18 years, 2 months and 6 days. That’s the timespan Wolfram Alpha tells me lies between June 10, 1991 and August 26, 2009. It’s how long Jaycee Dugard was under the control of sex offender Phillip Garrido. He kidnapped her at age 11 from a school bus stop in sight of her home. He held her longer than she had been alive when he grabbed her. I’m not sure whether I ever heard of her case before a few weeks ago, when it was announced that she had reappeared, having shown up for a parole meeting with Garrido. She has haunted my mind ever since.

18 years is a long time. I would have been on summer vacation already when she was kidnapped, having completed 9th grade in late May. I’m pretty sure I spent the summer reading under a tree and tinkering around with my garden and multiple projects. I went on to complete high school, go to college, travel several times to Brazil and get married. I’ve had children. My father died during this time. I taught EFL and ESL, did mission work, faced an impossible parish ministry in New Mexico and quit full-time congregational ministry altogether. I’ve lived, learned, loved, lost…all while Jaycee Dugard was held captive.

Turning this situation around in my mind, I see no really good angle. Sometimes people (especially many of my Brazilian friends) say that everything happens for a reason. Jaycee’s kidnapping is my top example now of how this is absolutely not true.  Yes, she has two daughters who are reportedly very bright and in good health despite never having been to a doctor or a dentist before in their lives, but they are the children of rape, brought up to believe that their mother was their oldest sister, never knowing, apparently, the evil that had been done to her. I’m glad she was not alone all those years with the two who took her, and that she has her daughters to comfort her.  Still, so sad.  What happened to that 11 year old girl in June 1991 and which continued for nearly two decades was wrong, a violation of all that is right and good.

While I was living my life, Jaycee Dugard was bound first in body, then in mind.  Times came when she could have simply walked away.  Psychologically, though, she was held to that place with those people, together with her daughters.  I was free, and she was not.  And then I remember: my wife is the same age as Jaycee.  Again, I find only tragedy and sadness everywhere I look at this story.

My atheist friends would likely hold this up as evidence of the non-existence of a supreme deity.  Of course, they are right, assuming that they mean a supreme deity wouldn’t let this happen.  While as a Christian I am bewildered by the evil that was permitted, my faith is secure.  The God in whom I believe is the same that gave us free will, the one who has long permitted tremendous evil in a world ages old.  My trust is in a God who is to me incomprehensible (thus it’s best I avoid making idolatrous images of him in my mind and worshiping them) but who also keeps his promises.  I depend on a God who allowed Jaycee to suffer (I’m supposed to say “allegedly”, I think) at the hands of a sexually-deviant religious nut case.  It isn’t that he allowed this to happen for his greater purposes to be fulfilled.  It just happened.

Now that Jaycee is free physically and her whereabouts known to those who truly care about her, what can the rest of us do?

First, with regard to Jaycee and her daughters, it’s worth knowing that there’s a legitimate trust fund that has been set up for them.  If you would like to contribute financially, the address is as follows:

The Jaycee Dugard Trust Fund
C/O Viewtech Financial Services
Post Office Box 596
Atwood, California , 92811

Second, if you pray, please remember not only Jaycee Dugard and her family, but also all missing children and their families.

Third, do something.  I can’t really do anything for Jaycee.  I can’t give her back her childhood, her teen years or any part of the more than 18 years that monster and his wife took from her.  She has family close to her taking care of her now as best they can, but how many men, women and children around the world and in your very neighborhood are hurting?  If you have children of your own, are you spending enough time with them?  Hold them closer.  What I’m trying to get at is this: you cannot save the world, but you can change your own world.  Be there for someone.

One of my dreams is to be able to use what I learn in life, including in the area of open source technology, for the benefit of others, particularly in Brazil.  This is a vision I have and hope to share, one of helping young people especially to find their way out of poverty through education and tech training.  In the meantime, I need to be the best husband, father and friend that I can be to those around me.  Grandiose plans for the future must never get in the way of living for others now.

Perhaps I’ve rambled a bit here.  I felt I had to get this off my chest, so to speak.  It feels like somewhat of an invasion to talk so much about someone’s pain when I don’t even know the person, and I apologize if it gives any offense.  It just seems important to say these things.  More important still to live them.