There's no hiding

The stalking capabilities on the internet are endless. I am not saying that in a creepy way, but in a fantastic/I wanna kiss whoever made up the internet* kind of way. Unless someone lives in a remote village in the rain forests of Brazil, there is a high probability that you will find something about their job or location if you search the internet hard enough.

My family used to be really close to the Clarke family. They were native Australians that moved to the States for a couple of years so that Steve, the father, could go to Asbury Seminary. We ended up going to the same church as them and our families instantly bonded. My older brother was in between ages of their 2 oldest daughters, Trisha and Kate; I was the same age as Joanna, and Andrew was the same age as the youngest daughter, Sarah. We all hung out like one happy family for the majority of my childhood. We went camping with them to Canada. We had cookouts all the time. When they finally moved back to Australia we promised we would come visit, and sure enough we did a couple of years later. They were outgoing, loud, and definitely not proper, which made them so much fun to be around.

Well after the parents divorced, they dropped off the face of the earth. We completely lost touch with them and have not been able to find where they are or how they are doing. We have thought of them often over the last ten years, and tried searching for them on the internet, but were unsuccessful. I've tried searching for Joanna a couple of times on Facebook but couldn't find her, and Andrew has tried the same with Sarah. Well tonight we decided to give it another try. We searched and searched Facebook for a Sarah, Kate, or Joanna Clarke in Australia, but tons of profiles came up and we couldn't tell if it was them. We hadn't seen them in 12 years, so that didn't help. So Andrew decided to just write a message to all the Sarah Clarkes in Australia and I did the same with Kate Clarkes. We were hoping one of them would respond and say it was them.

I also tried googling Sarah, Kate, Joanna, and Judy Clarke but wasn't able to find anything. After searching for over an hour, I gave up and was just counting on getting a reply to one of the messages I had sent. My mom then came upstairs and wanted to get in on the search, so she gets on the computer and types in "Steve Clarke Australian pastor" and BOOM, she gets a hit. It takes her to this female blues singer myspace page, Fiona Boyes. She is looking through the page and sees at the bottom to contact manager Steve Clarke "The Pastor" if you have any questions. We don't know if that is THE Steve that we need, but it is ironic that he comes up on an Australian lady's page with the nickname of "The Pastor" behind it, especially because last we had heard about Steve was that he had married some famous musician and was touring the US with her.

So then I get on Facebook and search Fiona Boyes and ask her to be my friend because I wanted to see her profile, hoping to get more clues. But then I remember that I can look at her list of friends, so I pull that up and sure enough, two of her friends are Sarah and Joanna Clarke. We found them!!! We actually found the Clarkes! After a decade of no contact, we are now waiting on them to confirm our friendship requests! We ended up finding a picture of Fiona and Steve together, and it is definitely the Steve Clarke that we know.

It's a small world after all. Thanks to the internet.

*not Al Gore