TOP's Tuesday: Orange = #HopeHeidiAllen

“It's really a wonder that I haven't dropped all my ideals, because they seem so absurd and impossible to carry out. Yet I keep them, because in spite of everything, I still believe that people are really good at heart.” 
― Anne Frank
The Diary of a Young Girl

2014 started with emotions on high as our family, friends, and community rallied on April 3, the 20th anniversary of Heidi Allen's kidnapping, at the New Haven Fire Station. The very location we gathered two decades earlier. The mission, goal, and hope the same...to find Heidi.

Spring turned to summer and while hope never waived, as with any open missing person/child case, new information and court filings happen. This past July wasn't our family's first experience with waiting to hear or to learn of a filed motion yet the tone in which we, our family, friends, and community were notified intensified the stress, reaction, and effect.

Yesterday, January 12, 2015, a hearing started, to hear from the defense and DA in response to the paperwork filed last summer. I don't know how long this process will take yet I see, understand, and know the toll its taking on me, my parents, our entire family, Heidi's friends, and the community who love and remember Heidi. We find ourselves searching for ways to encourage each other, and all of you who remember Heidi so fondly and continue to pray for her return.

One way we unite and share hope is to wear orange, the color chosen by my parents in 1994, to represent "Hope for Heidi". Some messaged or told me, "I'm wearing my button from twenty years ago, thinking of you and the family." Others said they planned to wear orange each day of the hearing to show their support and as a way of encouraging the family. My peeps at school, are wearing orange this week as a silent way to encourage me throughout the day.

This is the confidence we have 
in approaching God: 
that if we ask anything 
according to his will, 
he hears us." 1 John 5:14

I am so grateful for such wonderful friends, family, work peeps, church family, and those I've "met" on Facebook or who read this blog. You encourage, inspire, and uplift us. 

Thank you! If you decide to wear a little orange, a button, or remember Heidi in some way. Please lift a prayer for her, the hearing, and all who love and remember Heidi. One day, I pray God says yes and we all get the answer to the question weighing on the hearts of so many...

Where's Heidi?
HOPE for Heidi M Allen
Never Forgotten!
Thanks for encouraging her family, friends, and our community. May you be blessed in return.