The Beginning (continued)

The last blog I referenced how we were able to get the money to afford the adoption. I want to be sure to emphasize that, that event for me was a Romans 8:28 promise, and that promise states: "And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose". I say this because when my mom died I needed to know that there was a purpose in it, a no kidding justification as to why my mom had been taken from me. Not that God owes me a justification mind you. So as a result I clung to that promise in that verse that there was something good that was going to come out of it. I just wondered how God would manifest that answer to my question and to what level would it meet my expectations. I'll get to that answer in a later post, sorry I gotta stay on track.

Keep in mind that every state is gonna be different with regards to state policies and the different organizations that you will have to deal with regarding adoptions. When Mary began this I was off to training for eleven weeks, so I'm not very intimate with allot of the paperwork, I do know that it was significant, but manageable. They wanna know everything about you, where you lived, where you've worked, and criminal background checks from every place you've been. Sometimes a pain but understandable when you hear of the horror stories out there of pedophiles adopting children etc... In addition to paperwork there are home studies, and inspections by the Dept. of Children and Family Services, the Health Dept and, well maybe that was everybody. Believe it was enough!

The process for us took about 28 months, I wasn't very happy about that at all, but we had to remember that this is God's timing not ours. That isn't a very easy statement when you're doing everything that you should, and meeting all of your suspense dates, yet there continue to be hang-ups beyond your control. Let me say this in reference to God's timing, if everything had gone like clock work we would've never gotten Eliana Nigist, she wouldn't have even been born yet. In retrospect I'm glad it took 28 months. The majority of people that we met in Ethiopia that were there for adoptions like us, their process on average was about 12 months.

Oops! I almost forgot, because of our adoption being international there is also paperwork involving immigration and the State Dept., foreign court dates, and the US Embassy! It makes your head spin just thinking about it. But I've gotta say in light of all that it's the best thing that we ever did.

All of the heartache and turmoil of lost paperwork, agencies missing their suspense's, foreign court dates, and more foreign court dates all came to a stop on the 27th of December when we finally made it to the orphanage Hannah's Hope. It was there that they came out and handed Mary the newest addition to our family, Nigist. Nigist, which in Ethiopian means Queen, was so beautiful and quiet with no sign of anxiety. I wish I could say that was the case for all the families. Anyway, the moment was so surreal, it was truly a divine moment, we were together with an angel that had eluded our prayers, talks, and dreams for over two years and here she was. We had literally reached the end of our rainbow.

God Bless,

Joe

The Beginning

The beginning was about seventeen and half years ago when I met the woman I would marry. Mary L. Dill, who would become Mary L. Stapp on 6 February 1993. Prior to us being married we discussed many things that young couples do, where we would call home, what our ambitions were, and children, to include adoption. Oh yes from the very beginning we always knew that we would adopt, but didn't think much about how that might come to fruition, except for the fact that I would make a million dollars one day (only Lord knows how I thought I'd pull that one off) and I guess we thought that we would just write a check. Ha! The ambitions of youth.

Well life happens, and couples get bogged down in the details of real life and all the fairy tales wash away leaving the sediment of reality. Adoption had taken a back seat to four handsome boys, a mortgage and car payments, and the aspirations of climbing the ladder to a better life for the family. But God had remembered our ambitions for adoption, and every once in a while we remembered as well, however fleeting it might have been. If it was gonna happen it was gonna have to be a "God Thing", because Lord knows I couldn't afford it.

In the summer of 2007 I was confronted with the cold reality of mortality, involving my biggest fan, my mother. Loretta Ann Stapp died in the late morning hours on September 20th as her son and close family members looked on. The worst day of my life. Shortly after my mom's death (10 days) I took off to 11 weeks of intense military training to bury my grief, and Mary my beloved wife helped me cope in a way that only a wife could.

In the midst of my devastating loss the topic of adoption came to the forefront again, but how? Mom's life insurance was spent taking care of expenses and getting her and my father's affairs in
order. Mary in her wisdom though pressed forward with the preliminaries of adoption, "God will provide".

Military training would come to an end in Dec, and I would bring my father back to his home to St Marys GA from Colorado. We put their house up for sale and in February of 2008 it sold, just as the housing market was beginning to collapse. My dad blessed us with the proceeds from the house, WOW! What a blessing, a tremendous gift, and there it was the money to provide us with the means to adopt. God is so faithful.

So there it is the beginning to our story of adoption. Stay tuned for more to follow.

Joe Stapp