Shepherding Families Through Until the End

Teri holds the photo the guards took at the Angela 

Hospice Care Center. From left: Teri, Cody, Ryan, 

Rick, Kathy, and Shanna.

Rick Colter was a great dad. He was fun-loving and adored his wife Kathy, their 4 children – Ryan, Teri, Cody and Shanna and his seven – grandchildren. Rick worked as an industrial fireman at General Motors for years, was a hobbyist mechanic, and a lover of the outdoors.

The life-changer came when Rick was diagnosed with lung cancer at 54 years old. He and Kathy tried everything. There was a period of remission before the disease came back, and then the doctors told them to find a hospice.

The remarkable part of the story is not that God led Rick and Kathy to Angela Hospice, but that there they were able to find a way for Rick to see his eldest son Ryan before he died.

Ryan is an inmate in the Ionia State Prison, for a charge that he and his family maintain he is innocent of. Rick was unable to see Ryan for more than a year, and it seemed impossible to see him now when he was very ill and in hospice home care. Rick was too sick to make the trip there.

But with God, all things are possible. Angela Hospice Social Worker, Ann-Patrice Foley, and Registered Nurse, Marion Ross, sprung into action when they heard about the need for this family. They contacted the prison and made a request for Ryan to take the more than 100-mile trip to say goodbye to his father. It is not uncommon to have a prisoner make a death bed visit, but this was an unusual case because of the distance, and the fact Rick resided at home — not a place the prison could guarantee to be secure.

Ann-Patrice went to Margot Parr, CEO and President of Angela Hospice, and asked, “What can we do to help this family?”

Margot knew that she couldn’t let the Colters down. “We are an organization based on faith and faith will make this happen for the Colter family!” Margot said.

It just happens that we have a place, our Care Center, that met the prison’s standard of security. In less than 24 hours after the request, Ryan was on his way to his father’s bedside with two prison guards at his side.

At first the guards would only let Ryan into Rick’s room and not the rest of his anxious family waiting outside who had not been all together for more than 11 years. Teri, the eldest Colter girl said, “We prayed as a family for God’s grace to let us all go in the room and be together — that’s when God took over — the guards, we later found out, were Christians. Their rules were strict — but they decided to call their supervisor and he gave the go-ahead to let the entire immediate family enter the room. It was amazing, and we are blessed.”

Rick went back home after the visit and died peacefully two days later with most of his family beside him. Ryan went back to prison where he has been chosen to take part in Calvin College’s Calvin Prison Initiative that trains faithful leaders in a prison context. A partnership between Calvin College and Calvin Theological Seminary, CPI is a unique program that provides a Christian liberal arts education to inmates at Handlon prison in Ionia, MI. Ryan hopes to become a minister.