MERCY SHIP SEARCH REUNITES FAMILY WITH LONG-LOST SON

A FAMILY SEPARATED by war has been reunited by the needle-in-a-haystack efforts of volunteers on board a medical missionary ship.

After years of anxiety for the McCauley family, some prayer and a little detective work saw the heartache that began in war-torn Sierra Leone end in happiness almost halfway round the world.

Joseph McCauley's mother wept for joy when she learned that the son she feared dead after going missing amid the fighting that had scattered families in her native Sierra Leone, was alive and well.

Following the civil war, she and the rest of her children had settled in the United States, but had no news of Joseph's safety or whereabouts. Fleeing the country, he had spent several years drifting from one part of West Africa to another before finally arriving in Benin two years ago.

There he made contact with the Anastasis, flagship of Youth With A Mission's Mercy Ships fleet, which was on a medical outreach to the country. McCauley told a crew member that he thought his family may have moved to New Jersey. The Mercy Ships worker mentioned it to associate crew member Carol Smith, who had recently moved to the area herself from New York.

Returning to the U.S. from her short-term service on board late last year, the retired station master volunteered to see if she could locate the family. "He told me that he wanted his mother to know he was alive, but more importantly that he had become a Christian, as she had prayed for him for years," she said.

"That moved me to tears, as I have four sons and pray for them constantly. I imagined what it would be like to have someone call and give me a message like the one I had for Joseph's mother."

When Smith left the ship, McCauley was taking part in a YWAM training program in Benin. Once back in densely populated New Jersey, Smith prayed, turned to her computer and searched for a telephone listing for Cyril McCauley, one of Joseph's brothers. "Only one address popped up. I called, and it was him. Of course it was a God thing," said Smith. "I spoke with Cyril and he was speechless; they thought Joseph had been killed."

Later Smith spoke with Joseph's mother. "She laughed, she cried. They were all overjoyed to hear that he was alive and well, and had become a Christian."

Delighted that she had been able to reconnect the family, Smith's only disappointment was that she would not be able to relay the news to Joseph personally when she went back to join the Anastasis again - now on an outreach to Conakry, Guinea.

Arriving in the West African port she was astonished to find Joseph there waiting for the ship. Completing his training in Benin he had traveled to Guinea to join the Anastasis once more, and is now a full-time member of crew.

"We see each other almost every day, and he often hands me a handwritten note for his mother, which I then e-mail to her," said Smith. "It is remarkable to think that there was a praying mother in New Jersey, and God wanted me to go to Africa so he could answer her prayer."

(Photo available on request)

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