Praying...

This morning began like other mornings... Closing the window at 6:15 when the neighbor's dog started barking, ignoring the weather update on my husband's phone, trash truck idling outside and coffee. Until my husband shared a newspaper story. The sharing is also routine - he often reads me stories which may interest me (probably why I read the newspaper so sporadically). I'm sitting here wondering about the news, doing routine things, but this story startled me to the core.

A bit of background... We moved here from WI. My husband accepted a job offer which was made by our neighbor. They lived next door to us for four years. I remember the day their movers were to arrive was bitter cold and I'd offered his wife and 5 year old daughter refuge in a warm home.

Their oldest and our youngest are the same age. Our friendship grew. Summer meals outside. Soccer sidelines. Winter game nights. When Mike was offered the job we felt we were ready for a move towards our goal of returning to the West Coast.

Their family moved before us. Our friends helped to ease the transition by sharing information on schools and neighborhoods and convincing a soccer coach he really wanted to reserve a spot on his team for Krieger.

We built our new home in the same neighborhood. We tried to continue our
gatherings with our new friends.

After 9-11 the job disappeared. They started a powder coating business. She made sure the boys had part-time work if they wanted.

As things happen life lead us down different roads. We tried to connect periodically. She reached out a lot when they had some difficult times. But her suicide hit us hard. I didn't understand how she could be in so much pain that leaving her children was part of the answer.

We've seen the kids around events and followed their progress. Occasionally I see their now HS senior daughter running in the area and it always raises my heart rate as she looks so much like her momma.

Recently we connected with him. He remarried and shared news on all the kids. Mike and he caught up on plenty.

Today the newspaper article was of a local man who has been missing since Thursday. He dropped 2 of his children off in Southern Oregon and took off in his plane. Radar and cell towers tracked him but search parties are in the process of looking for the plane crash. Weather was bad. The pilot is our friend.

Please pray for them.