What happened?

This was my week to teach Sunday School at church. I only volunteer once a month because I am involved in other areas of ministry, but I do like the the one week a month that I get to be with the kiddos.

Normally I am in the 1st service with the 3-year-olds, but today I filled in in the 2nd service 2-year-old room. The service lasts about 1 hour 15 minutes. It isn't hard to stay busy for that short of a period of time. We did our craft, played outside, read a Bible story, had snack, played with the trains and the tools and the cars...good stuff.

So, church is released and all the parents return to pick up their children. All of the kids stand there waiting anxiously for their parents faces to appear in the doorway so they can be released. There was one little girl in class, however, that didn't look for her parents faces. She didn't seem interested at all in what was going on. She didn't talk. She just watched what I was doing and a couple of times lifted her arms to indicate she wanted to be picked up.

Her little name tag indicated she was a "guest." After a little digging, I learned that she had only be to our church with her parents a couple of times. She was beautiful. She had a perfect little round face and her curly hair was to die for.

Ok, back to the when the parents are there to retrieve their children. First, little Logan leaves, then Kaiden, then Silas...a few others leave and the only one left is little S. She doesn't seem sad that her parents aren't there. I released the assistant and S and I just played. She smiled for the first time the entire time I saw her when we built a huge tower out of soft blocks and crashed them down. She didn't know how to stack, but caught on really fast. She and I kept ourselves very entertained as we waited for her parents. Where were they?

First 10, then 20 minutes pass...no parents for S. Then 30 minutes. Still no parents. The director of the Sunday School program comes into the room to clean up and notices I am still there. She promptly reminds me that I can go, but I point over to S and said, "her parents didn't show up for her...do you know where they are at?"

She was shocked...the church was basically cleared out. She suggested that maybe her parents were up front for prayer support and went to look for them. She returned telling me they were not in there. She talked to the other head lady and the two of them set out to search the entire church, every last room, looking for her parents...they returned with no results.

Beautiful, quiet, reserved little S was left behind. Tell me, how in the world can a set of parents forget their child? How? I mean, she was one of the sweetest little girls I have ever met. I fell in love almost immediately...how could they just leave her behind?

Then about 35 minutes after church was done here come her parents...smiling and laughing. The dad was more interested in playing with the toys than he was in playing with S. She didn't seem all that excited to see them but did crawl up into her mothers arms fairly quickly. They never said anything about where they were or why they were late. They did comment, "oh, gosh...we are the last ones here, huh?"

They collected her belongings and away they went.

I spoke with the two ladies that were out on a hunt for this little girls parents and they were positive the parents must have gotten into their cars and left the church grounds either on purpose or on accident.

So what in the world happened? Did they just use the childcare at church as their babysitter while they went up the road and got groceries? Did they run errands rather than actually attend the church service? Did they honestly leave church and forget her?

I got into my car to head home and I just burst into tears for this darling little girl. If this happened today, what else has she endured? Is she safe? Is she healthy? Oh, I just want to tuck her in tonight and tell her everything is going to be ok, but I can't...I don't know if everything will be ok for her.

So, I cry and I pray...that is really all I can do. I pray for her little life and I cry for her at the same time.