A Time for Action

Whit’s church is collecting supplies through an Adopt-A-Family project and preparing a benefit dinner for people without homes. When Grady asks why they are doing so much, Whit connects the work to Jesus’ teaching about caring for people in need. Connie will deliver boxes to local families, while Hand Up organizes the donations and the dinner at Whit’s End.

As Whit explains the project, Eugene arrives with an urgent discovery from a box of his parents’ belongings. Inside a singed beginner’s guide to Zaire, he has found a train ticket to Kindu and a map marked at the jungle site where his parents were once held hostage. The ticket is dated a few weeks after seven-year-old Eugene had been told that his parents were lost at their archaeological dig.

Eugene reasons that the book may have belonged to someone who learned his parents were alive and traveled to rescue them. He even wonders whether Leonard has contacted the same person since escaping Africa. Whit warns that the evidence could have other explanations and that any search may be dangerous if Leonard is deliberately hiding, but he understands why Eugene must pursue the first new lead he has found in months.

The ticket’s owner is unknown, and Eugene’s foster parents, Frank and Margaret Burnette, do not remember how it entered the box. Whit arranges access to overseas records at a State Department office in Chicago. Eugene is grateful to act after months in which prayer has seemed like the only thing he could do. Whit agrees that faith can require action, while reminding him to proceed carefully.

Meanwhile, Grady repeatedly notices a friendly man who seems to live near a park bench. Learning that the man may be homeless, Grady wants his family to adopt him literally and offer him a room. Kristi explains that the church project works differently but agrees that they can contribute. Grady enthusiastically gathers his bed, special blanket, Samantha’s stuffed animals, his mother’s mixer, and even the kitchen table before Kristi limits him to a sensible number of donations.

In Chicago, Whit and Eugene finally locate the passenger list for the train. Its last name is Michael Mushnick, Eugene’s great-uncle on his mother’s side and the relative with whom Eugene briefly lived before joining the Burnettes. A newspaper report brings devastating news: the train crashed near Kindu, and everyone aboard died.

On the way home, Whit and Eugene visit the Burnettes. Margaret explains that after Michael’s death, the State Department mailed his few possessions to them because Eugene was his next of kin. The book must have been among those effects. She then remembers that Michael had visited before departing and wanted to take young Eugene on his mysterious trip. The Burnettes refused because he would not say where they were going. Eugene realizes that their decision saved him from dying on the train.

The discovery explains the book but seems to offer no living person who can lead Eugene to Leonard. At the same time, Grady finds a church package addressed to the McKay family. He is upset to learn that the family he hoped would help others has itself been chosen to receive assistance.

Back at Whit’s End, Eugene searches his parents’ box again. Whit notices a photograph of Leonard with Dalton Kearn, the respected archaeologist who mentored Eugene’s parents. He has also obtained a fuller account of the train crash, faxed from newspaper archives in Johannesburg. The origin of that fax suddenly reminds him of the original message Leonard had sent to Around the World Missions more than a year earlier.

Whit asks Eugene to bring both the original fax and the copy later forwarded by the mission. He has spotted something in their transmission information that everyone has overlooked. Certain that the old papers contain a fresh clue, Whit announces that he has a hunch and rushes with Eugene to test it.