I can’t believe it’s only Wednesday.  It’s been such an incredibly long week already.  Monday night I was doing my “rounds” on the internet, making sure none of the NDC contestants needed me, our facebook page was okay, nothing urgent in customer service, really just a last-minute check before rolling into bed.  I was still tired from my fabulous birthday weekend.  Just before I clicked off my monitor, I saw it.  A missing child flyer up on my personal facebook.  Of course I took a look.  A 15-year-old girl never came home from school on Monday afternoon.
At first I wasn’t worried, this has happened before, and it’s always a misunderstanding or argument between parent and child.  This time, that wasn’t the case.  This missing girl was autistic with every limited speech, and no German.  The last anyone saw of her was her walking off post alone.  She had missed her bus, her brother, her protector, was home sick and she had missed the bus.  So, of course, she started to walk home alone.  The problem is, she’s in a foreign country and her home is 30+ kilometers off post. My heart sank.  It was already after 9 pm.
Dave and I quickly decided I would join the search party, he would stay home with the kids.  Out of the two of us, I have the most experience with autistic children.  I gathered up my girlfriend as well, she is the mother of two autistic kids, and said “yes” without hesitation despite the late hour or the prospect of a night without sleep.  Shaking we drove to post together, driving slowly, looking for any signs of the missing girl.  By the time we finally passed through the gates and arrived at the MP station, texts had started flying, facebook was alive with excitement.  She had been found!  Eight and a half hours after school ended, 20 km from post, she had been found!  It is a small miracle, and miracles are so incredibly good.
Speaking of small miracles, our friends came home with one themselves last week.  After years of praying, so many ups and downs, their dreams have come true and a beautiful daughter has come into their lives.  Being so far from family is hard, and we feel blessed to be their family right now.  We are happily bringing over meals, diapers, groceries, the cutest little socks & onesies, and yesterday Tess was hired to be a Mother’s Helper.  She gets to sit and hold the baby while her mom gets some household chores done.  Tess is in Heaven.