Connecticut Pastor Driving 2,300 Miles To Help El Paso Victims

NORWICH, CT—After writing about the local impact on the Haitian community in Norwich following the 2010 earthquake in Haiti, reporter Adam Bowles went there on a humanitarian mission.

A few years after the disaster that claimed the lives of hundreds of thousands and destroyed much of the island, Bowles quit his job and, the married father of two, created a charity to help victims. It was called "35 Seconds for Haiti," the time it took for the earthquake to devastate the country. And, it was the number of miles from capital Port-au-Prince to Petit Goave, the home village of many of the 5,000 Haitian immigrants who came to Norwich.

Now, six years later, Bowles, pastor of the non-denominational Castle Church on Broadway in downtown Norwich, "struck by the fact that the shooter decided to drive 10 hours to El Paso in the name of hatred," to murder 22 innocent victims, mostly Hispanic, in a mass shooting, Bowles and friend Matt Martinez and Bowles' brother-in-law Jono Wibberley decided to drive the 2300 miles from Norwich to the El Paso memorial site, a "fundraising journey that without stops would take one day and 10 hours."

Bowles’ idea is inspired by scripture, he said: Matthew 5:41, and so the sojourn is called “Love goes farther.”

One of the stops was to the memorial site in Dayton, Ohio, the scene of another mass shooting which stole the lives of nine innocent victims.

The money raised on the journey will go to the Paso del Norte Community Foundation to help support the families and community of the victims, Bowles said.

"Every mile and every donation is our way of condemning hatred," he said.

Bowles, Martinez and Wibberley left Norwich Monday Aug. 19 and have, along the way, shared their journey on Facebook.

Bowles wrote that he "...thought of all the reasons we shouldn’t go ...couldn’t go. Second guessed and self-doubted. But then thought of all the times God has showed up in my life."

And so they set off he said because "Love is greater than evil."

They left Norwich, crossed the George Washington Bridge, drove through Pennsylvania into Ohio, and by late Wednesday night, they'd made it to St. Louis.

"Good morning St. Louis! Hoping we can get the attention of the people here in this beautiful city before we leave in a couple of hours," Bowles wrote.

Along the way, Bowles admitted that when he and Wibberley left Norwich, "...we had no idea where we would end up..." But when news spread of their journey, "thankfully we have been given a home to stay at in El Paso!"

"We don’t know anyone personally in El Paso but we’ve been greatly humbled by the messages of welcome and gratitude by the people there who are following along our journey," he wrote. "Our hope is we can arrive Friday evening with money raised from people outside their community as a united message that love goes farther than hate. To everyone else who has liked or shared our posts, thank you for inspiring us with your support and don’t forget that even the smallest of donations represent the time you took to condemn acts of hatred. "

Thursday morning, Bowles told Patch that he and Martinez and Wibberley are "feeling incredibly blessed by the way this trip unfolds in beautiful ways with seemingly each mile we drive."

"We don’t know anyone in El Paso," he said, "but we’ve been overwhelmed and humbled by how many of the people there have reached out to us to welcome us."

Thursday evening, Patch checked in: They just crossed the border into Oklahoma.

Just before noon on Friday, Bowles and friends checked in:

“We should be crossing into El Paso between 5:30-6:30 pm. We are visiting the memorial site at 10 tomorrow (Saturday) morning. We’d love to see you there. Meanwhile, we have 7 hours to reach $10,000. Join us in going the extra mile!”

Friday night, they'd made it to El Paso.

The trio is using the hashtags #lovegoesfarther #GodLovesElPaso and #elpasostrong on social media.

Follow Bowles' Love Goes Farther journey on Facebook.

Donations can be made to support the Paso del Norte Community Foundation and specifically the Love Goes Father initiative here. So far, Bowles' hope of donations of $1 for each mile has, as of the publishing of the this story, met the goal and a new goal was set: $10,000.