my home

I don't even know where to start......

I wrote a facebook status last night about Chad Rogers, For those of you who don't know he is the runner here in Liberty that has been missing since going for a run at roughly 8pm on 7/22/13. My fiance, Chris, and I were driving around doing some errands yesterdfay and I was continuing to keep updated with the facebook updates about Chad as the day went on, when I had seen the first update something struck me, it wasn't just that Chad lived here in Liberty, it was that I knew the face, I knew the smile, I just couldn't pinpoint it. It wasn't until I really got to researching and reading more updates and seeing more pictures that I realized this was an old classmate. Chad was about 2 years younger than me but I remember seeing him in school, we weren't good friends, didn't run with the same crowds, but we had taken classes together and we had smiled to each other in the crowded hallways.

I was 15 when I moved to Liberty, I was mad about being uprooted again and having to make all new friends and leaving my old friends behind. It was hard enough the last few times I moved to make friends. I am still convinced to this day that my mother just pulled out a map and said "we'll move here" and that is how the move to Liberty was originated. I was sullen and moody in the back of the car when we moved here, my last school in Lakewood Co was still fresh in my mind, it was difficult to make friends there because it was an environment where if you didn't have money, come from a good family or hadn't lived there forever then you were an outcast and no one wanted to be friendly with you. For months, I just existed and ate lunch by myself, I went home directly after school and had really no friends. Therefore, when I saw the high school from the off ramp of the highway into Liberty, I realized how huge it looked and how fancy it was (honestly, I thought it was a mall). It wasn't until a week later when my mother went to enroll me that I realized it was the high school I would be attending. I realized quickly on my first day that this was a school where most of the kids were from well off families and most of them had known each other since Kindergarten (if not before that). As I started to be worried that I wouldn't fit in, I started to notice that this wasn't like every other high school I had been to, there didn't appear to be really any well defined cliques, kids would smile at each other in the hall and there was constant conversations between multiple groups as I walked down the hallway. I even saw a couple cheerleaders help a handicapped girl when stuff fell out of her locker and she was having trouble picking it up. I saw kids that would have never been within meters of each other in my old school having actual conversations with each other in this school.

My first day I even had a a girl named Amy ask if I wanted to have lunch with her and her friends, I quickly said yes. Within days I was invited to these girls houses, I was hanging out with them in between classes and they even included me in other activities they would do. It wasn't long before I had many friends and knew almost everyone in each of my classes. I was grateful to not be alone anymore. I had spent many, many years (practically my whole life) moving from one school, house, and state to another, never really feeling like I was home, never really feeling like I was where I belonged. Never really feeling settled.

Until I came to Liberty.

In the 13 years since I have graduated high school I have stayed in contact with some friends, made friends with people that went to the same high school as me but I did not already hang out with, and have completely forgotten some had existed until I see them out and about and we stop and say hi to each other. Life gets in the way some times as we get older, what seemed important as a 16,17 or 18 year old is usually not so important at 28, 29, or 30. You go to college, obtain a career, make new friends, get married or even become a mother or father. You never really forget your past but you don't think about the things you did or the people you knew as much anymore. You occasionally get hit by a scene or a smell and have a pleasant memory of a friend, a time or even a teacher and you smile and fell warm and fuzzy for a minute and then you move on. We all move on and go about our lives and eventually high school just isn't that important anymore. Some of us move on to other cities and states, some of us stay put, some of us leave and then come back, either way life is never really the same.

As an adult I have seen the news stories where people are hurt, abducted, killed, raped, or even enslaved for years, we all have. We all become somewhat hard to the world and evil outside our bubbles, we become jaded and we start to believe that good doesn't exist in the multitudes that we remember from when we were kids. We no longer believe in happy endings, we no longer believe in miracles, we tend to lean more to the negative side while trying desperatley to remain positive (even if only for the sake of our children or families, somedays)

For two days one of our own has been missing, it is not something that happens daily so when it happens in your towen it is a shock. However, despite the bad things in the world and despite the circumstances that surround us, I have seen good. I have been witness to an amazing phenomenon. I have moved a lot in my life and I have lived in a lot of towns, but I have never seen what I have seen in the last two days in ANY place that I have ever lived. I see a community that is loving, caring, full of grace and kindness. I see people taking time from their important activitites and families to help another family look for a son/ husband and father that has been missing for two days. I have seen volunteers that search for hours on end, I have seen people volunteer to take care of those search and rescue groups, I have seen businesses/ corporations that have donated, supplies and food, even shuttle service to and from an airport. I have seen the unthinkable happen, I have seen strangers become angels and I have seen a community band together for the betterment of one family. I have prayed more in the last two days than I have in a long time. I pray for a happy ending, I pray for good news, I pray for a miracle. I pray for a mother and father to get their son back, I pray for a wife to get her husband back and, most importantly, I pray for a 13 month old son to get his daddy back. I am choosing hope. we all know the statistics, we all have heard the horror stories, we all know what could be awaiting us.....yet we still choose prayer, grace and hope. I think that says something. In my 32 years of life I have never seen something like I have seen in the past two days and it brings tears to my eyes even as I write this.

I will continue to pray for a miracle for this man who simply smiled at me daily in the hallway, a simple smile that made an outsider believe that this place was finally different, and a kindness that was carried throughout his peers and made us all better people. I am proud to say that Liberty, Missouri is my home and I would never want to be anywhere else. Chad, we are praying for a miracle, praying that as K-9 units, police and volunteers search for you that our Lord will give someone the sight to find you, pray that you get to come home soon and safe and pray that He is with you and that He has His arms around you and your family.

I didn't know it until now but Liberty is and always will be my home and I think I was always meant to end up here.

#findChad #bringChadhome