Hello again family! We hope you are having a fun summer!!!!
Lazy summer days of being outside, watching our kittens grow and go to
good homes, feeding the birds at Mendon Park, visiting the Golden Eagle
while we are there. Enjoying picnics with friends and spending hot days
on the busy Jersey Shore. Ice cream parlors with a baby cousin and an
Aunt that we see too little of. Long days at Buffalo Zoo or short
mornings at the spray pad with a beloved friend and her new baby. Spraying sister and brothers in the backyard and eating ice cream on the patio. School will start way to soon but we still have several weeks of camping, visiting Niagara Falls and going back to the shore. Life is good.
Summer time in the Hoffman household! I am sorry that I have not been keeping up on writing here. I truly wish I could share everything that has been going on with all of you. I will share what I can.
My mother was recently diagnosed with cancer. She is doing treatments. Thank you for all your prayers for this difficult time in our lives. My mother is a great lady, someone who has done so much in her life, including living 3 1/2 years in Vietnam as a missionary during the war. But when you ask her she will say she lives every day for her children and her grandchildren. I never had to worry, growing up, that my mother did not love me. As we adopt from China I realize how many many children have to live every day wondering that. God shows these things to us in heartbreaking but necessary ways. Thank you for your prayers.
Our adoption is moving forward- but very slowly. It must seem to you all like we won't ever be bringing home our baby! It also probably looks like there is nothing happening right now since we have been so busy we havent had much time to share it all. However, we are always praying and working on paperwork and talking to our agency and getting more things done. For example, we have just finished up our immigration and our Dossier(the massive stack of paperwork we have been accumulating for the last year, including our homestudy) will be on its way to China this week. We hope to be logged into China the following week. This would be awesome news if we were matched because that would mean we would very shortly be planning our trip to China :-)!
However, we are not matched yet! We have the opportunity to pray for several amazing boys and girls in our agency and in other orphanages throughout China. Our hearts are still very much with children with vision impairments(VI) but we are not sure who will come home with us. Only God knows who our baby is.
We have some specific prayer requests:
1. Obviously funding. We need to have this money ready so when we get the call to go we can go(funding is explained below). There are many disturbing reasons that we need to get this done quick. Those are explained in our next couple requests.
2. Prayers for the orphaned children in China with VI. Orphaned children who are blind or cannot see well(can only see light or shapes) are suffering in China. There is an amazing home called Bethel and there are amazing foster families for children who are blind but this is not enough. Kids who are blind in orphanages are left in their cribs to deteriorate over time. Kids who could sit up at one point are no longer able to, kids who were healthy are now malnourished. M is a little girl Jeremy and I fell in love with but are unable to adopt. Last year M, who has congenital cataracts, could sit up in her crib, walk holding onto someones hand, and had beautiful full cheeks. 6 months later she can not sit up and is extremely malnourished. Every month that goes by sitting in a crib brings these kids closer to permanent disabilities. With M her condition is curable but because she is not getting home fast enough she will most likely be permanently blind. So please pray for these kids to get home fast. And please pray about donating towards our adoption so we can get to China as soon as they tell us to go.
3. Older kids in China. Orphaned kids in China age out of the system at 14. They are put to work in the orphanage or put out on the street or institutionalized. Good places will help them find work. Some kids are lucky enough to have people donating towards their future and are able to make something of themselves. But they will still never have a family in China. Please pray for these kids and consider donating towards their future if you are not able to bring them home yourself. Please pray about adopting an older child.
4. On one of the agency websites there is a page called Angels. These are kids who never made it out of the orphanage because they passed away of their curable, treatable illness. They could also have passed away for no other reason than they could not live in the orphanage. Above one sweet 5 year old girls name and picture the caption read, "Some kids just can't live without a family". She had died although there was nothing wrong with her- she just could not live in an institution and gave up. Just recently we read about a boy who was abandoned at age 5 at a baby hatch. He cried and screamed for his mother the first night and he hasnt spoken since then. Please pray for the kids that just cant handle life in an orphanage or need life saving surgery only a family can provide. Please pray more people come forward. Adoption is not required for any of us living in our snug little worlds. But it is NEEDED for EVERY SINGLE ONE of these babies and children.
5. Pray that maybe God is calling you to adopt. You dont have to adopt from China, there are many kids right here that need you. Please pray that your home is where they should be. Dont ask God if this is what you should do, pray that God put this on your heart, a strong desire to bring home a baby or child who is suffering. At age 13 many perfectly healthy Chinese kids need a home. They are helpful, loving, and just need someone to provide them with a home so they can belong somewhere. Some agencies offer $10,000 grants for kids over the age of 10 and that doesn't include the many other agencies that will also give grants for adopting an older child. Its possible you could have most of our adoption covered in grants for an older child. We plan on going back to China to bring M home, a 10 year old boy who is blind. If you need us to help you fund raise we will!!! Group effort :-)!!!! Please pray that you can bring one of these babies or older children home.
Donations:
I know that is must
seem that we have saved all the money needed for our adoption. With all
our fundraising and selling things and begging for money you probably
think that $40,000 is as good as here. Sadly, no. We still need about
$26,000 to bring our baby home. We are applying for grants but we will
not know the outcome of these grants until we are matched. Which means
that we may be scrambling for that $26,000 when our baby is waiting for
us. What we dont want is for our child to wait longer than they have
waiting because we cant get the money right away.
So
we are asking you to please consider and pray about donating any sum to
our baby. Anything that is given will go towards the many different
funds we will need in order to bring our baby home. We have flights,
hotels, transportation within country, more paperwork once we get to
China, $5,000 cash to take into China, $400 to have our child evaluated
by the international pediatrician before we leave, and much much much
more.
We are selling bread, caramel, frosting, and many other things. We have a vendor show coming up at the end of October and I will have another vendor show Im going to be selling scarves and yummies at in November. I will post dates and times as we get closer.
Thank you for taking the time to read about our family and these kids. We pray you will help us in bringing our baby home.
