Strange Encounter

Yesterday I came back home from Utah, and when I pulled into the neighborhood- there was this 14-15 African-American boy walking into the neighborhood (this was around 7:30 at night and totally dark outside). I didn't think anything of it until I walked inside the house and the doorbell rang -- Jason answered it and this boy was at our door. He was just standing there and Jason asked him who he was, if he was hurt, if he needed help and all he did was stand there looking at the ground- not saying a word. Jason thought maybe he was a special needs kid and summoned me over to help. I introduced myself and tried to shake his hand, which was FREEZING cold. He didn't have a coat on, so I brought him into the house and told Jason to go call the police. At this point he has only said one word, which sounded like "mom", but for all I know it could have been something completely different. And as much as I tried- he would NOT make any kind of eye contact with us- just constantly looking at the ground. We brought him in, sat him on the couch, wrapped him in a blanket, and gave him some food and water.

I thought of our next door neighbors- they usually have teenage foster kids. So I called them, but they said he wasn't theirs. So finally the police arrived and said that someone else had called in that this kid had been on their door- but they closed the door and he left. Then the police found out that another police district was looking for the boy because his family had called in.

The police were told he only spoke only Arabic and his name was Eduardo. But they had an address for his family- which lived in our neighborhood only two streets down! So the police took him home, and hopefully having three cop cars in front of our house won't taint our reputation in the neighborhood!!

What would you have done if a boy like that would have knocked on your door? It's a good thing Jason was home... not sure how comfortable I would have been inviting him in if he wasn't....

Needless to say, it was a STRANGE ENCOUNTER!