Getting Started

"By faith Abraham, when he was called to go out into a place which he should after receive for an inheritance, obeyed; and he went out, not knowing whither he went." Hebrews 11:8

Krista did most of the groundwork in learning the adoption system. The terminology, the "normal" adoption process, what to expect, etc., were all important pieces of information that she soon had a real feel for. David took a while longer to get interested, mainly because he is generally more comfortable with the status quo. He is now all for the adoption, and as excited as Krista about being a parent.

We found a few key resources available to us:

Faith

Starting on the road to adoption is like walking through the fog blindfolded. It's almost easier to see God work a miracle in the conception, carrying, and birth of a child directly in a couple - that happens all around us - than to see how He will somehow work among so many people to provide us with adoptive children. People do adopt children without knowing God, and many of them are good people, but we have it so much better to be able to place our trust completely in God and in His plan for how this will be carried out.

The Internet

The Web holds vast stores of information, particularly useful at this beginning stage. You can find the stories of others' adoptions, adoption agency web sites, state and federal laws governing adoptions, how to assimilate the children into the family, contact information for key people, etc. We've put together a list of several locations we've found particularly useful.

Friends who have adopted

It is amazing how many people around you are adopted. Once you start talking about it, its "oh, did you know so-and-so is adopted?" Not to mention several families in our church who had adopted children, or are in the process of doing so.

Anybody you know

Once we really got into this and knew we were going to adopt, we told lots of people about our plans. The network building gave us a huge prayer base, and a potential source of information of leads about available children.

A good agency

This one is really a result of using the previous resources, but no one knows the gritty details of the actual adoption process like the agency itself.

The Story: Late 1998

The False Start >