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Jordan Rapana was desperate and depressed. His wife of more than two years had left him, for reasons he still can't explain. He was questioning whether God - who he quit the NRL for as a star teenager to serve a two-year Mormon mission in England - had abandoned him, too. He was lonely in Canberra, separated from his tight-knit and unique family of 10 brothers and sisters - five adopted - all of whom lived on the Gold Coast. And he was treading water on a training contract at his second Super Rugby club in three years, the ACT Brumbies, with still no foreseeable opportunity of ever getting a game. So in mid-2013, ready to quit and retreat to the Gold Coast, Rapana sought a last-chance meeting with then-Canberra Raiders coach David Furner. Having barely released the grip on their handshake introduction, Rapana told Furner his story - absolutely everything. "I was in a dark place, really upset, down and cut up about my marriage," Rapana says. "It got me down a bit, a little bit of depression. I just wanted a change. She went back to the Gold Coast, so I didn't really want to go back there ... I just needed something different in my life. "I said 'I'm not worried about money, I just want a crack'. I just told him I wanted a foot in the door, that I still felt like I was capable of playing in the NRL. I think he was blown away by it. He appreciated my honesty and a couple of days later I had a contract written up. "I felt very alone. I'd sacrificed so much time away to go and serve God and I just felt like he abandoned me a little bit. "But looking back at it now, everything happens for a reason." This is one motto Rapana now lives by. The other is a phrase printed on his family's loungeroom wall. "It says: 'We may not have it all together, but together we have it all'. That sums up our family in a nutshell," Rapana says. Most days, Rapana's adopted younger sister Sharnia still sits outside the family's front door on the Gold Coast, the teenager with cerebral palsy and autism telling everyone she's waiting for her favourite big brother "Jordo" to come home. It's not likely to be anytime soon. Rapana, 25, made his comeback to the NRL last year, after a six-year absence, but this week the Canberra Raiders commenced negotiations to extend his contract. He will return from a hamstring injury to start for the Raiders at fullback against the St George Illawarra Dragons at Canberra Stadium on Saturday night. But Rapana acknowledges he may never have landed that NRL career lifeline had the Raiders not sacked star fullback Josh Dugan, now at the Dragons, early in 2013. He's wearing the Raiders' No.1 jersey this weekend, too, primarily because first-choice Jack Wighton is injured. But maybe this is one of those things Rapana talks about - the things that happen for a reason. Rapana is the middle child of 10, including five adopted brothers and sisters. One is disabled, another deceased. It doesn't account for two cousins Rapana also calls his brothers, two boys his family took in and raised when their mother suddenly passed away. Nor does it include Bulldogs NRL star Sam Perrett, who virtually boarded with the family for five years during his schooling. Used to a life of hand-me-downs, Rapana clearly remembers the first new piece of clothing he ever received, as a six-year-old growing up in Wellington, New Zealand. "My dad went to do some work in Melbourne and he came back with these football jumpers for us," Rapana recalls. "We were into rugby [union] so I didn't quite know what it was. But he gave me a Canberra Raiders jersey - a Super League one - with the No.1 on it. "When we moved to Australia, when I was nine, we started playing rugby league on the Gold Coast with Tugun Seahawks. But I had that jersey, so the Raiders were my team and Brett Mullins became my favourite player. "As I said, I believe everything happens for a reason ... it's funny now I'm playing here. "I'd love to stay, this place has given me a lot of opportunity. I love the Raiders ... I feel like the best part of my footy is still ahead of me." Rapana's backstory is already incredible. His family background only enhances it. Eli and Leearn Rapana married in their early 20s, starting their life together by living in a granny flat downstairs from Leearn's parents in Wellington. One weekend, her parents volunteered to care for two infants who had been abandoned by their parents at a childcare centre. One of them was a two-year-old boy named Raymond. "He came downstairs one day into our granny flat and he never went back up," Leearn says,laughing. "He's 32 now, but he's still my baby. "My parents were foster parents and I vowed I'd never do that - famous last words." The couple have adopted five children, but prefer not to differentiate between them. Raymond is the oldest, Swayde, 14, the youngest. Velan passed away in 2012, aged seven. They had adopted him as a one-year-old baby from Gold Coast Hospital, where Leearn was working as a nurse. He'd been born healthy in England, but contracted a virus on his way to Australia, suffered a cardiac arrest, died for 40 minutes, was revived and was in hospital in a vegetative state. "I lent down picked him up, and never put him down again," Leearn says. Rapana has the dates of Velan's birth and death tattooed on his torso. He has his family's Maori tribe, Ngati Toa, tattooed on his chest, over his heart. "[Velan's death] was hard but, because of our beliefs, it was a blessing, too - to know he was at peace," he says. The adoption of Shania, 18, was a similarly uplifting story. Leearn was working as a hairdresser in a Wellington salon when a client came in with her disabled baby. "She was in a pram and I just picked her up," Leearn says. "I knew there was something wrong, but I just felt this real connection to this child. So two weeks later, I left my job and became a nanny for the mother and looked after Sharnia. When we relocated to Australia, I asked her mum if I could take her. "We couldn't have done all that as a family without each other ... all the children allowed us to share our love. We don't talk about it is as adoption - we acquired each other." Rapana is the only member of his family away from the Gold Coast, but he returns whenever possible. He spent the majority of the NRL off-season sleeping on a blow-up mattress on the lounge room floor of the crowded seven-bedroom home. Everything is done together as a family. Meals are eaten at an elongated table, flanked by bench seats. "The first time I had a room to myself was when I moved out of home," Rapana says, having shared a converted garage as a bedroom with three brothers. "First in, first served, it doesn't matter who you are. They humble you very quickly when you're home. "That's always the way it's been, there's always enough room for everyone whether it's in a bed, on a couch, or mattresses on the floor. "Sometimes it gets crowded but then you leave and you appreciate it all the more. "I feel really blessed to have grown up the way I did. I've never gone without anything, there was always food on the table and someone to play with. "If Mum could call me today and say 'we're adopting another brother or sister' it would be no shock to me. The amount of people who have come through the doors of our house, it's the next level. "When I settle down and have my family, I'd like to have a big family. I'd like to adopt kids as well, just because I had so much fun as a kid. "The amount of times my brothers who are adopted have said to Mum and Dad 'thanks for changing my life'. It's really touching ... it's given them an opportunity and changed their lives because they really did come from struggling backgrounds. It's good they've been given a second chance." Rapana is enjoying his own second chance in the NRL. Growing up, Rapana was the smallest of the six boys in his family. But his father Eli would stuff the toes of his boots with newspaper so he could wear his brothers' oversized hand-me-downs. Every Saturday morning, the concreter would wake his boys at 6am and take them to Currumbin Beach to run the sand dunes and train in the shallows. While two of his brothers represented Australian Schoolboys, Rapana was the one who developed in his late teens. By 18, he'd overtaken them all, dubbed "Air Jordan" by the media for his five tries in his first five NRL games with the Gold Coast Titans in 2008. Then, like all his brothers, he surrendered it for his faith, to go on a two-year Mormon mission. "I know if I didn't go I'd probably be sitting here regretting it," Rapana says. "There was a lot of sacrifice I had to make, but looking back on it now I don't find it was a sacrifice at all. That proved to me that rugby's not the be all and end all. That's why I knew coming back to league, if I didn't make it, I wasn't going to go home and cry about it." Out of the game for six years, Rapana made his NRL comeback late last year. It would have been earlier if Canberra's salary cap had allowed. Three games back, his career was stalled again, fracturing his skull in an accidental clash. The reconstructive surgery required cutting him from ear-to-ear and peeling back his face, needing 60 staples to piece him back together. He tried to tell his mum it was keyhole surgery, but his mum rang the surgeon. "There's protective then she takes it to another level," Rapana says. "She came to the first game against the Sharks this year and the first thing she yelled at me was 'where's your headgear?' "I honestly reckon I could have played the next week. I didn't think there was anything wrong, just a bit of a headache. The next couple of days it was gone. If they'd given me headgear with some hard plastic covering it I would have no doubt gone back out. It's just a hyped up injury that sounds worse than it is." The Cronulla match was only the second game Rapana's mum had ever seen him play. "I'm going to be brutally honest, I don't like the game," she says. "If he never played league again, I didn't care. But as a mother I'm so proud of him, of his determination, to get up and keep going, because he's had a lot of knock backs." Raiders coach Ricky Stuart says Rapana has made the most of his second chance, too. Signed on "petrol money" in 2013, Rapana is now on a full-time contract and in the process of upgrading it. "His commitment and attitude has been terrific, it's a no-brainer," Stuart says. "He's found his zone. He's comfortable in Canberra, with the club and the club's comfortable with him." Furner, now an assistant coach with the North Queensland Cowboys, has watched Rapana's development from afar, always with their first meeting in the back of his mind. "He was in a dark place, but I told him at the time, 'step in here, you've got a fresh start and a new challenge, then it's up to you'. "My first impression was a very honest kid, he was pretty adamant what he wanted to do, he just needed an opportunity. "The game changes year to year, so if you're out of the game as long as he was, it changes so much. It's taken him some time, but he's such a gifted, strong, powerful runner of the ball. The more he plays the better he'll get." Rapana says the return to the NRL has been sweeter than his debut season, way back in 2008, just because of the tough the journey back. "As a teenager I had that taste of it, I really wanted it back ... I have been blessed with an opportunity and I've got to try and make the most of it. "Me getting a contract here in 2013 was one the best things that's happened for me. "I was gutted. Someone I loved so much, you never think that's going to happen, that they would leave you. You see your mum and dad still happy. Once you get married you think that's the person you're going to grow old with. "I'm happy now and that's what matters."

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