“Volunteers should be aware that search efforts will primarily be conducted outdoors and may involve various terrain and weather conditions. Please dress accordingly and plan for an entire day. Please bring bottled water and/or food as necessary. If possible, volunteers are requested to wear orange hunting vests or bright-colored clothing.”

I never expected to pack a backpack of supplies I might need during a day of searching for a missing child, but when the community was informed that the FBI would be seeking the help of volunteers, how could I not go? My heart had been aching for the parents of a little girl who had disappeared three nights before. They were living through my, and most parents, worst nightmare.

Before dawn the next morning volunteers began to arrive at the designated location and instructions were given. People with all sorts of connections to the family, and no connection at all, gathered with their backpacks, hiking boots, and walking sticks ready to search. We waited, and waited, and waited as law enforcement organized and background-checked volunteers in groups of ten. A helicopter and two planes began to searching from the air once the sun was up. Slowly, groups began to load into school buses and were driven out to their search location, but so many volunteers remained, waiting quietly and patiently to serve.

After four hours of standing in a group of ten, visiting softly and waiting for our turn to undergo the background check, it was clear there were just more volunteers than were needed or could be processed. Every volunteer truly seemed to be trying to put love into action, and that made standing still and doing nothing that much more challenging. I decided that coming back at a later time, when there was a greater need for fresh volunteers, would be most helpful. I wondered why they didn’t ask half of us to come back to serve in a ‘second wave’.

That evening it became clear that a second wave would not be needed. The mission had been accomplished and my assumption had been confirmed. I’m not an emergency response professional of any kind, but combing heavily wooded areas for a little girl to me suggested that if she was found, she would not be alive. Part of me desperately hoped she was not found in the woods because there’d be hope of a happy ending. The other part of me knew that finding her would bring closure for her family.

As I write this, my heart is so sad. The pain her family is feeling and the evil that exists in this world are so very heavy. But there is also goodness if we look for it. She is free of this broken world, and in a time of division and pointing fingers, people set aside their opinions and stood shoulder-to-shoulder to do a very hard job with great love.