Daughter Missing! Part 3

After consulting a psychic to try to find answers to their daughter's disappearance, the awful words of the psychic repeated over and over in Emily Spencer's mind. She couldn't sleep, and each waking hour was torture. After a year, she could take it no longer.

Emily determined to end it all by taking her own life. She planned exactly how she would do it, but she couldn't carry out her plans. Something wouldn't let her. "I know now it was the Lord," she told me.

One day she met a friend she hadn't seen in a long time. The friend seemed different somehow. In the course of the conversation, the friend asked, "Emily, how are you?"

Emily told her the truth, and her friend began to tell her about her new relationship with Jesus Christ. "And He can help you too, Emily," she concluded. Before they parted, her friend gave her a devotional book to read.

As Emily read that book, she turned her life and her problems over to Jesus. "My friend was right," she said. "Jesus took away the nightmares, the horror, the words of the psychic that repeated themselves over and over in my mind. Jesus saved my soul and gave me a sound mind. I could once again function as a wife and mother without tranquilizers."

Eight months later, Jim came to know the Lord too because of the change he saw in Emily's life. In time, Emily's brother and his wife received Jesus too. They all became faithful members and workers in the new church we pastored, Glove Cities Assembly of God. Because of the deep waters she has been through, Emily was able to minister to many people who were going through tragedies.

Emily told us that one day she was reading in Psalm 116: "I was brought low, and he helped me." She felt like those words were written just for her, and it brought her great comfort. "I can honestly say if it took this anguish to bring me to the Lord, it has been worth it all."

"Not knowing what happened, not knowing whether Pam is dead or alive, is the hardest part," Emily said. The Spencers believed she was probably dead, but they continued to pray for her. Emily even prayed that if foul play caused Pam's disappearance, the person or persons involved would come to know the Lord and confess the crime.


"When I feel overwhelmed by it all, I've learned to lean harder on Jesus. He has brought me this far. I know He will see me through, come what may."

The last time I saw Emily, she had just turned 80. She told me that every year on Pam's birthday, she wrote a poem to her and had accumulated quite a collection. Both Jim and Emily Spencer are with the Lord now. They never did learn what happened to Pam, but they entrusted their lives to the One who knows all things. And He carried them through.

Daughter Missing! Part 2

Jim and Emily Spencer's 20-year-old-daughter Pam went missing in California in 1973. They flew out to look for her but could find no clue as to her whereabouts. Back home, the torture of waiting and wondering began.

They kept calling the Los Angeles police, but they had nothing new to report. While the Spencers imagined the worst, they kept hoping Pam would turn up alive and well. But as time passed, their hopes grew dimmer.

Emily had been a faithful Catholic all her life, but her religion couldn't sustain her through this tragedy. Her three daughters had been her life. In her heart she turned on God, lashing out in fury at Him for allowing this to happen to her darling girl.

"I could no longer function as a wife and mother," Emily said. "To get through the endless days, I turned to tranquilizers."

Then about 8 months after Pam disappeared, Emily read a newspaper article about a psychic who helped people find missing loved ones. The article told of a girl who had been missing. With the psychic's help, her murdered body had been found.

By this time, Emily and Jim were grasping for anything that could lead to finding Pam, so Emily wrote for an appointment with the psychic. (She didn't know until later that God's Word commands us to stay away from the occult. At that time, she didn't know any better.) "Satan nearly destroyed me through it," Emily said.

The psychic told them to bring something Pam had touched and something from her boyfriend. She asked for no more information than Pam's name. She was kind and assured them that God had given her this power to help people in situations like theirs.

Then she told the Spencers that Pam had been murdered because her killers were afraid she would "fink" on them to the police. The psychic described the murder and said Pam's body was hidden in a very remote area where it was unlikely it would ever be found.

The Spencers returned home with the horror of the psychic's words ringing in their ears. In the weeks and months that followed, the words of the psychic repeated themselves over and over in Emily's mind like a recording. Emily couldn't sleep, and each waking hour was torture.

After a year, Emily could stand it no longer.

To be continued...

Daughter Missing!

One Sunday, a new lady began to attend our church in the Gloversville YMCA. Emily became a member and brought many extended family members with her. What an encouragement she was to us even though she had a heart-rending story to tell.

On January 6, 1973, she and her husband Jim had put their 20-year-old daughter Pam and her dog, a malamute husky named Layla, on a plane in New York bound for California, where she planned to make her home. That was the last time they saw her. Three weeks later she disappeared without a trace!

Six months earlier, Pam and a girlfriend had gone to California to try their wings away from home. Deciding to make her home there, Pam returned to Gloversville for Christmas to get the rest of her things.

Pam was always industrious and responsible. After high school she worked as a legal secretary, bought her own car, and paid her parents for her room and board. According to her boyfriend and other friends, she was never involved in the drug scene. She enjoyed cooking. needlework, and other homemaking activities. During her stay in California, Pam called home every evening--until the weekend she disappeared.

The first inkling of trouble was an urgent phone call from Pam's girlfriend Sally in Malibu on Monday night. "Have you heard from Pam?" she asked. Pam had called her Friday after work saying she was coming to spend the weekend, Sally told Emily. But Pam never arrived.

On Sunday, Sally drove over to Pam's apartment in Santa Monica. Finding no one there, she obtained the key from Pam's landlady and found the apartment in order. Only Pam and her dog, who accompanied her everywhere, were missing.

When Pam failed to show up by Monday, Sally contacted the police and called Pam's parents. Emily immediately called her sister who lived in the Los Angeles area and asked her to check into the situation. When she could find no satisfactory answers, she recommended that Jim and Emily fly out to investigate for themselves.

The Spencers spent 16 days in the Los Angeles area. They talked to police, but they could find no clues. Even Pam's boyfriend, who was visiting his family in Colorado at the time of Pam's disappearance, was as clueless as they were as to her whereabouts.

The Spencers searched hospitals, institutions, dog pounds, and even appeared on television, showing Pam's picture and asking for information. Finally, in desperation, they hired a private investigator. After 10 days, he too was unable to turn up any clues.

With breaking hearts, they finally had to pack up Pam's things and return home to their two younger daughters. Then the torture of waiting and wondering began.

To be continued...