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At the shelter, an aid worker gave us the address of the Dallas Housing Authority, where workers were scrambling to find more permanent housing for the thousands of evacuees who were suddenly homeless.

In time, I realized God had been listening to my prayers.

Mike Fechner, the minister of spiritual development at Prestonwood Baptist Church in Plano, Texas, has spent years working with the Dallas Housing Authority and other groups in inner-city Dallas to bring whatever aid necessary to the people who needed it most. With evacuees pouring into North Texas, Mike and a team of volunteers went to the housing authority with an offer to help displaced families like ours.

There, Mike found us.

"Something led me to you," Mike told me later. "Of all the people there, I was led to you."

I truly believe this wonderful man was our angel. He listened quietly as I told my story. Then he gathered my family together, gave us inflatable beds and blankets, food and water, and led us in prayer.

And then he did something that let me know it was going to be okay. He handed me a stuffed animal.

"This is for A'Mahd," he said, "because we're going to put our trust in God that you will be able to give that to him."

He never doubted it would happen.

We set off toward our new home with the peace and assurance that God was taking care of everything. The generous people at Prestonwood Baptist promised they would help us meet whatever material need we had. And they did.

But my heart still longed to see A'Mahd. The long wait for news was agonizing. Each hour seemed like an eternity. At moments, doubt slipped into my head. I cried until my eyes ached, and I couldn't eat. But I continued to pray and believe.

I clung to the stuffed toy dog Mike had given me. Its name was Happy Hank, and he recited Bible verses and said, "Jesus loves you" when you squeezed him. I held Happy Hank and kissed him as if he were A'Mahd.

I discovered later that Mike and his staff at Prestonwood had launched a search of their own, phoning contacts across the country to see if anyone had information about A'Mahd and Nikolle.

Three days later, heaven smiled down on us when Nikolle called the church. She had found her way to a relative's home near Alexandria, Louisiana.

She and A'Mahd had been trapped in New Orleans by rising water and had to wait there for the flooding to subside. "We stayed with a neighbor who lived on the second floor because water was coming into my first-floor apartment," she said. "I put A'Mahd on one of the floaters I use to take him to the pool, and we swam to the neighbor's apartment."

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