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Lost in Lviv

[July 9, 2008] This week we experienced one of the things that parents dread the most – losing a child.  Monday we traveled 3 hours to the city of Lviv, which has a population of around 800,000.  We unpacked and set out for the supper we had promised the kids at McDonald’s.  On the way we saw a tricycle which was something we’d been searching for.  We bought it for Matthew and rounded the corner and entered a courtyard to store it in the car while we went to dinner.  To keep the story somewhat short, in the period of time that George was putting a missing bolt on the tricycle and I was getting a bottle of water from the car, Matthew disappeared.  We searched the streets packed with shoppers and people hurrying home from work.  The noise of the cars on the busy street drowned out any attempts to call his name.  As our search widened so did our concern.  George called a Presbyterian Church of America missionary working in Lviv and within minutes a group of people arrived to help search.  The police were contacted and they promised to do a search of their own.   Every minute that went by seemed like hours.  After about an hour of him missing, it was conveyed to us that he had been found.  Calls went this way and that and since George and I weren’t together we attempted to get to Matthew’s location but no one actually knew where he was.  Apparently he was at a police station.  We walked in one direction and then changed and at one police station they said he was at another.  A lady from that police station came to escort us to the right station but didn’t know the address of it so George and another missionary friend headed in the general direction we gave them.  Amazingly enough, George and I both arrived at the police station at the same time.  The search party with us waited outside the doors and we entered the building complex, walked down one narrow passageway, into another building, down an unlit hall and up a few stairs until we finally saw Matthew sitting inside a small office with the man who had found him.  Maybe the emotions we felt then are a taste of how our Heavenly Father feels when the one who was lost is found!  We left with Matthew without having to give any identification.  On the street outside we decided to continue on towards McDonalds since by then we were starving and extremely thirsty. 

The whole ordeal had been just about two hours.  He apparently walked down the main street, crossed a busy side-street and was nearly hit by a car.  A man found him near the Grand Hotel (maybe Matthew didn’t like the accommodations we had chosen) and took him to the police station.   A woman at the store where we had bought the tricycle had been very concerned for Matthew too and asked the police to please help look for him.  She told us that they seemed indifferent and she complained to us about how bad the police are in Ukraine.  The police officers George had talked to and who had his mobile phone number never called to say he had been found.  We found out through the wife of one of the missionaries who continually ‘plagued’ them until she knew he had been found and knew concretely where he was.  

We thank God for the man who did the right thing and took Matthew to the police station and we thank God for the many people who helped look for him and for Masha who through repeated attempts was able to find out that Matthew had been found and where he was.  More than anything, we are so grateful to have Matthew back home!

Mailing address:  Ilona Zrini 10/2, Mukachevo 89600, Transcarpathia, Ukraine

email: george.devuyst@gmail.com

Links to: Christian Reformed Church in N. America   -   Christian Reformed World Missions