Adjusting to a new environment

At 9:30 am the transport arrived at the local facility to take our daughter to a Residential Care Facility in Georgia. We were filled with mixed emotions, we were confident that this was the best solution to keep her safe, but it broke our hearts to know she would be so far from home. I miss my little girl and I would give anything to have the days back when she was little.

We waited all day to hear from the Georgia facility to let us know she arrived and get an update on how she was doing. The hours crawled by and sadness set in for both my wife and I. We began trying to call the facility, but kept getting a fast busy signal. We had not heard from the Georgia facility, the transport personnel or the local facility with any updates. When I called the local facility, they told me that they too had been unable to make contact with the Georgia facility. We began to get nervous after having tried several numbers for the facility and getting the same busy signal. Since the transported had departed at 9:30 am we had expected them to arrive at the Georgia facility around 4:00 pm. I also emailed the Child Advocate in Georgia using the email provided to me in the welcome email we received after signing the admission papers.

At 6:45 pm, we received a call from a nurse at the facility. She advised us that the facility had a power outage earlier in the day and that the phones had been down since 8:30 am. She told us that she was calling from her cell phone and apologized for the fact that we had to wait so long for an update. She said our daughter seemed quiet and not too happy to be there. She asked a few questions about her medication and advised us a doctor would contact us soon after his initial evaluation.

We are faithful that God will work things out so that our daughter can soon return to us in a more healthy state of mind. We pray daily for our daughter and miss her very much.

Lord, help our daughter adjust to her new environment. Help her make an effort to do her part to get well. Lord, I pray this experience will be a positive one and we can all grow closer as a family. Help us to do our part here at home to seek counseling so that we can help our daughter. I look forward to the day our daughter wants to see us and looks forward to our phone calls and visits. Lord, help our family become stronger through this difficult time. In Jesus name, Amen.