Our family lived in Paraguay for a couple of years in the early 1980s. I well remember our return to Canada, late 1984, because of how it overlapped with the news that Candace Derksen, a 13-year-old student at Mennonite Brethren Collegiate Institute in Winnipeg, had gone missing. We lived some months in Saskatoon that winter, before returning to Winnipeg, and the fear that all Winnipeg, as well as many in the national Mennonite community who knew the Derksens, were feeling for Candace came along with me. Around the same time, there had been an abduction in Saskatchewan, and I can still see the posters about that on store doors and feel my panic the day our middle child, who was in kindergarten, was late coming home from school at noon. My husband was out of town,  I had no vehicle, didn’t know my neighbours yet, and didn’t know what to do. Continue reading →