LEBANON JUNCTION, Ky. (WHAS11) -- Wayne Brown is a praying man. He is also a thankful man after he said the Lord delivered a missing child right to his back door Friday evening.
"I don't know why He picked me because He could have taken her anywhere," he said "But she showed up here and I'm elated. I'm so thankful that she's okay."
Brown found Charlee Campbell, who will be celebrating her 3rd birthday next month, on his porch wearing her Frozen pajama top. He said the toddler was dehydrated and was covered with ticks but overall appeared healthy.
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"We've got rattlesnakes and copperheads and coyotes and we've got all kinds of wildlife and things a little kid could be hurt," he said.
Campbell disappeared from her Lebanon Junction home Thursday morning. Many in the community and from all around Kentuckiana would spend the better part of the next two days searching for her in the rural woods of Bullitt County.
"I feel strongly that I need to get some clothes on where I can go into the woods and help find her," Brown said. He said he joined Campbell's mother for several hours searching the woods behind his home Thursday.
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But as the hours passed and still no sign of Charlee and her dog, Penny, hope also began to dwindle of seeing the child alive. That's when Brown said he saw a blonde child outside on his porch on Roy Layne Road, which he said rarely gets visitors.
"Then it dawned on me," he said. "She's blonde. She's a blonde haired little girl. So I ran to the door and opened the door."
Brown said he brought Charlee into his home, where his son gave her water while he called 911. He said the toddler was not wearing a pajama bottom or a diaper and vomited several times on his floor while they were trying to get her water.
"You see this stuff on the news," he said. "You hear about it with people but it's always somebody way off at a disatnce. You never expect it to be in your home or your neighborhood."
But Charlee's case is not an unfamiliar one to Brown. He said when he was 8 years old, his 3-year-old brother went missing. His brother's story came to a tragic end that still haunts him to this day.
"He was in a creek. He had died," he said. "He had drowned. So this really, really hit close to home."
This story had a happier ending thanks to Brown, but he said he can't take credit.
"Nothing short of a miracle," he said. "That's all I can say about it. I have no other answer for it."
The Bullitt County Sheriff's Office is continuing to investigate Campbell's disappearance. Sheriff Donnie Tinnell told WHAS11 Saturday deputies have been combing the wooded area near where the child was found to try and figure out what happened during the two days she was missing.