After three long days, a family in Shipshewana finally received some good news Thursday morning about their son and his family living in China near the center of this week’s deadly earthquake.

"We’re a tad bit guarded, but it’s good news," mother Ellen Graber said.

"We were told Chad and Jenny are fine. That’s all the news they had, and we’re hanging on to it," said Ellen, summarizing the call and e-mail she and her husband, Sheldon, received Thursday morning from Thailand through the agency that coordinates their son’s work.

Chad, 28, his wife Jenny, 30, and their 2½-year-old son, Matthew, live in Wenchuan near the epicenter of Monday’s earthquake.

Because all communication had been cut off by the quake and access to the stricken region only was by air or foot, there had been no word from the area.

Chad teaches English at a college in Wenchuan and the Grabers had seen aerial photos Wednesday on the Internet that showed the college buildings, including the one their son’s apartment is in, still were standing.

The news the Grabers received came from someone at the college who relayed the information through another person to the agency, Ellen Graber said.

"We’re excited. We can breathe again," said Loleta Yoder, Chad’s cousin.

The Grabers and other friends and relatives also have made a series of calls to the U.S. Embassy in Beijing but have gotten little information.

"Waiting and not knowing (since early Monday) has been really wearing," Ellen Graber said. "Had it not been for the grace of God, we would be in pieces."

She expressed gratitude for all the people concerned for and thinking of them.

"There’s a huge network of people praying around the world," she said. "It’s overwhelming and very humbling.

"My heart goes out to the many who don’t have good news today. It’s awful," she added, thinking of the tens of thousands killed, missing and injured in China.

Read Friday’s South Bend Tribune for updates on this story.