Facebook brings family together
IT WILL be a teary reunion when Clermont man Scott Stephens meets his daughter Karla for the first time in 15 years.
The two were reunited through the social networking site Facebook a few weeks ago.
And today Mr Stephens will make the five-hour trip to Gladstone to be reunited with his daughter.
Karla was born in 1995, but Mr Stephens said he lost contact after moving away from his daughter and her mother when she was a toddler.
"I lost touch with them but I tried to find her (Karla)," Mr Stephens said.
"I thought she was living in Miles (south-west of Maryborough) a while ago.
"I went on a holiday there and I was told she had moved to Gladstone.
"I didn't know where to start to try to find her."
Fate intervened when he was contacted by Karla after joining Facebook earlier this year.
"I was always getting Facebook friend requests from people I didn't know," Mr Stephens said.
"I checked my emails on Thursday and notice I had an email from Tracey (a friend Miss Stephens lives with).
"I was about to delete it when I started reading it.
"It said they (Tracey and Karla) were looking for Karla's dad.
"Karla saw a photo of me and said she knew I was her dad because we have the same nose."
Since then the two had talked on the phone and over Facebook each day, Mr Stephens said.
"She said she didn't know I had kept baby stuff of hers," he said.
"I still have baby photos of her and the tags from her hands from when she was a newborn."
Mr Stephens said he had been overcome with emotion when he and Karla first started talking.
"It's pretty cool that she's calling me dad," he said.
"The first couple of days I was crying. "But they were happy tears."
Without Facebook, he said, he would never have found Karla.
"I probably wouldn't have seen her if it wasn't for Facebook.
"I had never used Facebook before. It was just one of those things.
"I signed up and found her."
