Every year, every month , every week - pregnant women pass through the gates of hospitals ready to give birth and finally meet face to face the darling that they have been caring inside for nine months. Its a normal cause of joy in most cases, but across Africa , especially in this little country called Benin, many women are tortured verbally and abuse physically in the government hospitals, as if it is somehow a crime to bring a baby into the world, and because they are poor and have no means to pay for the birth is becomes the right of the nurses and the doctors of these countries to make them pay by suffering... Coming from a communist country, I have heard of these stories as a boy, but never got close enough to such a case, until Ema came along ... I am hoping that God will use me in such a way, that I might avoid at least one of these tragedies from happening as often as I can. Today , Ema is 5, and I am again reminded of Gods grace and love for me and my family... here is a short version of her story, and I pray it will touch your heart. Psalm 56: 11 : In God I trust ; I shall not be afraid. What can man do to me? This must be the most bold of all rhetorical questions! Yet this is the attitude any child of God must have in the face of adversity... Five years ago our daughter was born, and ever since than her life was and still is a statement of the sovereignty of God. We hope you find her short story uplifting and humiliating in the same time, and let her lifes testimony fill you up with reverence towards God. He made this happen, He deserves all the glory and honor and our humble thanks! ...While me and my wife were yearning after a child of our own throughout our 9 years of marriage, somewhere in Africa in a little town of Abomey-Calavi, a baby girl was born at the local hospital. She was to be named Ruth Mahoussime Kpoti. The event produced the joy that normally the birth of a new born produces, however, that joy was quickly turning into despair, as the mother of this girl was now losing too much blood. The father, anxious at first, calls for the return of the doctor to the hospital (which has left for home) but she refuses, telling everyone that the hemorrhage is normal, and it will stop eventually. No efforts in the world were enough to avoid the passing away of the mother, and she knew it perfectly as she grabbed her husband’s hand, and made him promise that the girl will be cared for. He had to endure seeing her pass away, and the joy of the new born... was no more. It was so difficult now to even look at the baby, let alone carry on the promise that he made to his deceased wife, especially since the local voodoo belief, branded this child as “caring a death curse with it”... he realized at that moment that everyone will have an issue with her being alive – you see she was branded guilty of bringing death to her mother. Even though most of the family were Christians, the task of keeping her alive was very difficult, since although they took turns caring for the baby for about 2 weeks, they ended up passing the responsibility to someone else until there were no more wiling people to take her in. Thank God for this ministry (Glean Ministries) that was pre-established by God for such times as this, who took her in, and responded to the calling of caring, nursing and shielding from danger of this precious little and defenseless child. Through a series of wonderful and miraculous events, she ended up in our family, in our lives, and was now on her way of becoming our daughter, and it could not feel more right about this, for we were hungry for the love of a child, and it seems that all this time that we were barren, and could not have succeeded in having a baby, God has prepared us for this new adventure. At last we were parents! As we finally embarked on the mission to finalize our adoption, having previously attempted to file the proper forms with immigration, but got denied on technicalities that we did not understand at the time, we proceeded with faith, that this process will go on successfully. After arriving in Africa, and facing the biological father, after receiving his blessings, after meeting with our wonderful local lawyer and receiving his positive “vibe” about everything, we went to see the judge to finalize the adoption decree. Although she seemed ruthless and cold at first, although she seemed fed up with- “white folks coming here and showing us how to take care of ourselves” – her heart melted, and her conscience realized what has truly happening, and what we asked her to see: God gave us a baby – and all she had to do is acknowledge that. (It is wonderful to see people with power, using it as if they realize that it was given to them, and so acknowledge the power GIVER). Next day we had the scheduled appointment with the American Embassy. Little did we know that this was our moment of trial, because we were still “drunk” with joy from the previous day’s victory. Not only did we get refused visa for the girl by the consular, but he was asking us for an approved I-600 form before he will even talk with us. Now we finally understood why our I-600 original form was denied… and it was because she was living with us in USA, when the form clearly said that the child has to live (habitually) abroad... and on top of it all, he said something which seemed more like a warning – and that was that it will be very hard if not impossible to qualify her as an orphan with one of the parents still alive. This news came as a ton of bricks to us, in a strange land, with very limited possibilities, when we had tickets to go home the next week … basically it was a disaster. I dared to think of myself as a man of faith, well, reality proved otherwise, and I began to be afraid, but being a father made me stronger somehow, and I was doing the best I could to brave this one out. I remember turning to my wife, and as I said my goodbye to her, I commissioned her to be strong and get us out of Africa as soon as possible. She was to return to US and start the process of returning us home. Not only did we experience this cold shower of bad news, but the logistics of this new revelation proved to be another steep mountain to climb. The missionary family was to leave Benin and visit Nigeria for a month, and after that, they were to leave for USA, back to their home town of Cleveland Ohio. I saw myself alone in a strange land, strange language, strange customs, and at the mercy of a ruthless consular, which was determined to do his job by the book, and not skip a bit doing it. I forgot that God was in control and my little faith was wavering in a storm of events designed to kill my soul. In a desperate effort to keep Ema from harm, I decided to leave her behind with the Omojuamfo family, and fly to Washington to meet with the Romanian Embassy and hopefully obtain a visa on Ema’s passport where I had enough family to keep us safe until all this paperwork would get finalized. So I was gone for 5 days and even though God granted me my need for a Romanian visa (just to calm my troubling heart), He had me in Washington for a different reason, and that was to meet a woman lobbyist, on a bus heading back to the airport. She was instrumental in taking our case forward, and in hyper speed. While I was contemplating seeing my family in Romania where I haven’t been back for nearly 20 years, she asked me what am I doing in Washington, and so, this amicable conversation turned into the most valuable advice I would get during this whole ordeal. After I told her my story, she pulled out a map, circled a few buildings, wrote on it a few numbers, and next day I was visiting the senate building, and the House of Representatives, trying to find my senators and my state representative and hopefully get to cry on somebody’s shoulder. The “ear” that gave me listening was the office of John Swickard, where after an emotional breakdown, they surrounded me with support and advice, and –what I thought at the time to be just motions of making me feel better- they started copying my paperwork, they gave me phone numbers, names and emails that eventually led me back to a very tight friendship with personnel in the USCIS, and they started to make my case theirs… not anymore as a simple applicant, but now as a team of willing participants, determined to get us back home safely. Suddenly names like Karen Carradine, Ernestina Borques, Elisabeth Shattuck, and John Schweickert were in our imagination as angels fighting for us. It took nearly 3 months of paperwork filing and formalities, during which, even if we did not go to Romania, we did visit Nigeria with our friends, than we came back across the border (unforgettable experiences that would take countless words to begin to describe), and here we were back in the consular office reapplying what we now considered a slam dunk of a case, only to be turned back, for some more doses of desperation, and applications, and pleas. We now had to be approved by the office of home land security, and then and only then, our case was to be reviewed by our ruthless consular. When I finally had everything ready and handed him a complete dossier, with a raised eyebrow he told me that this is where the process begins for him, and although everything has been accepted by the embassy as good and orderly paperwork, he was not convinced that the child was in fact an orphan according to the guidelines that were specified by the I-600 form, “and that – he made sure to specify- was nearly impossible to prove with a living parent, especially since in Africa being unable to provide for the child was almost never a possibility“ … needless to say, that did huge damage to my hopeful heart of seeing this through. I asked him “what kind of evidence would suffice?” at which he gave me a few options out of which the most convincing would have been an interview with the biological father. This, in my opinion was the most impossible thing to ask, since the father has moved to Togo, where his mother lived and where his kids would get better caring with the help of their grandmother… so… needless to say, with my head down and lost in my thoughts I went out thinking that God forgot me... I was ready to call my wife, and tell her to get ready to come and live with us in Africa, because there were no immediate chances for us to get out of there… all I had to wait for, was the time to be appropriate to place the call in US. When I got back to the car which was waiting for us and told my guide what has happened… she seemed to be taking this as good news… much surprising to me as that was, it started to affect me too, so when she got on the phone, calling around, and when she discovered that her biological father was actually in town, I could not believe my ears!… I tried to get the embassy on the phone, to bring this man in there and have him seen by the consulate, and for the life of me, I could not get through, so, in another act of desperation I took this man to the embassy gates and pleaded for an interview. Needless to say, the consular seemed to be infuriated at the maximum at my gumption to be back after everything he explained to me that morning. After he made us wait about an hour (as if giving us time to think and make up our minds) he called me in, to ask me who is the man I brought him to see. I told him that he is the biological father, and that he happened to be in town, and that I tried desperately to call and inform him before we came, so with a sigh, he said to invite him in for a one-on-one conversation. What followed was my soul in a deep contrition and my thoughts going a mile a minute on and on about the frailty of this situation, and this thought kept taking me on an emotional roller-coaster: ”what is really happening now, is that my entire case, all the money we borrowed to do this, all the time we suffered needlessly –here, away from everything we love - was now hanging in an interview with this simple man, so hurt by fate, and so vulnerable…, and if this goes wrong, we are really stuck in Africa until we do something else… I prayed and I hugged Ema, and I cried, while this man was taking punch after punch from this man determined to do his job right and not willing to bend for an “American who came to him with demands”. When he came out and uttered with a smile “Pas problem!” (No problem)… I was infuriated with curiosity at such puerile statement, following the tornado that was happening in my heart, as if this was the raging Galilean sea and Jesus said “be still” …– and with that the consul waved me in, and in a passing voice he said “your case has been approved!” … I started to cry, and I could not tell what this was, except that, at that moment the grandeur of God and the smallness of my faith have melted me into what I originally was … nothing but a handful of clay in the Master’s hands. I felt ashamed and frail, and I understood what the disciple Peter felt in front of the resurrected Jesus after denying Him three times,… yet, He was still there, and showing him such love... now showing us the same love ... IT WAS OVER!!! We were now at the end of it, and finally on our way back home… One last thing bears mentioning: after interacting so many times with Ema’s biological father, I discovered in him a good man, a loving father to his other children, a simple soul with simple needs, and in so many ways a much better man than I can ever be, and I asked myself so many times, why did this man have to go through so much pain so I can be happy, and receive the yearning of my soul, and receive the wonderful gift of parenthood...? I don’t know what God has for this man to learn, but as for me, this experience has brought in new light the reality of a much better person – actually a perfect person – who willingly decided to suffer to the point of being shamelessly crucified – so that you and I can be truly happy and have the true yearning of our hearts -to be free indeed from sin and desperation- fulfilled at last… my Lord and savior JESUS. This is what you are a part of by reading our story , and this is what God has done in our lives. My family and I will forever be thankful for the wonderful way in which God has reached us and grabbed us , turned our lifes inside out and up side down, just so we can experience the infinite measure of Gods potential. This can be your life, this can be your God! I dare you to find out ... just getting at the and of this story means to me that you are not taking this lightly... if you feel His love starting to shake you, or embrace you, your only logical option is to fall on your knees, and start praying - there is hope for you as well.
Posted on: Tue, 04 Mar 2014 13:14:14 +0000
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