9 the last few days we all have been hearing about Gabby, the young woman who went on a trip with her boyfriend and never made it back. What an incredibly sad story and sad ending, we can’t imagine how her family is handling all this.

That made me think about our desire to find justice for Gabby and other people. In Winton the picture of a young woman, who disappeared 20 years ago, still is being brought up regularly, to close the tragedy of parents missing their teenage daughter.

There are so many other stories to tell, stories of young children and teens being taken into sex slavery, stories of people being promised a wonderful life in the US and then being used as domestic slaves, stories of Foster Youth disappearing into a world of pain and suffering.

So, why is Gabby so important? Because we still want to have a world where justice is being done, where wrongs are being uncovered and set right, where the ‘good people’ win and the ‘bad people’ go punished.

I am thankful for organizations like CASA who advocate for children in Foster care, or “Without Permission” that try to find people in the sex trade and bring them home and help them find healing for the wounds they have encountered. I am thankful for a group of Indigenous People to bring the bodies of children forgotten in bordering schools home and honor them with a proper burial.

I wonder how we address the stories like Gabby, and Vanessa and the thousands of young people whose lives are not what they should be. I wonder if a healthy community would not be the answer to some of it. When we know our neighbor we start to care about our neighbor, we keep an eye out for our neighbors and we engage when danger is found. When I become my ‘brother’s keeper’ I am able to see pain and suffering and unjust actions that people experience, I care about the wellbeing of my neighbors and my community, I become a person who steps in when I see something happen.

I am not talking about becoming the the judge and jury over people’s actions. I am not talking about vigilante, I am talking about neighborliness.

So, how much do you know about your community and your neigbhorhood? Would you know when a child is in danger? Would you be willing to step in if needed? These are crazy times where unimaginable things happen to our young people, are you willing to do something? What? Become a good neighbor, volunteer at an organization that addresses justice issues, don’t judge because you don’t know someone’s story and how far they have come. Keep your eyes open!

There are many more Gabby’s around, more Vanessa’s and many more children whose names don’t matter to the captors.