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