Just imagine that.

There is a mother in a foreign country doing her best to care for her adult son who is autistic and disabled.

She goes to the local Christian center where she gets medical care and food. When she turns around, her son is gone. Nowhere to be seen. And many of the people around her are speaking in a language she doesn’t understand.

This happened last week in Mocksville, and what happened next should make us all proud.

The woman – who spoke no English – was at A Storehouse for Jesus when her son simply disappeared and walked away. They looked outside, but he was nowhere to be found.

An emergency call was made to 911.

When police and emergency responders arrived, the woman panicked almost immediately. She was worried because she didn’t understand what they were saying. She wasn’t sure if they had come to look for her son or to arrest them all.

An interpreter calmed their nerves and Davie County’s finest got to work.

These first responders – which included virtually all of the county’s emergency services and fire departments – didn’t care about the woman’s language problem. They had only one thing on their mind: finding her son, who could be in danger due to his limited mental abilities.

They used drones. Officers conducted traffic checks and showed a photo to all passing motorists. They patrolled the streets around A Storehouse. They had SUVs at the ready.

Yes, we should be proud of this emergency response. Remember, they will do the same for you and your family: they will stop their already busy lives to help. Some were paid, many were volunteers. They always seem to be there when things get tough for someone.

It turned out there were even more reasons to be proud. Because of this quick information about the missing man, most people in the surrounding neighborhoods knew what was going on.

And this disabled young man happened to pass a house in a nearby residential area that had a basketball hoop in the driveway. And right underneath it was a ball. He liked balls and stopped to play.

The resident went outside and offered him something to drink and someone to play ball with and talk to while his mother was called. It couldn’t have gone better.

It reminds me of a song I heard The Hot Mud Family sing. It was written many years ago and goes something like this:

“You don’t love God. If you don’t love your neighbor, if you gossip about him, if you never show mercy when he gets into trouble and you don’t try to help him. If you don’t love your neighbor, you don’t love God.”

Luckily, in Davie County, we love our neighbors. If you get into trouble here, there’s someone there to help you.

Thank God.

– Mike Barnhardt