‘So much more that he was planning.’ KY minister remembered after COVID-19 death.

Julie Kent Fuson does not want her husband “just to be a number,” remembered only as a COVID-19 victim.

Jeff Fuson, a minister who died Saturday of complications from COVID-19, “wanted to find whatever gifts that people had and direct them to lead,” she told the Herald-Leader.

Jeff Fuson grew up in Corbin and went to the University of Kentucky.

Julie was from Frankfort and attended Georgetown College. She said that the couple had been walking “an incredibly difficult journey” since he was diagnosed with coronavirus.

As many Kentuckians have been going out in public more, even traveling amid a COVID-19 surge, Jeff Fuson urged caution on Facebook as he shared his story.

Fuson, 56, who started Phos Community Church in Oldham County 12 years ago, alerted family and friends that his condition was serious in a July 11 post:

“I am now a Covid 19 Patient and am in the hospital in isolation. That means Julie Kent Fuson and I are separated which is a super bummer in a battle like this,” he said.

“I am in a fight like you would never wanna be in,” Fuson said. “I’m toe to toe in the ring with this invisible enemy that sucker punches me right to the lungs and takes my breath away and leaves my room filled with warning lights and alarms going off telling me me that I’m out of breath... literally. Just typing is causing it to go off.”

Jeff Fuson in his post asked people to take the disease seriously, wear a mask in public and use precautions.

“I’m telling you this is already way tougher than I ever thought I’d have to go through, “ he said.

Julie Fuson, in the days that followed, provided updates, as physicians monitored her husband’s oxygen levels and kidney function and laid him on his stomach to try to improve his condition. She said people all over the world were praying for him.

Then, on Saturday, Aug. 1, daughter Evelyn Fuson, one of the couple’s three children, posted that her father had died.

“As with anything in life we have a choice to cultivate gratitude or bitterness. I hope you’ll choose gratitude,” she said.

Julie Fuson told the Herald-Leader she didn’t know where her husband contracted the coronavirus.

“We were very cautious,” she said. “I do believe masks are important.”

Julie Fuson said her husband was, early in his career, a high school biology teacher in Oldham County and then a youth minister at Crestwood Baptist Church in Oldham County before starting Phos Community Church.

“We adored each other,” Julie Fuson said. “We did ministry together for a long, long time.”

“He was a lover of life. He had so much more that he was planning on doing to live for,” she told the Herald-Leader.

Fuson never met a stranger and had a knack for connecting with the overlooked and discounted, family members said.

A woman named Allison Leigh said of Fuson in a post, “He drew people into serving alongside him, he developed leaders.”

Julie Fuson said her husband influenced a lot of young people. Several people have reached out to the family to say that he taught them to serve and to volunteer.

“He was a very gifted leader,” she said. “He was at the heart, a teacher just like Jesus was. That’s how he communicated.”

Julie Fuson lamented that because her husband was in isolation, she was not able to be with him at the hospital as he went through “this last journey.”

“My heart breaks because I know he really needed me -- this is one of the most horrible and harsh realities of our present times,” she said.

This story was originally published August 3, 2020 at 2:38 PM.