On July 20, 1979, we were in Washington, DC, with two of our children, doing the tourist thing. I remember the date because it was exactly ten years from the day the first astronauts had landed on the moon. We were planning to go through the Air and Space Museum, but when we got there we discovered that it was closed. The three astronauts-Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin and Mike Collins, the crew of Apollo 11-were all there on the front porch of the museum to celebrate the anniversary. We were a little disappointed not to get into the museum, but this was an exciting alternative. We stood outside in a crowd of about 5000 people and listened to the spacemen talk.

It was a very hot day in Washington. After a while, my son, who was 11, began to feel the effects of the heat. Because he was on the point of fainting, Helen and I worked our way through the crowd to ask the guards for help. They let us in front door of the museum and escorted us to the first aid room. Laurie stayed outside to listen to the program.

After a while, not wanting to return to stand in the sun, we decided to go back to the hotel. But Laurie was still somewhere in the middle of the crowd, and we had no idea how much longer the program was going to last. I had to find her. Since the guards wouldn't let me use the front door again because it was facing the crowd, I had to leave through the back door of the museum.

Knowing I would need help, I started a kind of mantra, a walking prayer as I made my way across the rear, then around the end of the Air and Space Museum: "Lord, lead me to Laurie. Lord, lead me to Laurie. I need your help to find her. Thank you for leading me to Laurie. Lord, lead me to Laurie."

When I reached the front of the museum, I looked to my right and saw the vast crowd there, filling the steps, the plaza, and spilling over onto the sidewalk. I walked up to the crowd with no idea how I was going to find our daughter. Perhaps I could just wander through the mass of people, hunting. But it would be disruptive and I had no wish to make a scene.

As I got to the edge of the crowd, it opened up-I thought afterward that it looked like the parting of the Red Sea-and Laurie walked out of the opening to face me, not ten feet away. My jaw dropped. As we turned and walked away, I asked her in astonishment, "Why are you here? How did you come to be there at that moment?" She said, "I don't know. But a couple of minutes ago I got this irresistible urge to go find you."

That meeting was so dramatic it was almost as if God were saying, "See, it works. Believe it!"