Getting Started in Adoption

Our regular commenter geanann asked about how we got started in adoption.  I thought I would respond here rather than in the comment, as not everyone reads the comments.
I need to say first of all that Ramona and I never planned on having eleven children.  If you have asked me in December 1998 that seven years later I would have flown to Russia twice, once circumnavigating the globe, got on the first plane out of Tulsa after 9/11, and adopted children from Russia, Khazakhstan, China, and Vietnam for a total of eleven kids, I would have said you were crazy.  God often does not show you the path before you, but only shows you the next step.  Faith sometimes requires that you take that step, trusting that He will guide you along the way. That is not to say that no planning went into any of the adoptions, just that the end of the journey was not even dreamed of when we started.
So how did we start?  In 1996 Shawn our third biological child was born.  Ramona’s pregnancies were very difficult.  The doctors said that another pregnancy would kill either her or the baby or both.  Wisdom dictated that we not have any more children by natural means.  
After some time we started feeling a desire to have more children.  We discussed the possibility of adoption, recognizing that this was one of the ways we could carry out the many Biblical commands to care for widows and orphans.  James 1:27 says that we are to visit widows and orphans.  My understanding of that verse and others suggests that we are to be active in seeking to help those in the category of “the stranger, the fatherless, and the widow.”
We recognize that by Biblical definition we, and most Americans, are rich.  We will be called to account by our Lord as to how we have used our wealth.  We also recognize what great import God places on caring for widows and orphans.  His people are to reflect His glory by caring for them with the same compassion.  We decided to pursue adoption as the Lord provided
Having made a general decision to pursue adoption, we had done some looking around, but never quite found something that we thought would fit.  Adopting an infant domestically is very difficult because there are far fewer infants available than parents, a product of the abortion tragedy in the country.  Older children are difficult because of the anti-Christian sentiment in the child welfare system.  Also our courts never seem to make adoptions permanent, with either parent being able to come back years later and reclaim the child.  Ramona and I find it very difficult to think of the possibility of losing a child we have brought into our family.  We could never foster kids, that is just not the way we are wired.  Domestic adoption just did not seem to make sense for us.
We had started looking at foreign adoptions when someone posted an item in our church bulletin.  A local doctor and his wife who had been medical missionaries to Russia were looking for help in finding parents for two children from an orphanage in the region they had been in.  We contacted them and after a meeting and prayerful consideration, we started the process to adopt Vanya and Irina.  
Nine months later we found our selves leaving out of Tulsa to fly around the world to adopt two children from the Amur Region in Russia.  In the process we would ride the Trans-Siberian railway, see Red Square, and bring home the first of our eight adopted children.  But I will tell the rest of that story later.