Day 1

“Our Ayla hasn’t returned home yet!”

“She hasn’t? Where did she go?”

“She and Rika went with their elder sister Istir to the lowlands where she is going to work this week. They were supposed to turn around once they got to the trailhead in the lowlands. They should be back by now!”

Later: “Rika came home, but without Ayla. Her oldest brother Butuy went with Rika to try to find Ayla.”

“Oh wow. I hope you find her soon,” I said worriedly, wondering how a 12-year-old loses a seven-year-old on the trail.

Day 2

The following morning Abew came to give me a report. “Butuy and Rika are out looking for Ayla again this morning. They went all the way back down to the trailhead yesterday afternoon, and they didn’t find her!”

“That is terrible!” I said. “Surely they will find her. Let me know if there is something I can do.”

Later that afternoon, their father came to see me. “I need your help. Butuy and Rika have looked everywhere. I have also hiked around the last places she was spotted, but we can’t find her!”

“I will call our rescue team, the high school staff and students, and any other people willing to help.”

“Bravo Tango, Bravo Tango, do you copy Lima Golf? I know you are all in classes, and I’m sorry to bother you, but please answer the radio.”

“This is Bravo Tango. What can I do for you, Lima Golf?”

“May I please speak with November Mike?”

“This is November Mike, Lima Golf.”

“November Mike, we have a situation here. We have a seven-year-old lost for over 24 hours. Can you help me organize a search party?”
“Sure, we will be right down.”

Within four minutes the high school students in their uniforms came trotting down the muddy trail with their teachers at their heels. Girls and boys alike came to help.

“Rika last saw Ayla in Lenglapung. There are also reports that she’s been sighted in Gimpu, but she’s running away from anyone who tries to get close to her. It has been reported that she is in distress, crying and running very fast. Napthali, where do you think we should look, and how many teams do we need?”

After prayer and several minutes of organizing into three teams and mapping out search areas, staff and students changed into trail clothes and took off, determined that Ayla would not spend another night alone in the mountains. The unspoken fears for her were on each heart: someone evil finding her, drowning in a river, succumbing to hypothermia due to wet clothing and lack of food. It had been raining off and on all day, and it had rained during the previous night as well. “Dear God, I know You are with Ayla wherever she is. Lord, she is just a child. Please show Yourself powerful to save. Show her family Your power and Your grace.”

During the remainder of the afternoon, I struggled to concentrate on my work, ever praying and monitoring the radio and the cell phone for any reports. Later in the afternoon, it occurred to me that the searchers would come back hungry, cold and tired, so I cooked a big pot of rice and vegetables. At about 7 p.m., the search parties started coming back one by one. No trace of Ayla had been found.

Sleep was difficult that night as we imagined Ayla’s terror and discomfort. Where could she be? We prayed for her throughout the night whenever we awoke from our fitful sleep. If only we could will her home!

Day 3

Early the following morning, Abew came again and reported that there was still no word. Butuy and Rika were already out looking for Ayla, and would we please help again? The searchers had already agreed to meet at 8 a.m., giving them sufficient time for a good sleep and breakfast before a day of running through the mountains, out to the lowlands and back in again, following various trails and wading through jungle undergrowth.

As we gathered at Abew’s village, I found Ayla’s mother Mitil determined to join the search. “There are lots of people combing the area,” I assured her. “It is best that you be home when Ayla gets here, don’t you think? Besides, your nursing infant is sick, and your toddler needs you, too. Pray and trust Jesus to find your Ayla.”

Having already debriefed Abew about the areas his family had covered, Napthali quickly mapped out the areas our teams had searched as well, and we saw three areas that needed better coverage. Dividing into three groups, the searchers took off again, earnestly praying that this day would not pass without finding Ayla, for surely she couldn’t survive alone in the wilds for much longer.

Later I got a call from the elementary school. “Bubit and some of her older students want to join the search. Anyway, they can’t concentrate on their studies.” So Bubit and ten of her students went out to search another area.

A while later, Jilin came to me and said, “I keep feeling that Ayla is along the Tamlang River. I think we need to start from our area of the river and work downstream. I just can’t shake the feeling that she’s on the river.” So Jilin left her baby with a sitter and formed another team that searched the river, which was at flood stage. But no sign of Ayla.

For me the day passed as the previous one had—no classes, just praying, monitoring the radio and cell phone and trying to keep myself busy making sure there was food ready for the searchers when they returned.

Around noon, the reports started coming in. “We’ve covered our area and more. No sign of Ayla. We are in the lowlands now, and quite hungry. Could Carrine bring food from town out to us so we can eat and continue searching?”

Carrine was busy getting a patient admitted to the government hospital and taking a young mother with a newly diagnosed case of TB for a follow-up visit. Kent was in Manila for mission-emphasis meetings. Eventually, after a few hours, we arranged for food to be delivered to the trailhead where all the search parties were now gathered.

And so, at about 3 p.m., I was shocked when Abew came to my house in great excitement. “Ayla is home! Please come and rejoice with us and talk to the man who brought her!”

“Praise the Lord! I will come as soon as I notify the search teams!”

“Ayla is home!” I texted the five search groups.

They called me back immediately. I loved hearing the roar of relief and thanksgiving that spontaneously erupted on the other end of the phone.

I slipped and slid my way down to the creek that passes between our homes, thankful for the nice hiking pole my daughter-in-law had given me. Once across the creek, I slopped through the muddy pig wallows and up the hill to the tiny hut that Abew, Mitil and six of their eight children call home.

And there was Ayla! She was sitting near the cook fire, having already been put to work peeling green bananas. Her smile was something to behold—the kind of smile that just sneaks up and grabs you by the heart. Ayla came over so I could assess her. She was in much better condition than I had expected, but I did find a large knot of swelling on the back of her head. I asked her about it, and she and the others began to piece together the story for me.

Ayla and Rika had accompanied Istir to the lowlands on Sunday morning. Mitil said she had given permission for Rika to go, but not Ayla, as she was too young and didn’t know the trails.

Istir had taken her siblings all the way to Brooke’s Point and then to the tricycle taxi terminal where she’d paid their fare back to the trailhead in Bingbilang. Like many Palawanos who aren’t used to riding in motor vehicles, Ayla got motion sickness on the ride and was vomiting as she and Rika began their hike home. She wasn’t able to keep up, which made Rika impatient, so Rika didn’t go after her when she veered off onto the wrong trail. She just kept hiking and let Ayla wander off.

Apparently Ayla, lost and terrified, cried and ran for a long time. She comes from a family of strong runners, so whenever she saw people coming toward her, she ran away so fast that they weren’t able to catch her. When night fell, she was in a forest alone; cold, hungry and afraid. She told me later that she prayed to Jesus and sang songs.

On day two, she apparently kept wandering downhill until she came to a river. She told me she came to a place that had tall, beautiful waterfalls where the water was very blue. I knew that she most certainly had not been on the Megkerutus, the river we traverse many times as we hike in from the lowlands. She must have been on the Tamlang River, just as Jilin had sensed.

The last thing she remembered was climbing onto a rock that suddenly tipped and sent her tumbling.

From here, Danil, the man who brought her home the next day, picked up the story. He told us that an elderly man named Nilidu had been hiking to his rice field several hours from his home when he felt impressed to take a different, longer route. As he hiked along the Tamlang River near the lowlands, it was if a bright light suddenly opened his eyes, and he saw a small heap of clothing near the river. As he approached the object, he realized it was a child. He spoke to her, but she was limp, cold and unresponsive. He tried to put some of his recently harvested honeycomb into her mouth, thinking it would help to revive her. She opened her eyes but didn’t move or respond. He carefully picked her up and carried her back to his hut where he carefully pushed pinches of steamed rice into her mouth. After eating and resting some more, she answered his question about where she was from and who her father was. Later he fed her again, and she slept through the night.

The following morning Nilidu took the foundling to his brother-in-law Danil’s home. It turned out that Danil was a relative of Ayla’s father Abew! What rejoicing there was when Danil showed up with the missing little girl!

I was so happy I felt like crying. We had a prayer of thanksgiving and went home to sleep the sweet sleep that comes when all is well with the world. Ayla was home!

Two days ago, Butuy and his dad hosted a feast of thankfulness for those who had helped in the search. And what a feast it was! Heaps of pancit and rice—typical Palawano celebration food. Butuy will have to work for about a month to pay for all of it, but it was something the family was determined and happy to do. At the feast I had the privilege of thanking those who had searched for Ayla. I was so proud of all their efforts. And what a privilege to thank Nilidu, who was also present, for finding Ayla and caring for her and making sure that she was brought home.

Today, more than a week after her rescue, we still talk about the joy of seeing Ayla at school recess, her short legs a blur as she outruns the boys, her smile spreading from ear to ear. She’s not exactly sure what to do with all the attention, but we are thrilled that her family is reunited, and we’re thankful for the miracle God worked on their behalf.

I will never forget how focused and intent we all were. Everything else paled into insignificance as we put forth every effort to find and save little Ayla. We all played differing roles, but our goal was the same. We bathed our efforts in prayer, coordinated our work, and rejoiced equally when God chose to use a kind stranger to find her.

I can’t help but wonder: what would happen if we were all this intent on finding the lost of this world? What if we were all this focused in prayer, this concerned for their spiritual safety, counting no effort or expense too great, determined that not another day would go by with them out in the cold, alone and in the dark without the Light of the World?

Does anything else really matter?

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