title: While There's Still Time: The Autobiography
author: Ed F. Lochstampfor
description: Ed Lochstampfor has been serving with his wife Charlotte with SIM since 1955; 27 years in Burkina Faso and 5 years in Guinea. They have 6 children, 17 grandchildren, 7 great grandchildren and make their home in Columbia, SC.
zlib_text: The Loch
  
  By Heather Atkinson
  
  ****
  
  Copyright Heather Atkinson December 2019
  
    
  
  **CHAPTER 1**
  
  ****
  
  _Twenty eight hours._
  
  _Since she vanished._
  
  _All is cold._
  
  _Isolated._
  
  _Without her._
  
  _Dark disordered thoughts dance through my mind, taunting, teasing, taking me
  on winding paths of infinite possibilities leading to one single conclusion -_
  
  _She is dead…_
  
  ****
  
  Mike gripped onto the edge of the sink and shook his head, trying to scatter
  the unwanted thoughts that refused to stop whirling through his brain.
  
  “You look old,” he told his reflection in the mirror above the sink.
  
  The face he’d known his entire life stared back at him - the same pronounced
  brow, stubbled cheeks, thick light brown hair swept back off his face and dark
  blue eyes. He still had a passing resemblance to a bear. That’s what Isla’s
  friend had called him when they’d first met. Back then he’d just been a
  visitor to Scotland, on holiday from the US.
  
  _“Go on Isla,”_ her friend had urged her when he’d asked