Miracles happen:

[honestbroker1]

From Today's Times:

A father’s search for his abducted son, which spanned 24 years and involved him criss-crossing China on a motorbike following countless leads, has ended with them being reunited.

Guo Gangtang’s quest to find the boy, who was taken from outside his village home as a toddler, was the inspiration for Lost and Love, a popular 2015 film that highlighted the problem of child abductions in China.

Guo, now 51, and his wife cried and hugged their son Guo Xinzhen when the family finally met again in an event broadcast on state media.

Guo was 27 when he began his search, travelling across China on a motorcycle in pursuit of leads
Guo was 27 when he began his search, travelling across China on a motorcycle in pursuit of leads
Police arrested a man, 56, and a woman, 45, in connection with the abduction of the boy, then two and a half, on September 21, 1997. The couple, who were travelling at the time and said they needed money, took him by coach to neighbouring Henan province and sold him.

After reporting that his son was missing to police, Guo, then 27, began his own hunt, travelling to more than 20 provinces around the country with banners featuring images of his child flying from the back of his motorbike.

As he chased around the country checking tip-offs, he was robbed, witnessed more than 100 traffic accidents, slept under bridges and begged for money to fund his search when his savings ran out. He wore out or wrecked ten motorbikes.

While looking for his son he often passed on information relating to other missing children to the police and set up a missing-persons organisation in 2014, using the internet to help family members find their loved ones. He has helped to reunite at least seven parents with abducted children.

Guo said he once thought of suicide during the search but changed his mind after seeing his son’s image on his motorcycle’s banners and realising that he was “accompanying me in the rainstorm”.

“Many people say I am a great father. But I am not great at all,” he said. “I am helpless. I just lack the courage to restart life after experiencing tremendous hardship. Therefore I kept on searching.”

Child abductions remain a big issue in China, with estimates suggesting that in some years up to 20,000 children have been taken, with many sold for adoption, mostly domestically but sometimes overseas. It became widespread from the 1980s, when the one-child limit was enforced and a cultural obsession with sons fuelled demand for abducted boys.

The Hongkonger singer and actor Andy Lau, who starred in Lost and Love, congratulated the family on the reunion. “Mr Guo, I admire your persistence, and I pay tributes to the efforts of the police resolving the case,” he said, and called on the public to support efforts to stop human trafficking.

Police said that as well as the two arrests they had traced the traffickers who bought the boy and sold him on, apparently to a childless couple. They were able to confirm his identity using DNA testing, making him one of the 2,609 missing children discovered through the technique since a database was established five years ago. One case was resolved after 61 years.

They said the family travelled to see Guo Xinzhen in Henan, where he is said to be a teacher. Guo said that he had previously visited the city where his child grew up, and had helped another father there find his kidnapped boy, but was ecstatic to finally see his own son.

“Now that the child has been found, everything can only be happy from now on,” he said. “He is fine. God treated me fairly.”

[Pedro]

this also proves that Madeleine can still be found alive, that is what everyone should keep in their minds.

[catkins]

this also proves that Madeleine can still be found alive, that is what everyone should keep in their minds.

That’s true Pedro......

[Pedro]

catkins: