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Collier: “My son was lost has been found”

By Chinta Strausberg

Pastor Mitty Collier late Thursday shouted for joy when Evergreen Park police notified her they had found her son who had been missing nearly three-weeks.

According to Collier, an internationally known gospel singer, the police spotted her son, ElJess Joseph, 52, soliciting money in the parking lot of Aldi’s Food with another homeless man and took him to the station so that he could make a phone call.

Her son had left home three-weeks ago and simply disappeared. She tried calling him but his battery had long died. While she had checked hospitals and morgues, Collier learned her son had been living in one shelter after another, but Thursday the Evergreen Park police recognized him from a missing person poster.

When her son called her, Pastor Collier said she reached out to his wife and they both rushed to the police station.

“My son said he was sorry for what he had done,” Collier said. “He said he felt useless because he is unable to provide for his family with the mediocre job he has. He felt he was worthless.” Her son is a driver for a company that picks up the elderly and takes them to medical appointments.

So pained was Pastor Collier when her son told her how he felt worthless, she told him, ‘You need Jesus, not these other things you’re going to,” she said referring to various religions her son had been delving into. She told him, “You need to get back to your first love. I told him you’ve been in the church and it’s time for you to come home.”

“Like the Prodigal son, God has picked you up and brought you back to your firstlove,” Collier told her son.

Collier revealed her son had wanted to die including wanting to walk in front of a car. He waned to end it all.  “When he told me this, I told him that he couldn’t because God had you.” It was then that Pastor Collier grabbed and hugged her son praying for him in a mighty way.

“He was glad to be in his mother’s arms,” she said. “Even though my son is 52, he’s still my baby,” she said laughing.

Butout of the pain her missing son has caused his family, Pastor Collier said,this has started a lot of family healing.

Asked if her son’s job is still secure, Collier said he would call his supervisor Friday to get the status and hopes they will save his position while he isgetting counseling from the VA Hospital.

Friday, Pastor Collier is taking her son to the VA Hospital to get some much-needed counseling. She made it clear that her son was neither drinking nor on drugs.“He is simply depressed,” she said. “My son who was lost has now been found….”

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