SUPPLEMENTARY FAMILY
sup.ple.men.tary: [suhp-luh-men-tuh-ree]
1. Something added to complete a thing, make up for a deficiency, or strengthen the whole.
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God astounded us with His heart for orphans,
adoption and our family.
Steven Curtis Chapman. He was our favorite music artist and we knew his music by heart.
My husband, Tony, was especially touched by his music and I loved seeing Tony lose his serious side at his concerts. We were excited to find out he was coming to our church's school. Tony got involved in helping make it a successful fund raiser and even managed to get a back-stage visit. Tony talked to Steven's manager, David, and with surprise I overheard him give Tony his cell number. He had invited us to the annual event for Shaohannah's Hope (now Show Hope), the ministry founded by Steven and Mary Beth Chapman through the adoption of their 3 girls from China. Besides a music career, they were trail blazing, helping the Church see that adoption blesses families that already have biological children, and were giving out as many adoption grants as this ministry could.
We traveled to Nashville in November, 2006 and were amazed hearing for the first time the overwhelming needs of orphans, but also miraculous stories of adoptive families and people caring for them. This lifted our hearts through the magnitude of needs to seeing that God was truly at work with their care. I watched Tony the night of the main banquet. I could see his face as I watched the screen show the Chapman's first Chinese daughter (and fourth child), Shaohannah, give an introduction of orphans she had seen in her family's travels. She whispered words after each one of, "...who needs a family" in a voice that would melt the hardest of hearts. His face was full of joy and emotion like I had never seen before in this steady, even-tempered man who was my husband of 23 years. I knew
God was at work. We came home and did what we had been blessed to do with ministries that excited us: we gave from resources God provided through our building development business. But was it enough? We heard of a mission trip to China in June, 2007, and decided our family would go including our 3 children: Ryan, 19; Joel, 16, and Jenna, 14. As we got ready, friends asked, "Are you going to adopt?" I answered emphatically, "Are you kidding? No! I don't even know if I'm doing a good job with the three I've got." I added a joke, "...unless I meet a baby with the name 'Amburgy' tattooed on her little backside."
We met the rest of our team in the Chicago Airport before a long flight to Beijing. We had never met any of them before, but were delighted to find new friends so passionate for orphans that we started what we called the "heavy hitters club". Our first stop was in Beijing where we met a very special couple. The wife is a medical doctor and she had just finished repairing a baby's club foot.
Her husband, the administrator, was a little pale that day because, for lack of anyone else, he had to assist his wife in that surgery. Their passion was to find and provide the medical care these babies needed to save their lives, and to provide the most amazing, organized, well-run foster care I had ever seen. There was one Chinese woman caregiver for every two babies so they bonded with their special "mom" in a beautiful, bright, clean environment until adopted. It was like a special "model home" that God had set up.
The second stop was made after a flight to another Province. We saw some ground that was going to be a new building for orphans, through a wonderful partnership of the Chinese government, the medical/foster care from Beijing, and Shaohannah's Hope. How special to be there with Steven and Mary Beth for a little while as the ground was dedicated.
Next stop: a 5-story Orphanage where two of the floors were occupied by hundreds of older children. Our team had packed luggage with enough toys and supplies that everyone on our team had fun playing with the kids. We even formed a Congo Line that went around the entire lunch room. It was a party!
I noticed Tony playing with an 8 year old girl, Sarah. As I was taking his picture as he looked at her, I saw something on his face that conjured up fear in me. That emotion I had seen at the Show Hope event was back on display. Were those tears? He later said he felt a gentle message of "You can do this." She was a delightful child to our whole family.
I was just a tad behind him in this adoption call, however; we returned home and I wrestled with it 2 months. One morning my Bible reading included the passage where Jesus was telling others that they had fed Him, clothed Him, and cared for His sickness. When asked when they had done this,
Jesus answered, "When you've done it to the least of these, you've done it to Me." So, if little Sarah was Jesus, what did Jesus need? I knew the answer immediately: He needs a forever family. The words of Steven Curtis Chapman's song then echoed in my mind, "I saw the face of Jesus in a little orphan girl. She was standing in the corner on the other side of the world... What now, what will you do now that you've found Me?" That moment is when I joined Tony in what I knew was God's calling for us.
We began the paperwork with America World Adoption Agency (AWAA) and found that trying to adopt a pre-identified child was definitely not standard procedure. They agreed to do what they could as we began a LONG process of difficult paperwork where my challenge was to keep a good attitude and, a few times, not throw papers across my desk in frustration. I'll never forget the call we got from AWAA when they told us that their accurate verification had determined that Sarah could not be adopted and wasn't even living there anymore. The way I felt reminded me of a ride at Six Flags. It was a heart-lurching, fast ascent, straight up, then a drop that left your stomach behind, landing you exactly where you started. I prayed, "Lord, what now?"
Later, we looked at that picture of Tony looking at Sarah, this time seeing the girls beside her. They were twins, Ginger and Maggie. What about adopting them? We liked that they would have each other. We called AWAA and asked them to pursue this. Months later, however, our hopes ended with another terrible phone call. We were told that a relative had blocked the girls' adoption. After working through anger, I once again waited. Then we got an email from Sammye, a friend from our June, 2007 mission trip. She shared that when she got back from our trip she was burdened for these older kids, but couldn't adopt at her age. She finally prayed, "Lord, I can't stand this - either show me what to do or take this away."
Later, she was searching on the Internet and found a video of some of the kids from the orphanage - "her" kids! It was posted by a young man named Michael. Her determination found how to contact him, and he was from New Jersey. He went to China as a last adventure before law school and visited the same orphanage we did. After a little boy looked up at him and said, "Big friend, will you come back tomorrow?" his heart was going to be there forever and he never made it to law school. He was working on a daily basis with these kids, but our team had just missed seeing him. He got to know Sammye over the Internet, and a fast friendship developed. They discovered when they put their two "halves" of information together they could help more with these kids' adoptions. He planned a trip back to the U.S., this time including a trip to Nashville to visit Sammye. She invited us and others to hear his story. We wanted to meet anyone who knew our girls and traveled 5 hours. We shared our story with him, and he went back to China telling us he had no idea what would happen, but he would do anything he could.
I'll never forget his email that came a few months later. He heard that Ginger and Maggie were going to be released for adoption, and we needed to check out "WACAP". I asked him what that was, and he had no idea. I researched and found out it was another adoption agency. I contacted AWAA and told them what I had been told. Their news wasn't good. They said that if the girls' papers got released to WACAP, that we would have to start OUR paperwork completely over. My mind immediately rebelled. They said they would try to get China to release the papers to them instead, but found out it was too late.
No matter what, we had to pursue this. I contacted WACAP, asking if they had twin girls from our orphanage. They hadn't received the papers yet. After two long days, we finally got the call. They had found twin girls in their papers, and then emailed us their pictures to be sure they were the right ones. We stayed on the phone, holding our breath as we opened the attachment. Our hearts made a leap similar to that Six Flags ride! "YES! That's them!" There was a pause on the other end, and then the question from WACAP, "Wait, I don't understand. How did YOU know we were getting twin girls before We knew we were getting twin girls?" I answered, "It's a God-thing!" We never would have known that Ginger and Maggie were being released to this other adoption agency if God hadn't connected an older woman's heart with a young man's heart with our family's heart, all burdened with His heart for these kids, and all done through the internet thousands of miles apart.
The blessings continued. We found out China, for the first time, decided for these older children to allow parents already in the system to transfer their paperwork, so NO redoing it all! At a time when we were having several severe set backs in our business from the recession, we found that WACAP had a program that would pay for their adoption fees. This program ended shortly after we received it. What miracles! How could we not follow through even with all our business challenges? We decided to reach deep for faith, even after having another terrible delay in a much-needed sale of a property, and we left for China for the last time as a family of five.
The final blessing was that we were there for our adoption at the exact time the Chapman's were there, this time dedicating the new building on the ground we had helped dedicate two years ago. It was called "Maria's Big House of Hope", named after their precious third Chinese daughter and 6th child they tragically lost. It was a bittersweet, joyful time for Tony and I as we stood as a family of seven watching this building dedication and toured it. I even had hope the surgical floor would now have all the assistants it needed! God's amazing love for His children is on daily display in our home now in the twinkling dark eyes of Ginger and Maggie. They have brought such laughter and joy to our entire family during an extremely difficult time. We still pray for Sarah, thankful she was so delightful she helped us see that
God was not finished with our family! Thank you, Chapman's, for blazing this trail, even through your trail of tears. And David, for that invitation that forever changed our lives! Thank you, Lord, for weaving a tapestry of care through your people that brought our daughters home to us from China.