An adoption story
The Williams’ incredible trip home from Ethiopia with their daughter began even before their harrowing experience on Northwest Flight 253
Krista (my wife) and I began the process of adoption in September of 2006. It had been a very long journey involving a lot of paperwork and waiting, but finally, after months and months, we finally got word. We were informed that we’d need to be in Addis Ababa, Ethiopia’s capital city, to finalize the adoption of our new daughter just nine days prior to when we were expected to be there. Although we had received a referral some months earlier and knew traveling was imminent, we did not know exactly when that would be.
Upon receiving the travel date, we scrambled to get everything together. Thankfully, a group of families in our church, Nappanee (Ind.) BIC, was already in place to take turns watching our other three children (ages 6, 5, and 3). On Friday, December 18th, Krista and I boarded a plane out of Detroit, arriving in Addis Ababa on Saturday night.
Representatives from Bethany Christian Services, the adoption agency we were working through, met us at the airport and took care of all our transportation needs throughout the week. They had a schedule of places for us to see, activities to do, and, of course, the necessary appointments at the U.S. embassy.
We found Addis Ababa to be a wonderful city, with great beauty in the variety of flowers and vegetation and wonderful climate (not too hot since it is 7,000 feet up). Having grown up in South America, Krista and I were familiar with the aspects shared by many “developing nations”—the poverty and crazy traffic being two of them—and we felt very at home there.
We met our new daughter, Emily Megnot Williams, on Monday, and from that point on, she stayed with us at our guest house. She had been living at a Christian orphanage in the city and was very shy at first, but by the next day, she was laughing, talking, and clinging to us as her new family.
The challenges that we would face over the next couple of days first presented themselves on our visit to the U.S. embassy on Tuesday (two days before our planned Thursday departure from the city) for a required interview. We found out that some paperwork that U.S. immigration was supposed to send directly to the embassy in Addis Ababa had not arrived. Without it, we would not be given the visa Emily would need to travel home with us. We were crushed emotionally and frustrated that after years of waiting, we were so close to bringing Emily home, only to be thwarted by paperwork.
Upon the recommendation of the woman in charge of the interviews at the U.S. embassy, we immediately began making calls and sending emails to a variety of people to try to get this information wired immediately to Addis Ababa. We were assured that if we could get the papers sent by later that day, we could return for an interview on Wednesday and still get our visa by Thursday in time for us to leave. Among other people, we emailed the office of our congressional representative. A woman working there was extremely helpful and immediately began to make calls herself to try to get this thing done.
We woke up on Wednesday not knowing whether it had all worked. By mid-morning, we found out that the information had still not been sent. It looked as though we would miss our flight and Christmas with our kids and extended family, not to mention that we simply did not know when this would all be resolved. We were, in essence, stuck in Addis Ababa indefinitely. We struggled to keep from despair. Encouragingly, we knew that the adoption itself was finalized and couldn’t be “undone,” no matter how difficult getting home would be.
The woman at the embassy went out of her way to give us one last chance before the embassy would be closing early for Christmas. If we could get the information sent on Wednesday, we would come in on Christmas Eve, Thursday, to do our interview and they would do everything possible to get Emily’s visa ready that same morning. So once again, we sent out emails and made calls.
To our relief, we found out that things were happening. At 10 o’clock on Wednesday night, we found out that the information had been sent. We went for our interview on Thursday and the embassy got Emily’s visa done just as before it closed for the holiday weekend.
Amazingly, there we were, on schedule, heading to the airport on Thursday evening, Christmas Eve. Somehow it had all come together. We had a definite sense that God’s hand had played a significant role in making it all work, and we knew that a great number of people were praying back home for us and our new daughter.
It was with this sense of hope and thankfulness that we departed from Addis Ababa with our new daughter. And although we didn’t know what was coming next, in that moment, our hearts overflowed with hope, joy, peace, and love.
For more about Jeff, Krista, and Emily’s eventful journey home, read “BIC family survives attempted terrorist attack on Northwest airliner.”
