Every morning when I leave my house, I am reminded of the value of seeking that which is lost.
Four years ago, I landscaped the barren strip between the sidewalk and street in front of our house in a xeriscape design, using drought-resistant grass and a unique granite boulder we found in a stone pile in a farmer’s field in Bruce County. The next winter, the winter of 2014, brought extraordinarily heavy amounts of snow, to the point that our narrow street could only accommodate one-way traffic between the wide snowbanks. I came home from work one day in February to discover that a city crew had been working with heavy equipment to remove the snowbanks, and in the process had scooped up our prized boulder and hauled it away.
I knew that snow from our area of the city was being dumped in the Watson Street Park, but I also knew that there would be no hope of finding our rock until the spring. Even then, large measures of good luck and good timing would need to be involved. It would take weeks for the mountains of snow heaped up in the park to melt after spring arrived, but at some point the city would bring in front-end loaders and dump trucks to scoop up the debris left behind by the melting snow and haul it away to a landfill site. To have any hope of finding my lost boulder, I would need to visit the park within the small window of time between the melting of the snow piles and the cleanup of the park.
On Sunday, May 25, 2014—the day after arriving home from India on a visit to the IJM field offices in Kolkata and Delhi—I had a sense that this was the day. In the middle of the afternoon, Judy and I drove to Watson Street Park, parked our vehicle, and began to criss-cross the muddy field, climbing the few mounds of still-unmelted snow, skirting ponds of muddy water, looking for our boulder amidst the twisted shopping carts, empty beverage bottles and other cast-off pieces of our community. We were engaging in an exercise I scarcely imagined could succeed, yet it felt like it was our duty to search the site. And then, when I was almost at the point of calling off the search, at the far back edge of the park, I spotted the artifact we were seeking, half-covered with mud. We loaded it in our vehicle and after a good cleaning the boulder was restored to its location in front of our house.
Dear reader, don’t let the superfluous nature of the object of our search distract you from the dignity of the activity of searching itself. The human mind is always inquiring, exploring—from the search for a therapy to prevent the onset of Alzheimer’s disease to the quest to define the limits of the universe. Dr. Martin Fischer said, “All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.” We search for things of great intrinsic value, and sometimes for items of little inherent worth that possess some measure of sentimental value. Jesus illustrated some of his spiritual lessons with word-pictures of individuals who earnestly, even recklessly, engaged in a search—saying, for example, “What woman having ten silver coins, if she loses one of them, does not light a lamp, sweep the house, and search carefully until she finds it?” (Luke 15:8).
The human mind is always inquiring, exploring: “All the world is a laboratory to the inquiring mind.”
In IJM’s work to protect the poor from violence, our staff investigators work alongside local law enforcement officials to collect information leading to the arrest and successful prosecution of perpetrators of violent crimes. To achieve success, they require patience, professional expertise, and the courage to face the unavoidable risks associated with their role. One of IJM’s investigators from South Asia says, “Investigators are called the ‘tip of the spear’ because they are the initial people who go directly into the field and face the situation, whether it is good or whether it is bad.” They also need the occasional lucky break, as the story of the arrest of Emilio from Bolivia illustrates.
Emilio was the neighbor of Helen and Emilia, sisters from La Paz, Bolivia. When the girls were six and three, Emilio sexually abused them. Shortly after his crimes were reported to IJM and then to the police, Emilio disappeared. In the months and years that followed, Helen and Emilia’s parents rallied around their daughters, supporting them in school and watching over them to ensure that they remained safe. IJM’s therapists and social workers worked with the girls over the course of six years to help them overcome the effects of their trauma and regain emotional strength.
But as the years passed, their case seemed all but forgotten by Bolivia’s justice system, an extremely common situation in a country where child abuse cases can take a decade to resolve, if they resolve at all. Emilio was nowhere to be found.
IJM did not forget about the case.
Growing impatient with the slow progress on the investigation, IJM investigators eventually took the lead on the case and made at least three attempts alongside Bolivian police to locate and arrest Emilio. Every effort came up short. But then, in February 2016. IJM got the break it needed. A national referendum had been called, and an investigator used voter registration records to track Emilio to Timusí, a small town on Bolivia’s high plains about eight hours from IJM’s office in La Paz. He secured a warrant for the man’s arrest and, the day before the vote, got into a pickup truck and drove northwest until sundown. A former cop, the investigator stopped at a small police station outside Timusí and spent the night there.
Out the door at 6 a.m. the next morning with a local police officer in tow, he picked up two men standing along the road who were also headed to Timusí. Another lucky break: one of them happened to be the town’s mayor. He listened carefully as the investigator explained why he’d come. The mayor said he could identify Emilio. When they arrived at the town square where the vote was taking place, the mayor pointed out Emilio.
In his last act as a free man, Emilio did his part for democracy. When he stepped away from the ballot box, the investigator and the other police officer suddenly appeared in front of him. They spoke quietly to him and walked him to IJM’s waiting truck, slipping out of the town before anyone could ask what was happening. Emilio told the investigator, “My lawyer said that IJM would forget about the case.” In June 2016, Emilio confessed to his crimes in a plea bargain, and was sentenced to 12 years in prison.
IJM did not forget about the case. I did not concede that it would be impossible to find my prized boulder. Whether you are a person seeking fulfillment in a new place of employment, a sales professional looking for the crucial lead that will connect you with a significant new account, or even an adopted child longing to meet a birth parent, here are some principles that may aid you– drawn from my search for the lost boulder and IJM’s search for Emilio:
- Define success: who or what are you searching for? Helen and Emilia’s case could only be closed when Emilio was found and held accountable for his crimes.
- Determine the parameters of your search: I knew, if I was to find my boulder, I would find it in Watson Street Park
- Act decisively when the time is right: an opportunity like voting day 2016 would not come again in Bolivia for years.
- Consolidate your gains by celebrating your wins: the sight of that boulder every morning inspires me to continue in my most earnest quest– for the champions who will assist me in catalyzing a massive engagement by Canadians in the global fight against injustice.
Within the human heart, there is a deep reservoir of courage to sustain those who search.
Whatever your quest may be, pursue it with urgency paired with patience. Avoid panic, for the sense of urgency and panic are not far from each other. The true investigator does not panic because he knows that, although he ultimately may not succeed in his quest, it will not be for lack of effort or perseverance on his part. Acknowledge that the day of discovery may not arrive for years, but nurture in each day a sense of anticipation that this may be the hoped-for day. Within the human heart, there is a deep reservoir of courage (replenished by God above) to sustain those who search.
Unless otherwise noted, all text and photos © 2017 Edwin Wilson
