Sorry I’m a little behind on my Maymont News. Not much going on in Maymont right now but when there is I’ll let you know. I promise.
In my last article I had told you I was going to Saskatoon for a fundraiser for Child Find Saskatchewan. Get up time was 5 a.m., destination Hilton Garden. Quest speakers were Jim and Melissa Engdahl. Jim is Melissa’s father.
How far would you go to bring your children home? Melissa had lived every parent’s nightmare. July 19, 2006, she received a phone call in the middle of the night from her brother-in-law who informed her her two young daughters were gone and may never be coming back. It took an eight-month journey to bring Hannah and Cedar home.
Melissa and her husband Joe had separated and Joe had wanted to take his girls to visit his family in Australia. An innocent vacation turned terribly wrong, as it became apparent Joe was taking the girls to war-torn Lebanon and was attempting to force a custody arrangement. Joe had told the girls Melissa had abandoned them. Joe also drained her bank account. To bring the girls home Melissa had to rely on her team of family, friends, private investigators, fixers and former soldiers who would work tirelessly to find the girls.
Her small Calgary house became a command post. She also travelled the streets of Sydney, Australia and then to Lebanon’s dangerous Hezbollah-controlled territory during the July War.
Melissa attempted to find the girls and their father through the Australian court system and at the same time she also made contact with several former members of the Australian and the New Zealand special forces, who joined her in Lebanon. Dec. 2, Melissa and the soldiers escorting her took them from the grounds outside the resort where they were living with their father. She hid with the girls in Lebanon for several weeks before smuggling them out of the country through Syria and Jordan.
The aftermath wasn’t pretty. Two former soldiers involved, one from Australia and one from New Zealand, were arrested in Beirut as they attempted to leave the country. They denied operating as paid mercenaries. Conviction on that charge can carry a minimum sentence of three years imprisonment with hard labour, and a maximum of 15 years. Several months after their arrest the charges were reduced to misdemeanors and terms were set for their release on bail. February 2007 the Canadian and Australian courts recognized the custody claim of the mother.
There much is more to this story. There is a book called Flight of the Dragonfly written by Melissa (Hawach) if you’d like to find out other challenges the mother of these girls went through to get her girls home.
