"Please keep Sofia in your duas"

Here is a video that I promise will bring you to tears if you have a heart: Missing Girl’s Family Pleading for Help. Even if you don't read my post, watch this video!

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I've been meaning to write a very short post on something really important I keep putting it aside because it is finals week. Even though it might seem like common sense for me to stay away from anything not academic related, I feel like if I don't write this post (quickly), I am being selfish. This needs to be read.

I'm almost sure I've mentioned Omer Khan before, he is the vice principal of my Sunday school. He is such a nice guy and everyone loves him, the uncles and even the kids. Last Sunday, we had our MCC Annual Picnic and I saw him there. He was running around doing errands as usual and eventually, for a few minutes he played football with me. He's a very athletic guy so he can throw it really far making it fun to play with him. After that, I heard someone say, "Omer is leaving" and I thought to myself, this early? The picnic had barely begun. Later I found out that he went with his family to Wisconsin for vacationing. I heard one of the MCC teachers saying how someone was lecturing Sofia about running around without a scarf on at the picnic.

Days later (a few days ago), I come home from school and my mom tells me "Omer's daughter has been missing for five hours" I go online to look her up and find little information on it. However from what I could understand, this is what happened:

They where at shore on a beach that weren’t much occupied. He was teaching is two sons, his daughter, and two other kids of relatives how to kayak. Because his kids are so athletic and as one article described Sofia, "an avid swimmer," they weren't wearing life jackets. Sofia started paddling away from shore when he yelled for her to stop. Suddenly strong winds pushed her away from shore very intensely. He started swimming after her to stop her but the wind had gotten so strong.

They started looking for her with different agencies helping. After a day or two, the search on water was called off. The police and enforcement agencies have stopped helping but the family and community residents and others who have come to help are still looking. A lot of people I know who are either related to Omer or people (teachers, family, personnel) from my Sunday school are going to Wisconsin to help monitor the shoreline. My mom, who helps teach at my Sunday school, wants to go and we are going to try and go. I want to go with too.

She was precious to the whole MCC community, imagine how precious she must be to Omer! Here is a picture of her.

Where do I begin? I don't know Sofia well but I must have seen her a hundred times walking around MCC halls. I know her brothers and most of all, I know her father. He's the nicest guy ever. When he first became the vice principal, I didn't like him but he's not someone you can dislike for a very long time.

This past year, I had to collect funds for this trip I will go on to visit different colleges as part of a summer program I am in. I had collect donations but the highest I had gotten was $10 from someone. We were in groups of 5 and had to collect $200 each. One of the suggestions the program had given us on how to collect money was to ask people you know to ask their clients for donations at work.

When I asked Omer if he could ask his clients, he said it would be too complicated. Instead, he gave me a check for $200 the next week out of his own pocket. I asked him if he was serious and he said, "Just keep me in your duas [prayers]".

Later, when my friends and I restarted our work with Project ARC, I came to him to ask to be our sponsor for the current project, raising money for Haiti. He accepted gladly, he offered advice, he had his wife proofread our website content and he even brought his son, Zain, on the day of the event. Forget helping me, I can't count the number of times I have seen him help others.

I recently read this post by BrNaeem about Furkan Dogan, the American activist who was killed on the Gaza Flotilla. I was touched that, half way across the world, someone died and how normally many of us would consider it something that just happens. We take it for granted, hearing of all these killings, these catastrophes and children going missing, because our hearts have been desensitized to the chaos. Sofia hasn't been found, but InshaAllah, she will. God is the best of protectors. In the words of Omer himself, ""Whether or not you can participate in the search, please remember my Sofia in your prayers." Please keep Sofia in your duas. If there is a man in this world who doesn't deserve this, it is Omer. If there is ever a time to repay him for the money he gave me for my trip – it is now.


Here is a video that I promise will bring you to tears if you have a heart: Missing Girl’s Family Pleading for Help.

Lastly, some ayahs from the Quran that really have significance here:

Be sure we shall test you with something of fear and hunger, some loss in goods or lives or the fruits (of your toil), but give glad tidings to those who patiently persevere. (2:155)

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On no soul doth Allah Place a burden greater than it can bear” (2:286)

Hang in there Omer. Please make it easy for him Allah and everyone make dua for Sofia. InshAllah, she will be found.