http://wa.lilypie.com/mf5am5.png Christinas little corner in the BIG world...

WE ARE HOME FROM LIBERIA!

After a long 32 hours traveling time, Blessing and I are home safe!
I am in a state of fog right now, but soooo happy to be back with our whole family!
All the family is enjoying our wonderful new baby boy! He was an absolute angel on the whole trip! His pneumonia is clear and has recovered from malaria, (after 6 days in the hospital).
I can't say enough wonderful things about the AOH staff in Liberia. They are true angels!

I promise details later! Thank you for all the prayers! I felt completely blanketed in prayers my whole trip!

What an awesome God! Thank you Lord for this amazing gift!

Love, Christina

Giving thanks...

We had a wonderful Thanksgiving at Scott's parents house. It was nice to be around family and take a day off from the busy happenings going on around us!

We have found out that our 4y.o. daughter, Love, is quite the prayer warrior! She belts out an amazing prayer. We have completely done away with the memorized versions at supper, and take turns with independent prayers at meal times. One of these days we will secretly record her. It is truly an awesome thing to hear and see the heart of this little girl!!!

We have so much peace and comfort over our adoption. God has truly shown us some amazing things. What an awesome God we serve!!!! What a gift to be a mom to five amazing kids, and another coming home soon! I have also formed some friendships throughout this adoption process, that are so important and such a gift in my life.
Especially the moms who know exactly what I go through during this roller coaster ride of adoption!

Hopefully soon I will have some amazing news to share! We appreciate every single one of your prayers!!

Giving thanks and God Bless!!!

It's official!!!

Our sweet "Josiah" Blessing has been finalized!! He is officially ours!!

YAHOOOOOOOOOO!

Trying to be positive

I haven't posted lately due to the amount of discouragement I am dealing with right now regarding our adoption. I won't go into details here, but we could use your prayers. Still praying the God will move in huge ways to get Blessing home soon!

Homeschooling Anthony is going great! We looked at three farms yesterday, the landscpapes were beautiful, but the houses were never efficient enough for our large family. We trust that God will provide in His perfect timing. All of us are looking forward to living the farm life!

I'm taking the kids to the Minnesota Science Museum after school today. That should be really fun!

We have had some checks come in for our adoption fund! We are up to $760! Thank you to all those who have given! You are such a huge blessing to us!!

God Bless!

"You make everything glorious"...

"And I am yours!"

As I started posting this morning, these words were being played on the radio. It was a reminder from God..."No matter what we do, no matter what goes on in our lives, ups and downs, He makes it for His glory!"

I have been having a discouraging week, various things going on. But, I call to my God, and he answers with the peace that gets me through. He may not change what is going on at the moment...He may not calm the storm around me, but he does calm me.

Nothing new on Blessing yet. We will hear, in a week or so, if he has been finalized. If not, he will be finalized next month. I am trying to be positive and think of all the things I can get done before we bring him home.

The weather is beautiful today. Sunny skies, and supposedly low sixties this afternoon!

We did get news from our homestudy agency, that we have our foster care license. That's a good step, since it is required for Wisconsin to bring Blessing home.

Still looking for that "perfect" hobby farm for us. Will even settle for just a nice piece of land to start with. There are a few possibilites we are looking at right now, but no clear answers yet. We are getting anxious to start living on a farm. My kids are looking forward to this change, so are Scott and I.

A friend of mine has started teaching me knitting. It's such a great way to sit, think, pray, and make something at the same time. I am finding it a bit addictive!

Homeschooling Anthony is going fantastic. He loves it, and so do I! I love having this time with him. He is such a great kid, kind, compassionate. This time at home will protect that and help him grow in a positive way. Right now, Alex is doing great in our public school, and Edline is getting so much help from her various teachers, that I know I could not give her at this time. Her speech has gotten so lazy lately, we are working hard on not letting her get a way with this. Although she must "think" to speak clearly, this is a lot of work for all of us to stay on top of this.

Tomorrow it is off to the ear dr. for Love once again! She is not hearing well, so this may be another surgery for tubes, third time! As long as she can hear better!

Hope everyone has a blessed day/week!

Love,Christina

Coming soon baby!

Ahhh! Is he beautiful or what??? Our first photo with a smile!!!

Hmmmm...

What has the Hoffman household been like lately? Uhmmm, busy!!
After spending about two months being physically ill from different things, I am finally feeling healthy again! Thank God!
Last weeks sermon at church was about, "leaving a legacy." I love this! This is so dear to my heart! I want my children to grow up with compassionate hearts, a desire to help others, and to love God more than anything! Being a family of adoption is such a wonderful way to teach this. So many days have such great teaching moments. We openly talk about our girls' conditions when they came to the orphanage. How healthy they are now, how much their little brains are learning. Even though Edline has a cognative disability, she is my most compassionate child toward orphans. This became apparent when we started talking about adopting again. It's a wonderful thing to see! Another beautiful breakthrough we have has with Edline, is...drum roll please...SHE IS STARTING TO READ!!! This is just huge!!!! For a year we have been working with sight words. This has not worked for Edline, mostly due to her lack of memory recall. Well, this year she is in the LD (learning disability) class instead of the CD (cognative disability) class. They started working on only the sounds of the letters, then learning how to connect the sounds, and she has started reading 1-3 letter words this way. Granted, she seems to have to sounds out every single letter, each and every time. But, she has finally gotten this concept and is loving this!! We are so proud of her! All her teachers are just amazed at her growth! We cannot go down the school hall without someone stopping us and telling us how much they love Edline!
Conferences were this past week. We have excellent reports ACROSS THE BOARD on all our kids! All our kids have the same reports..."very pleasant to have in class." Anthony's last day in the middle school was a bit busy with the whole 6th grade class swarming him, going to miss his presence. I am such a proud momma!
I started homeschooling Anthony this week. What a great start! He loves it! I am really going to enjoy this time with him. I really feel that he will learn so much more this way, and not have the pressures that middle school puts on these kids.
We did get an official "orphan report" this week from Donna at Acres of Hope. This gives us a good idea on how Blessing is doing. It sounds like he is a bit spoiled and very opinionated! Oh he will fit so well in our family! He loves being held, ALL THE TIME, fed A LOT, and does not like a dirty diaper! It sounds like he will be a big boy. I think he is already bigger than when we brought Love home from the orpanage three years ago. (She was the size of a 5 month old, at 18 months of age). He is in a size 2 shoe already! I can't wait to hold my little baby boy!

God has been really working on me in several areas. He is so faithful and loving. So many times I feel the need to "do what I want." He stops me and diverts my path to be alligned with where He wants me to go.

I have an image that appears in my head so many times. It's not a dream, it's how my heart yearns to help orphans. Here it is... I am walking along a dirt road, by myself. I come across a child that is looking at me with empty eyes, this childs body is nothing but bones, sometimes this child has a severe deformity, a child that this place would call..."cursed" or not "worthy" of a life. So many times I see people just walking right past this child, sometimes they are business professionals on their way to work to earn enough to have that expensive car or house. Sometimes they are moms, just driving by to get to their childs soccer game. But, I don't walk by, I go to this child with a heart that wants to heal them, love them, rescue them. This is where the image ends, but the thoughts of the "other " people make me so angry. Okay, so in our regular lives, here in this very rich country, people may not see or imagine this image. But there are so many opportunities to help others. It may be a homeless person, it may be to sponsor a chid, it may be to mentor. There are so many ways to just be Jesus to others. I know that my heart is for the orphans. I truly want to be Jesus to these beautiful gifts that God created. I'm sure God weeps when people pass by these Jesus situations. I know I don't want to cause my God to weep! I want Him to say to me, "well done my good and faithfull servant."

Pics!

Alex's birthday!

The traveling Wall



Our Ellie (2 weeks old here)

A humble request for help...

We are seeking help to bring our Josiah Blessing home. We are so tapped out with our funds from this adoption. We have prayed over our financial situation and feel led to ask others for help. As hard of a request this is to make, I know that we can accomplish this.

I have set up a webpage, along with our mailing address and even a paypal account for those who prefer to donate directly online.

Please take a look!

Thanks,
In Christ,
Christina

http://helpusbringblessinghome.blogspot.com

UGH!!

Okay, the title is axactly how I feel! I have been soooo sick these past few days. I can't remember being this sick. My husband has done a great job at getting taking care of the kids' needs, off to school, etc. My 4 y.o. and I just lay around all day. Today is the first time in awhile have enough energy to sit up for a little bit.
I have realized that my kids need a little more training for when mom is down for the count. Dishes need done, a mile high pile of laundry needs done, groceries need to be bought...WHERE'S MY WIFE? Can I rent one, just until my house is back to normal???? Oh well, I will take care of it LATER! And, I will do it with pure joy!!

Before I was down for the count, we went camping and had a great time. The fall colors are so pretty! We got our campfire and s'more fix. Had a nice hike. We went and saw our little Ellie! She is our first baby alpaca. She was born almost two weeks ago, and is beautiful! She is beautfully brown all over, big black eyes, and all legs! Her mom, who is also ours, is quite the good mom! That is a blessing for alpaca owners. Crias (baby alpacas) are so suseptable to many illnesses and disease, and they are very fragile for the first few months. So having a good mom is the best thing! We are still having our alpacas boarded until we can find a farm or land. We are being pretty picky about this. I know the Lord will bring something in His timing. So, we now have 5 alpacas, and two more crias due in the spring. I will post pics when I get my energy back, the computer is as about as far as I can get right now.

I must go and lay back down! God Bless!

Random thoughts...

I am doing a great woman's bible study right now. It's , "He speaks to me." It's about listening and obeying when God speaks to you. So many times He has said to me, "Be still." I am learning.
This season of my life seems to be a busy one. We are in the adoption process, we are looking for land or hobby farm, we are expecting three crias (baby alpacas), I will start homeschooling my 6th grader in the next few weeks, continuing to be challenged through parenting my daughter with cognative disabilities, and having my oldest son being a senior this year and starting to see less and less of him!! Some days are hard, but each day I know His blessings continue flowing on us, no matter what we are in the midst of.
Waiting on Josiah Blessings adoption process, has been a little easeir than the first time we went through this with our girls. The girls' room was completely ready for them, 7 months before they got home. I haven't even started tackling organizing Blessings things yet. I guess since he's a baby, it's a little different.

Since school has started, Love, our 4 y.o., is the only one home with mommy right now. So her strong willed personality, is getting a little adjustment from me! She's doing a lot better! She will proably always be a loud, outspoken little girl! Maybe a wrestler too! She gets down with her 12 y.o. brother and gets pretty agressive!!
My 7 y.o. daughter has been regressing a bit with her language. Sometimes her sentences are more like a 2 y.o. Some examples..."Mom, I held Love in." Translation..."mom, I carried Love in the house." Another one..."Mom, what number was I?" Translation..."Mom, how old was I?" Here's one that I had no idea what she was talking about..."what went in and in yesterday?" She also loves to use the word "thing" for words she gets too lazy to think about. We are trying to eliminate THAT word!
Even though she is 7.5 years, her articulation seems to be taking a back seat also. It's really hard for her when there is so much going on in her world, that she forgets to articulate so others can understand her. She is also one that getting her attention, or her to stop moving body parts to listen is getting harder. As she is growing, her disability is becoming more of an issue. Just yesterday I was playing tic tac toe with her. Four times she made the exact same moves, and I made the same exact same moves to win each time. Okay, I wasn't being the mean mom that should let her child win, I was trying to get her to "think" about the next move to try to stop me. She has not gotten to the point where she can think like that yet. Believe me, we are really trying to stimulate her brain in so many ways to get her to work those brain cells. Sometimes we see a little hope. Most times, we don't. She is doing great in school. She has a great LD teacher, speech, OT and a few other specialist that fit in her day. We have no idea what her future holds, we don't see her able to function alone as an adult. A group home seems to be more of a fit. And if you think that she is aware of her 4 y.o. sister knowing more than her, she's not. At least not yet, that may change. I'm hoping it doesnt because it will only make her more aware of her differences. She has come to understand that mom and dad have "special" rules just for her. She's okay with that. She has had too many accidents and knows that pain comes from not listening to us for her safety! (helmet for everything, no running on driveway, no bare feet outside, no necklaces on exept for church, etc. It's a long list)!
I wanted to give you a glimse of our daily life with a "special" child. It may seem like a lot. And, it was in the beginning when we were trying to adjust to parenting her, but now it's just part of our routine. It doesn't feel like it's any more work than the other kids. It's taken over three years to get the flow, but I think we are settled into it now. I truly love her to death, as much as I love my other kids. We love our kids differently, that's it!

I feel like I should be preparing myself for another little one that may be here by the end of the year. But I have so much peace about this adoption, I'm not worrying about it! He will fit, he will bring joy and laughter to our family. God has given me such peace, He wants me to believe in a miracle that He has for us. His timing is perfect! I can't wait to hold our little one!

August pics

This is such a cute pic or our Alex, who will be 8 this week.
These are pics taken at "Higher Ground" Christian Music Festival. We decorated our camper. The kids had a ball painting all over. You can't see all of it, but we had all our names and hand prints all over, the Haitian, American and Liberian flags painted all over too!


Waiting for Toby Mac!!

Praying...

I haven't posted lately due to my heart being so heavy for Liberia. There are a handful of families that are going through such turmoil during this adoption process. Liberia is going through a positive change, "God changes." Satan is not liking this, so he is firing back! We can stand here and not do anything, or we can PRAY! Covering Liberia, it's people and the hope that they have, in prayer. Protecting them from the evil one, letting God prevail and be glorified.
I cannot imagine the thought of losing our Josiah to "red tape." But that is exactly what some families are going through. Some children are even at risk to lose their precious lives due to satans hold on their family members. Some children just lose the battle for their life due to lack of medical supplies and care.
I realize that it is so hard to imagine a country that lacks the simplest things...clean water wells, basic nutrition, access to medical care, education! Yet, Liberians lack these "basic essentials" that we so often take for granted!
Acres of Hope is trying to change this. They provide feeding programs, medical care, schooling. They are increasing the programs to reach more people, including building a new hospital and school, possibly in the very near future.
Acres of hope is also the only orphanage that can and will take "special needs" children. So many of these children are considered "cursed," bringing curses to tribal villages if they have deformities. I can't imagine!!!
Please, if you have a few minutes in your day to pray for Liberia, please, please do!
Praying for the children especially. They are completely innocent! Prayer is a wonderful shield against the enemy!

New pics of Josiah!!!