Category: Adoption

Hi everyone! Sorry it’s been a little quiet on our end…I promise to make our updates more frequent from here on out! Truth is, we’ve had our heads down, pushing forward with the seemingly never-ending pile of paperwork. I want this blog to be completely open and honest so that you can get a good idea of what international adoption looks like. But sometimes it’s hard to explain the ins and outs of the applications, forms, trainings, notaries, background checks, and every tedious detail that we’re navigating. But I’m going to try my best to give you a glimpse into this process! (without completely boring you)

SO…in our last post, I talked about how we were working towards finishing our home study. I’m pleased to announce that as of last week it is officially completed! This is a huge milestone because many forms and applications we are working on now require a completed home study. We ran into a few hiccups towards the end, which prolonged the process, but we are super thankful for our social worker and adoption agency who are making sure every tiny detail of our paperwork is perfect. We would rather take a little more time now making sure everything is right than hurrying through it and having problems months down the road.

I mentioned in our last post that once our home study was completed, we would get our names put in the database to be matched with our daughter. This is true. And a little untrue. Yes, the next step is getting matched through the database, but just like everything else with the adoption, it’s a process. In order to get our names put in we had to complete additional required paperwork, which we finished last week. Now we are waiting for our adoption agency to upload our information into the database. There is only room for 100 adoptive families per month (seeking to adopt from India) to be uploaded. Our agency has been having some issues accessing the site to put our information in, so we’re currently waiting to see if the database is having some sort of malfunction or if capacity has been reached this month. If capacity has been reached already this month, we will have to wait until April 1 to be put into the database.

We’re using this time of waiting to…you guessed it…complete more paperwork. Our dossier (which gets sent to India for them to approve us) is a high priority now along with getting our background checks from the Department of Homeland Security

I know, I know. So many steps. So much waiting. So many unexpected twists and turns. I’d be lying if I said it’s been easy. We are constantly reminding each other that God has this whole thing planned out. He knows the timeline. He knows our daughter. He is not surprised by the bumps in the road. It gives us peace knowing our journey is unfolding exactly how it was intended.

Thank you again to all our family and friends who are so lovingly supporting us. Be expecting to see more posts soon!!

For the past three months we’ve been working to check things off our lonnngggg list of to-do’s for the adoption. Some of you might be familiar with this process, but for those of you who aren’t, I want to explain where this checklist is coming from.

There are three main parts to this process and each part has it’s own checklist/requirements.

The first part is our adoption agency. After researching and talking with a few agencies, we decided to partner with Journeys of the Heart. It is a smaller agency based out of Oregon. They help guide us along this journey and actually have correspondents in India who they work with to make sure the adoption process is as smooth as possible. If we have any questions we call or email them. They have been extremely helpful and we’re very thankful for them! Along with choosing them as our agency came a list of things we needed to submit to them for their records. Waivers/agreements/reference letters/etc. There are also online trainings we have to complete for them as well. Our status with this checklist is we’ve completed all our paperwork for them, and now just need to complete the trainings.

The next part is the home study. The purpose of the home study is to get approval from the United States to show that Nick and I are fit to be adoptive parents. The home study agency we selected is in Mt Vernon, which is 45 minutes from our house. The checklist for the home study is definitely the most extensive and thorough. It includes medical reports for each of our family members, birth certificates, marriage license, financial reports, reference letters, background checks, CPR certification, etc. etc. etc. And those are just the tip of the iceberg! It also includes a home visit from a social worker to make sure our house is fit for a child to come into. Our status with this checklist is we’re about 90% completed. We’ll be done with the paperwork next week and then just need to complete the home visit/interviews.

The last part is the dossier. The dossier is a list of documents that gets sent to India for them to approve us to adopt from their country. The checklist for this has some overlap from the home study list and isn’t quite as long. But in order to submit our dossier, we need to have a completed home study. Our status with this checklist is we’re about 30% complete.

So what next? We’re hoping to have our home study completed by the end of December and our dossier completed by February. After that we’ll get our names put in the adoption database that will allow us to be matched with a child!

I know this was long but we wanted all of you to understand a little bit more about this journey we’re on. Please pray that the remainder of this paperwork process is completed smoothly and that there aren’t any major hiccups. We can’t wait to keep you updated as things progress!

We also are so thankful for the financial support we have received through our fundraising website, fundly.com/knapp-india-adoption

Probably the most common question we hear regarding our adoption is “Why India??” The answer to that question is multifaceted.

We entered this adoption process with open hearts and minds. Meaning, we did not have a certain country we wanted to zero in on. As we mentioned in previous posts, our hearts desire is to rescue a child…wherever that may be. We wanted to be open to wherever the Lord led us.

As some of you may know, each country has its own list of requirements for potential adoptive parents. For example, to adopt from China you have to be at least 30 years old. So we could cross that country off the list. And other countries require very long in-country stays (like 6 months!) before you can bring your child home. That wouldn’t work for us, so we could cross those countries off our list as well.

Once the list was narrowed, we had several conference calls with our adoption agency to ask more detailed questions. They got to know us through these calls and suggested we take a serious look at India. They told us they felt it could be a great fit for our family and that there are children there that could be matched with us very quickly.

Nick and I took a deeper look into India and felt confident about proceeding. The main reason being that there is a huge need there for adoption. Another motivating factor is that children in India have almost no chance of ever hearing the gospel. We desire to rescue a child who physically might not have the chance for a high quality of life, but also who spiritually will never have the chance to hear about Jesus.

We felt God opening this door to India and took a leap of faith! Our child could already be born which makes this process even more real and exciting. Thank you all for your support and prayers. It means the world to us!

Statistics tell us that there are upwards of 150 million orphans worldwide. But what makes an orphan an orphan? Children receive orphan status by losing or being abandoned by one parent. So not every single orphan needs to be adopted. BUT we can all agree that there are tens of millions of orphans in need of a loving home. (check out this link if you’d like to dive deeper in this info)

Nick and I have chosen adoption because we feel called from God to do so. We don’t believe that He has blessed us with a supportive family, loving church, encouraging friends, a great home, and financial stability to just keep it all to ourselves. We believe that everything we have is not our own, but God’s. We also believe that God loves adoption and has demonstrated it for us. He made an example of adoption for us by sacrificing what was His, namely Jesus, so that we might be received by Him as adopted sons (Galatians 4:4-7). It is that truth that has led us for some time now to want to imitate God and offer adoption to a child in need, just like he adopted us when we were in need.

We cannot wait to rescue one of those millions of orphans and accept them into our family. And we’re so thankful for each one of you who are supporting us on this journey.

Galatians 4:4-7
But when the fullness of time had come, God sent forth his Son, born of woman, born under the law, to redeem those who were under the law, so that we might receive adoption as sons. And because you are sons, God has sent the Spirit of his Son into our hearts, crying, “Abba! Father!” So you are no longer a slave, but a son, and if a son, then an heir through God.