Please Help Us Come Home, We Are Missing!

          Missing. Vanished. Disappeared. Lost. Gone. These are scary, ugly words that describe people who, for various reasons, find themselves unfortunate enough to become unaccounted for and are not able to be found without help. It seems that, if we follow the news, especially online, that we see one case after another, of men, women, and children who vanish. Those of us who operate in the "world of the missing," whether as family members, professionals, volunteers or advocates, see literally one person after another, be reported as missing. And this does not take into consideration all of those who are not even reported as missing! People of all ages, and from all walks of life, of all races and ethnicities, go missing. Boys are as likely to vanish as girls; men are as likely to disappear as women. Having a missing loved one can happen to anyone at any time.
          I have "friended" many profiles on Facebook, that have been set up for missing people and they make up roughly half of my social network; these profiles are set up by family members and advocates, so missing persons posts show up on my homepage with alarming and heartbreaking frequency. It is the case of Lindsey Baum, who is pretty close in age to my own daughter, who got me fired up about this issue. Lindsey, who vanished on June 26, 2009, was almost 11 at the time and is still missing! Missing people are likely to never go away, nor the need for awareness. And for the sake of those who are not familiar with missing people, let me explain the issues surrounding them and how they apply to all of us and why this concerns us all.
          The first, and most simple reason people go missing is miscommunication about whereabouts. When, in any situation, one of us fails to let others know where we are going and where we can be reached, whether we are going for a few blocks, a few milies, out of our country, or even our state or country, it is possible for others to "lose us." For example, about three years ago, the media covered a heartbreaking story of couple in an affluent neighborhood who "lost" their baby because each parent assumed their child was with the other parent (and so was safe). Tragically, the child had vanished and his poor little body was found. This was all because of a misunderstanding, and don't we all have those? I know I do! But this couple was unfortunate enough to pay for theirs by the loss of a child. And this sort of missing person scenario is probably more common that we will ever know; isn't this one more incentive for communicating, especially concerning whereabouts, ours or others' in our care?
          A second reason people, both children and even adults, go missing is because they run away, that is they vanish by choice. Most missing people, especially minors, we are told, are runaways. Though most are found safe, many other runaways encounter foul play as they go on the run; they may end up raped or even murdered; most who run into foul play become victims of human trafficking, especially in the teen years. Thrownaways, those who are not reported as missing, also are just as much at-risk as runaways, of running into foul play. Human trafficking is a big issue surrounding missing people, as many of them are believed to be in the sex slavery trade (not the only form of human trafficking, which includes adoption trafficking or domestic servitude). Since many of us are parents of children ages 10-25 (considered to be most at-risk of becoming victims of human trafficking), we ought to be very concerned about this matter. This is a depraved, sick industry and it is a powerful incentive to drill into children that running away is NOT the solution to problems at home; it is also a big incentive to create a home balanced with the right mix of love and discipline so they the young will not even want to run away! For runaways cannot be assumed to be safe, though most missing children who are found safe, are runaways. And running away is not confined to children. Adults have also been known to vanish willingly. A few years ago, I read a book called EXIT THE RAINMAKER, written by a woman whose husband ran away, and began a "new life" in Europe, moving from country to country. There is the high-profile case of a boyfriend of the singer Olivia Newton-John, who vanished for many years and was found safe, though it was revealed that he ran off, starting his "new life" abroad also. Tiffany Tehan is the most recent cases; an active parishioner and a mother, she ran off and was found with a man. We adults also need to lead by example, showing the young that running away from problems is not the way to solve anything. By facing our adult responsibilities, including caring for these children, jobs, homemaking, bills, or whatever we are called to do, we show them that running away is "uncool." And we spare loved ones and our communities unneeded anxiety, anguish as well as expenses of looking for us. We may even be saving our own lives!
          Many children vanish because of family abductions where the non-custodial parent (who does not have child custody) kidnaps them and harbors them unlawfully, often out of vindictiveness toward the other parent and as a way to "get back at" them. This kidnapped child is normally found safe but cannot be assumed to be so, especially when the non-custodial parent is known to be abusive, as in the high-profile, recent, sad case of little 8-year-old Aja (pronounced Asia) Johnson, who was taken by her stepfather and was found dead (He had killed his ex-wife, Aja's mother beforehand). Years ago, I saw the tear-jerker, "When Andrew Came Home," about a 6-year-old boy who was kidnapped by his non-custodial father, and was found 5 years later. However, as often haapens in the case of parental abductions, his father had turned Andrew against his mother, so he came home with deep fear and hate toward her. Fortunately, that story has a happy ending. Sadly, not only do such children come home, brainwashed, but sometimes the custodial parent never sees them again. We parents need to realize that, even if our partner hurts us, using a child to "even the score" solves nothing!
          And then people, especially children, teens and young adults, vanish because they are abducted by acquaintances or by strangers. In this case, the missing person is more likely to be found dead and what happens to them normally happens within the first three hours. Abductors may take their victims to hold them captive, whether for a few minutes, a few hours, a few days, for months or even years, and this is when they are likely to be found alive. Long-term kidnapping survivors, like Elizabeth Smart, found alive after 9 months, or Jaycee Dugard, who was found alive after 18 years, are notable exceptions. People who vanish because of abductions are in the minority of the total number of missing people. We have many resources today to protect our children from such abductions, though there are never any 100 percent guarantees. We can be thankful for the AMBER ALERT program, limited as it is, as it covers only children whose abductions are witnessed, who are officially believed by law enforcement to be in bodily danger, and who are 17 or under (in my home state, age 16 is the cut-off age).
          Domestic violence is another big reason for missing people. A common scenario, which we hear about too often in the news, is when a parent, partner, or spouse abuses a family member to death and then makes the murder look like something else, like suicide or a mysterious disappearance. The only way we can deal with this one is to manage our anger (often easier said than done) and to find ways to prevent and end all forms of abuse in our communities. So much has been said about child abuse and spousal abuse that I need not go into it here.
          A final reason that people of all ages vanish is because they have special needs, especially cognitive differences, like amnesia, strokes, dementias, mental illness, autism, suicidal urges,or other such issues, that causes them to "wander off" or to "elope" where they are at-risk of bodily harm or foul play. Disabilities are often a big issue that surround missing people, but I fear that it is seen as a separate issue, for some reason. The only answer I see for this is to seek to protect such people in such a way that takes into consideration their special situations while giving them some measure of independence. Yes, this is easier said than done!
          The point? We should ALL be concerned about missing people. Those of us who are blessed not to have missing loved ones MUST realize that this can happen to anyone at any time; any person with a missing loved one will likely tell you that they, at one time, didn't think it would happen to them, either.
         Below I provide links to helpful resources and I hope you will check them out. And if you have a missing loved one, please know that you are not alone and that there are many resources for you and people who care. If you are simply seeking to educate yourself about this, these resources will educate you to toward prevention and reducing your risks of having a loved one vanish. Anf if you want to help, there are options for that, too.
         We all can help bring missing people home!

http://www.lostnmissing.com/  Lostnmissing, Inc.
This is the website for a nonprofit which provides comprehensive services for familes with missing loved ones and also educates about prevention of seeing a loved one going missing.

http://www.missingkids.com/  National Center for Missing and Exploited Children
This is the website for a nonprofit which provides comprehensive services for families with missing children with a database for all children in the US who are reported as missing, and provides lots of information, including how to prevent children from going missing.

http://namus.gov/  NAMUS database
This is the US database for ALL missing and unidentified people whose cases have been entered into it. It can be used by law enforcement or by the public; it is considered to be much-underused because people don't know how to use it or don't know about it in the first place.

http://www.lbth.org/ncma/index.php/ Let's Bring Them Home
This is the website for a nonprofit which serves families with missing adult loved ones. It provides a comprehensive database for all adults in the US who are reported as missing.

http://peace4missing.ning.com/  PEACE4 THEMISSING
This is a social networking site which serves people all over the world, and focus their services on families with missing loved ones; it is full of resources, guidance and support if you have a missing loved one. Many victims or survivors of crime or abuse use this site as a platform to seek justice or to connect with others. And then those of us who simply want to help can use the site as a way to make a difference and to care for people without leaving our homes!

http://www,childhelp.org/  Childhelp
This is a website for a nonprofit which provides comprehensive services to prevent and end child abuse in our communities; this site also includes a hotline to reporte child abuse.

http://peasintheirpods.com/  Peasintheirpods Children
This is a website for a nonprofit which serves families of missing minority children, children when usually are underserved.

There are other resources which I'm sure you can add!

 
         
         
         
       

When Things Hit Home For Us

          I have noticed a very natural, univeral phenomenon and you may have noticed it, too. It is how we tend not to care about even the most pressing social issues until they hit home for us, or become real to us through being touched by it in our families, in our lives, or in or through our professions or jobs. Usually, people work with the most passion, tirelessness and vigor for those causes that have touched them in some way. In the area of cancer, cancer survivors, and those who have lost loved ones to cancer, most fervently labor to prevent/end cancer; specifically, they focus on the cancer that has affected them, whether that is breast cancer, ovarian cancer, lung cancer, liver cancer, prostrate cancer, pancreatic cancer, or any other cancer. Singer Sheryl Crow, a breast cancer survivor, advocates strongly for this cancer, and the Susan B. Koman Race For the Cure was born because of a woman whose life was claimed by breast cancer. Montel Williams, the TV talk show host, who has multiple sclerosis (MS), works hard to raise awareness about this condition through his show and in other ways. In the area of crimes against children, John Walsh, Erin Runnion, Donna Norris, Mark Lunsford, Dena Thompson, and others, are strong advocates for children, child safety, and tougher sentences for criminals against children; each one of these people and their families, have tragically lost children to senseless murders. In the area of abortion, it is those who have experienced the trauma and, yes, the guilt feeling of their abortions, as well as those who, abortion survivors like Gianna Jesson and Rebecca Kiessling, conceived of rape, who work tirelessly to end abortion, whether through awareness, education or practical help to families facing crisis pregnancies. Persons like these have seen and dealt with the evils of abortion and want to see its demise, whether from the viewpoint of those who have been traumatized by their own abortions, or who  have been conceived in circumstances where our society calls for abortion as a "solution" and they see it most strongly from the unborn's perspective. In the area of disabilities, it is families with loved ones with disabilities, and those with disabilities themselves, who most passionately work hardest for acceptance, opportunties and awareness of the needs of the disabled. Get the point? I'm sure you do. We typically do not get fired up about an issue, even an important one, until it gets real to us and touches our own lives.
          As a person who often uses social networking to promote my causes as well as support other people's causes, I have noticed this trend over and over. For I have in my network a wide variety of people who use social networks (SN's) for a variety of different causes. First of all, those on my page who are officially tied to organizations, especially Executive Directors, use SN's solely to promote their particular  organizations and pretty much ignore any other causes, important as these may be. It is these kind of people who I, generally speaking, have found to be the least supportive of my own causes. These causes/charities range from missing/unidentified charities or causes, domestic violence or child abuse causes, sexual crimes causes or charities, parental alienation causes (patental aleniation is when children are wrongfully taken from their families, usually as a result of a court order, allegedly). Many in my network advocate on behalf of cures, therapies, acceptance, and support for those touched by specific illnesses, disease, medical conditions or disabilities. There seems to be no end to the number of causes and charities.
          Whatever we are passionate about and as important as it is, we need to remember that it is, unfortunately, only one of many issues in need of advocacy, awareness, and resources. I see way too many people, caught up seemingly exclusively in the agendas of their causes or their charities, who seem to forget this. We have the right to ask other people to show support for our causes and to encourage us in them, but I don't think we have the right to expect them to be as passionate as we are about things that have touched our lives but which may not have touched theirs. For example, I know that I'm fired up about missing people because of the cases I have followed in the news and the books I have read and the simple fact that I know that having a missing loved one can happen to anyone. But I know that many people are unaware of missing people, have never been touched by this issue and don't think it can happen to them. So they, frankly, don't care. A person in my life has been heard to say, bluntly, "I don't like to see images of missing people. I don't want to know about it." Sadly, I feel that this person is just saying what many people are thinking. Indeed, when I discovered social networking, I did it mainly, at the time, to get the word out about missing people through networking with others; my intense interest in the case of Lindsey Baum, who had been missing for one year at the time (and who is still missing!), is what ushered me into the world of missing people. I started to add as Facebook friends, more and more people of my acquaintance. I would find, to my dismay, that many of these "local friends" would, one by one, remove me as friends and give me no warning. I suspect, and have had others tell me, that these people had removed me because of my missing persons posts that showed up on their home pages. As upsetting as it has been to see so many people come and go as "Facebook friends," I know that much of it is because many of these people, because of life experiences and because they have not been touched by these issues (or were in denial if they were), chose to remove me from their friends list.
           On the other hand, I have often wondered, does it require tragedy to make us care and get us fired up? Sadly, it seems to be this way. In my personal life, I know of individuals who have lost children to horrific murders and it was this that got them all fired up about justice, the law, and the safety of children. Before this, I doubt it if these people were as deeply concerned about these issues. The people I know who are most fired up about education and its issues are teachers and those with special needs or with loved ones whom the system has failed; this is because they are directly affected by the system; but we should all be concerned about how children, "our future," are taught and about education. Most uncomfortably, how many of us are fired up about global issues like world poverty or hunger or about the severe global religious persecution of people of faith, or the AIDs pandemic especially on the continent of Africa? These people, real as they are are and suffering (and in many cases, dying!) as they are, seem distant and unreal to us because we are closed off to them and we cannot relate to their experiences. And most of us cannot afford to travel abroad to see, firsthand, the conditions for ourselves, or go on "short-term missions," which many churches, including my own, promote. And, getting closer to home, how many people are fired up about texting and driving, or drinking and driving, until we lose a loved one to one of these? How many of us want to listen to the self-disclosures of people who share about their struggles and the shame and stigmas of things like sexual abuse, mental illnesses, hidden disabilities like autism, epilepsy and others, unless we have been touched by such things or have loved ones who have been touched by them? Do we really need to go through adversity to understand others who go though it? According to the Bible and experience, I think this is usually the case.
          In my own life, I have found that yes, it is my experiences that determine what causes I'm most passionate about and which I post about the most on social networks, including this blogspot. I'm fired up about neurological conditions like autism and epilepsy because they have affcted my life. I have grown up with offially diagnosed epilepsy (conpletely controlled for the past 16 years) and undiagnosed autism (high-functioning). And I have a daughter, high-functioning, who is officially diagnosed with autism. Growing up, I have often done to school with or been in other settings with those with a variety of emotional, learning, behavioral and other disabilities, and mental illnesses. Because of all this, disabilities causes are closest to my heart. Growing up, I was officially diagnosed with Marfan's Syndrome, a condition that affects the eyes, the connective joints and the heart's aorta (the heart's largest artery); this and my family history of heart disease, gets me fired up about heart disease and especially about women's heart disease. Also, our family has felt, to some degree, the effects of an economy gone sour, unemployment, and having to use government programs to survive; therefore I'm passionate about poverty, social and economic justice as well as the corporate greed and political corruption as represented by the Occupy movement. Having experienced so much bullying, and often vicious bullying, I'm fired up about bullying and about its causes. And I know that every person has his or her own story which has caused each of you to gravitate toward your causes.
          And we cannot assume that just because people are dedicated to a certain cause and are experts at that, that it follows that he or she can automatically relate to and empathize with our situations. For example, I have applied to volunteer at a nonprofit for those facing crisis pregnancies, and I have applied at a nonprofit for abused children and at another for unidentified victims. In each of these cases, I have self-disclosed about my disabilities and hoped that, because these nonprofits  presented themselves as caring for people and declared their belief in the priceless value of every human life; I hoped that this would translate to an empathy to the things I disclosed to them. Judging from their reactions to me afterwards, this was not the case! A passion for helping those in crisis pregnancies, abused children, and identifying John or Jane Does does not automatically translate to an understanding of people who differences or empathy for them. It's just like these nonprofits cannot expect people like me to automatically understand them; I have come to do so only through taking the time to educate mysef about them, coupled with knowing that any time ones of thse things could happen within my family or anyone else's.
          On a national level, how many of us, in the US or in other parts of the free world, were concerned about terrorism until that fatal, awful day on September 11, 2000? How many of us, on a national level, become stirred up about child sexual abuse until we started to hear one tragic case ofter another, about girls being found not only molested, but dead? It took high-profile cases of children who killed themselves because of their bullying, that got us to care about bullying and to take it seriously. It has taken one child after another, who has lost their lives to child abuse at the hands of parents or other caregivers, that has spawned national concern about this epidemic and has gotten us to talk about it. And so on and on.
          Yes, sadly, it seems to often take tragedy, sorrow and trauma to get us to take important issues seriously and to give them the attention that they deserve. If this is the case, then this is a sound argument behind the "Why?" concerning suffering. Think about it.