LEBANON, Ohio — An American who is back home after being detained for nearly six months in North Korea said Friday that he left a Bible in a nightclub hoping it would get into the hands of what he called the country’s underground Christian church.
Jeffrey Fowle said he traveled to the country as a tourist but saw the opportunity as a way to follow the Christian mission “to carry the Gospel to all corners of the Earth.”
“I knew it was a risk, that I was taking a gamble, but I felt compelled to do that to aid the underground church in some small way,” Fowle said.
“I felt once I left the Bible somewhere that God would take it the rest of the way into the hands of some kind of Christian organization, and I’d be able to waltz out of country fat, dumb and happy, no problem,” he said. “But God had other plans.”
Fowle, 56, arrived in North Korea on April 29. The married father of three returned home last week after negotiations involving retired diplomat and former Ohio Congressman Tony Hall.
He said he went to North Korea to experience the country and that spreading the Gospel was a secondary motivation.
Fowle, an equipment operator in the city of Moraine street department, said he paid about $3,900 for the tour, plus about $700 for a flight to Beijing.
Fowle said he left the Bible — with his name in it — in a bathroom under a trash bin at a nightclub in the port city of Chongjin and hoped a Christian would find it. He chose that city and the nightclub in the belief there would be less security. He bought the English-Korean Bible before his trip.
Instead, his tour guide asked the next day if anyone had left a Bible there, and he owned up to it. He was detained a few days later while going through customs before departure.
Fowle was taken to a hotel for about three weeks and questioned, then moved to another facility. He wrote a confession and answered questions about his motivations. He said authorities couldn’t believe he had acted on his own, but he made clear it was his own decision. He was treated well and was comfortable, he said.
He was allowed to speak in September to Western news organizations in five-minute interviews. He said he was given “talking points” for those interviews, meant to convey his “desperate situation.”
The intention, in his mind, was “to have the U.S. government or some other entity step in to help resolve that situation.”
Fowle said his release came as a surprise.
He said he knew there was a risk but believed it was worth taking to get the Bible into the hands of North Korean Christians. In hindsight, he said, he wouldn’t do it again.
His family suffered in his absence, especially after the city of Moraine terminated him when his leave was exhausted. His wife, Tatyana, works part time.
He apologized to his wife in a letter from North Korea and has pledged to be a better husband and father.
The city of Moraine, a Dayton suburb, agreed to give him his street department job back but said risky travel in the future would result in his firing.
U.S. officials are trying to win the release of two other Americans held in North Korea, Matthew Miller and Kenneth Bae. Fowle said he had had no contact with Miller or Bae.
