At looks as if reconiliation might be possible after all between a Muslim couple in Ohio and the teenaged daughter who said she feared for her life after converting to Christianity.
Associated Press reporter Andrew Welsh-Huggins writes that a judge chided the divided family for filing legal motions instead of talking to one another, and then pushed a reconciliation plan back on track Tuesday:
Both the girl, Rifqa Bary, and her parents agreed to follow a counseling plan drawn up by the Franklin County child welfare agency last year to try to resolve the family's conflict.
The plan requires the girl and her parents, Mohamed and Aysha Bary, to work with individual counselors and to try to attend joint counseling.
Tuesday's deal patched up a short-lived January agreement that fell apart when the parents said their daughter was being allowed to contact Christian pastors who allegedly helped her run away to Florida in July. The couple believe that contact was hurting their chance for reconciliation.
The arrangement left open the possibility of such contact, but added a new requirement: The child welfare agency was to gather information on any pending criminal charges against the ministers and pass that on to the family's counselors.