given that she was immunocompromised. But, as Sarah said the week that Eloise passed away, \u201cher life was meant to be spent on playgrounds.\u201d<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][et_pb_gallery gallery_ids=”30613,30617,30612,30614,30616,30615″ fullwidth=”on” _builder_version=”4.27.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”][\/et_pb_gallery][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.26.0″ _module_preset=”default” global_colors_info=”{}”]<\/p>\n About two years prior to her death, she began to experience severe pulmonary hemorrhages, which were impossible to predict or prevent. Sarah says Eloise\u2019s team worked diligently to try to determine why these were happening. \u201cArkansas Children\u2019s Hospital is a leading heart institute research hospital. And they have groundbreaking technology and studies in the world of cardiovascular care for pediatrics. And they reached out globally to find if there were any studies, research, or cases, either living or deceased, where you have the complication of pulmonary hemorrhages, which are hemorrhages into the lungs, and hypoplastic left heart. Both of those happen in silos. But there was nothing, nothing living or deceased where they crossed paths. And so it was unknown territory, scientifically. There were no answers, there was no understanding.\u201d<\/p>\n On New Year\u2019s Day of 2016, she had another episode that caused significant brain damage, and was on life support for five days. After Clayton and Sarah made the decision to take her off of life support, Clayton says, \u201cwe got to sit around Eloise with our immediate family and sing the doxology, \u2018praise God from whom all blessings flow.\u2019\u201d The doxology was a particularly meaningful song for Sarah\u2019s family growing up; they sang it before meals and over one another at family gatherings. Clayton and Sarah also would go on to sing it to their young children \u2014 in fact, it was the first song they knew by heart. \u201cAnd I\u2019ll never forget that, what a sweet moment, before we said goodbye.\u201d<\/p>\n Yet another timeline mark of God\u2019s extraordinary kindness is that Eloise came to a saving faith in Jesus Christ and was baptized on Mother\u2019s Day of 2015, just before her ninth birthday. As full as she lived here on earth in just nine years, the Owens have tremendous peace knowing she is living that fullness a hundredfold in the presence of her Savior. Sarah says, \u201cAfter losing Eloise, the hope of Heaven became so much sweeter.\u201d<\/p>\n Clayton and Sarah both credit their strong Christian upbringings for holding them steady in the wake of Eloise\u2019s passing. \u201cMy parents instilled in me a very solid faith foundation to prepare me for what was going to happen in 2016,\u201d Sarah says. \u201cI look back and people say, \u2018How did you do that? How did you lose a child? How did you stay married?\u2019 It\u2019s because the divorce rate after the death of a loved one is \u2014\u00a0the odds are against you. And I equate it back to that firm, solid foundation of faith. The knowing of who God is, even in the darkest and the hardest times. The knowing of His sweetness and goodness.\u201d<\/p>\n Part of God\u2019s goodness was displayed in His patience with Sarah in coming back to church. \u201cThe beautiful part of my story is that it took me 19 months to get back, to walk back into the fellowship of believers, but He was waiting for me.\u201d She says it was a nearly two-year conversation that she had to have with God, wrestling with her grief and anguish. \u201cI say I never fell out of love with Christ. I never fell out of relationship with Christ. \u2026I still loved Him. I just didn\u2019t like Him. I didn\u2019t like who He was or what He did, and I chose not to see His presence in my life. But He waited for me, and it was so sweet.\u201d In light of her whole experience and the lessons she\u2019s learned, Sarah has this advice for parents who also find themselves experiencing the unfathomable: \u201cmake sure you don\u2019t walk through this alone. You don\u2019t have to be alone.\u201d<\/p>\n Clayton and Sarah generously and graciously donated Eloise\u2019s heart and lungs to scientific research, since her case was one of a kind. Their contribution to Arkansas Children\u2019s Hospital (ACH) and scientific research did not stop there, however. A few friends of Sarah\u2019s approached her at the visitation to see if she and Clayton would be alright with them creating an event in Eloise\u2019s honor. They landed on doing a walk, calling it \u201cWalk for Wheezy.\u201d Just like the life verse, the nickname \u201cWheezy\u201d came about \u2014 courtesy of a close family friend \u2014 while Sarah was still pregnant. \u201cIt really birthed out of The Jeffersons, it\u2019s an old TV show, Weezy Jefferson, and it was just kind of a comical thing that he called her. Well, when she was born, in those first couple years of life, she was on oxygen and the generator wheezed, and so it just stuck that she was Wheezy.\u201d<\/p>\n Her friends felt how deeply Eloise\u2019s passing had affected Cabot, which is what prompted them to approach Sarah. \u201cWe had to have her visitation at the high school fine arts auditorium, because we had thousands of people nationwide come in response to this. They just saw the outpouring of our community. They saw that Cabot was hurting, Cabot was grieving, Cabot needed something more than just a funeral to celebrate the life of this little girl,\u201d Sarah explains. The first Walk for Wheezy (W4W)<\/a> happened in February of 2016, with 500 people in attendance, and it raised $17,000 for the Cardio Vascular Intensive Care Unit at ACH.<\/p>\n After the first walk\u2019s success, W4W became a nonprofit and agreed to a 10-year partnership with ACH to raise awareness and funds for research, with a goal of raising $500,000. This February, 2025, will be the last year of W4W, and they\u2019re currently at $440,000. They\u2019re fully confident they\u2019ll be able to reach their goal. One example of how ACH has been able to use these funds thus far is the creation of the Walk for Wheezy Lab, completed in January of this year, which Sarah explains is \u201cbetween pulmonology and cardiology, where they\u2019re doing testing on patients who have the combination of these issues.\u201d<\/p>\n What has been the most meaningful and rewarding for them, though, has been the chance to share the gospel and their testimony through W4W and various related speaking engagements. \u201cHere we are, eight years later, hearing stories of how people either came to know Him or were reconnected with Him or found hope in the midst of a dark time, seeing that we fully relied on Him, even while we were angry and crying and miserable and suffering, and even in the darkest parts of grief, still fell back on that firm foundation that He was the solid rock we stood on,\u201d Sarah says.<\/p>\n Clayton says a phrase from Sarah\u2019s father, Pastor Sam Shaw \u2014 echoing that sentiment of Christ as the solid Rock \u2014 has become a motto for the Owen family. \u201cSarah\u2019s dad preached a sermon one time that we have carried with us from the time we were married, and it\u2019s: \u2018Life is difficult. Jesus is Lord. I will rejoice.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n Life is difficult.<\/p>\n Jesus is Lord.<\/p>\n I will rejoice.<\/p>\n [\/et_pb_text][\/et_pb_column][\/et_pb_row][\/et_pb_section]<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u201cMy flesh and my heart may fail, but God is\u00a0the strength of my heart and my\u00a0portion\u00a0forever.\u201d \u2014 Psalm 73:26 Clayton and Sarah Owen, two of the founding members of Fellowship\u2019s Cabot Campus, chose a life verse for each of their four children. They would do so before the child was born. Psalm 73:26 is the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false,"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"rendered","format":"html"}]},"author":16,"featured_media":30624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_et_pb_use_builder":"on","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","wds_primary_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[494],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-30551","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-written"],"acf":[],"gt_translate_keys":[{"key":"link","format":"url"}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fellowshipar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30551","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fellowshipar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fellowshipar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fellowshipar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/16"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fellowshipar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30551"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.fellowshipar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30551\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fellowshipar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/30624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.fellowshipar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30551"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fellowshipar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30551"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.fellowshipar.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30551"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}