I LOVE My Neighborhood!!!

Wow. We knew we loved our neighborhood, but last night really brought home to me just how great it is!

We live in a small city that is a suburb of Atlanta - we are 30 minutes from downtown yet our city has maintained that lovely "small town" feel. We bought a house in this subdivision almost 2 years ago, and it has been the epitome of a sweet, friendly Southern neighborhood.

Last night at 6:30pm, a couple of the teenage girls from our neighborhood knocked on our door. They were asking if we had seen the little 4 year old girl who lived across the street - she was missing! She lives with her Grandma and Great Grandma and her Great Grandma was watching her and she wandered off.

We came out to help look. EVERY neighbor on our whole street came out to look! We were all searching for this child and trying to console the Grandma and Great Grandma. It was very scary. Everyone was so upset and so worried. But everyone was pulling together - it was amazing. The teenagers were on their bikes searching our neighborhood and the next one over, the elderly folks were checking everyone's back yard, the children were searching and calling for her - it was really just so awesome.

The first thing I asked my neighbor [who is the Grandma] was whether she had called 911 [the child had been missing for almost an hour and a half at that point]. She had not, so she ran in to call.

Within 5 minutes FIVE police cars pulled up and the officers raced out to talk to the Grandma and start the search. Within 20 minutes there was a Fire Truck with the Fire Rescue workers and Paramedics to help search. Within half an hour they had the Sherriff and a K-9 unit on the scene - it was absolutely amazing.

We found the child an hour and a half later [3 hours missing], when she walked out of my next door neighbor's house. My neighbors weren't home and the child had let herself into their fenced back yard, discovered their back door wasn't locked, and had been playing inside for the last 3 hours! She came out wearing their daughter's clothing! [Nobody thought to look INSIDE the home of people who weren't home! LOL!]

So, it had a happy ending [Praise the Lord and St. Anthony!!!].

I learned that I am SO grateful to be part of this neighborhood, to have such caring, concerned, SWEET neighbors, and to have such excellent emergency response personnel.

I pray to Jesus that no child of mine ever goes missing, but if they do, I'm glad I live where I live.