Hoffmans West Coast Style

Top Ten (12) Things we Love about Pasadena (in random order)

2009-04-24T18:01:00.000-07:00

1) We love that we have ideal discipleship: wise people above us, peers going through life with us, and younger ones we are mentoring.

2) Working with students. We love still feeling like we are in college, having parties at our house, going to the coffee shop late at night, doing things on the weekend. We love that our life is filled with students in our house, movie nights, meals with them and doing life together.

3) Our work life/bosses. We feel appreciated and needed. We have good relationships with our supervisors who give us the freedom to use our gifts and that they give us responsibilities. We love that we have set but flexible hours.

4) Weather. Its warm most days and barely rains. What’s not to like about So Cal weather?

5) Living in a community with families. We love living in a community where people know you. We know if we ever needed anything help would be close by. We love living with families where kids are running around and playing with each other, often crossing many age/ethnic barriers.

6) Living near, but not in a big city. Pasadena still feels like a neighborhood. It is an escape from commercialization where local businesses thrive. At the same time we are an hour or less away from everything L.A. has to offer.

7) Walking to work. Who wants to drive in traffic for hours? We walk two blocks to work, eat lunch at home and barely use our car.

8) Missional community. Being around like-minded people that see the world the same way we do. We don’t feel crazy or like we harass people all the time talking about God’s love for all the peoples. Our week is filled with fresh insights on developing issues fresh off the field. We get reports straight from missionaries themselves as well as the executives that run the major organizations.

9) Cultures. We live around so many different cultures, we live in a primarily Armenian neighborhood, but ethnic neighborhoods are close: Little Tokyo, Chinatown, ect. At the same time the USCWM community is diverse with people having influence by birth or serving in countries/cultures all over the world.

10) Working together. We love to be a team and use each other’s giftings. We work beside each other, able to collaborate with each other, but don’t overstep each other’s territory.

11) Flowers. All these random flowers are everywhere. They grow instantly and are beautiful. Roses grow like wildflowers as well Melissa’s favorite bird of paradise.

12) Thursday nights: the community gets together for a meal together in the cafeteria. It’s a great time of watching the kids playing together, talking to parents or students and interacting more than just a superficial level.

Interview with Social Worker

2009-04-20T17:53:00.000-07:00

Thursday we had our first meeting with our social worker, Linda. Linda is very nice and embraced us both with hugs before and after we met. It was pretty low key interview. She asked a lot about our families, our relationship with each other. She wanted to know about why we started dating, what attracted us to each other, what we were looking for in the adoption and why we were adopting, what type of child we wanted to adopt. She explained to us a little more about the process. Unfortunately we were confused and thought the interviewing would take a few weeks and the main portion of the in-take process was the classes. She informed us we still had 2 – 4 months to go until we would be finished with our home-study and be officially approved to adopt. While we wished we didn’t have as long to wait we are glad not to get our hopes up. We are working on our profile (form of describing us as a family to birthmothers) and will post it when we have finished the text. We are excited to be moving ahead in the process. We’ve recently been around a bunch of young children. I (Adam) am getting really excited that soon we’ll be able to hold our own. Baby Hoffman, we are ready for you.

One Year in Cali

2009-04-13T17:34:00.000-07:00

Wow one year! We’ve been reflecting on our first year out here and are just floored. March 23rd 2008 we made our way into Pasadena, a year later we call it home. April 1st 2008 was our first day at our new assignments. I remember last year barely being trained and still having a hard time describing Insight, going to college fairs and sharing with high schoolers what Insight is. As I type this now, we are on our way to a college fair.

One year later we look back and are amazed that God used us to accomplish all the things we have. At the Pasadena Insight campus, we are experiencing one of the best classes in the history of the program. We have learned the ropes well and are finishing this year’s class and preparing for the next class. The Insight National Office is barely recognizable. It’s amazing to see how all the things we dreamed in the beginning of our time have actually come together. The program is successfully packaged and available to be exported to different locations. We have a detailed manual on how to run the program and a training for upcoming Program Directors.

It’s been an amazing year of community building, finding our niche in Pasadena and getting to know people. More to come later on our favorites of Pasadena.

Tarheels 2009 National Champions

2009-04-07T17:32:00.000-07:00

What a great year of basketball. It was so much fun watching Lawson, Hansborough, Ellington, Green, Thompson, Davis and the rest of the team have a great season. Congrats to the 2008-2009 team for accomplishing their goal: National Champions. Following basketball has been different out in Cali than in our home ACC country. Everybody here is obsessed with the Lakers or Dodgers, no one really follows NCAAs. We do have a co-worker who graduated from Carolina in the 70’s. He’ll brag with us, but that’s about all the chatter we hear. Most of the games throughout the season we watched by ourselves with the aid of ESPN360. Why didn’t they come out with this when I was in college? We even watched the early round tournament games online.

A couple of guys (Andrew Mitchell and Chad Hines) are out here to watch games with every now and then, we rarely have the big time celebrations we are used to though. The later round tournament match ups we went a sports place to watch the games. Lots of TVs, lots of Carolina peeps and lots of Carolina beating its opponents. Every time after the game we’d all stand up and sing the alma mater with arms wrapped around another. Started to feel like home for just a little bit. After the national championship we were all pumped and ready to rush Franklyn Street. We almost went to Franklyn Street, Hollywood but decided to rush the most available street, Lankershim. Now unlike on Carolina’s campus, we weren’t able to shut down traffic. The 10 or so of us would run up and down the sidewalk yelling and screaming every now and then darting out on the road when there wasn’t traffic. Where at Carolina, everyone joins in, in L.A. we just had a bunch of people starring at us strangely. Again, great season. Rah Rah Carolina-lina.

New INSIGHT Promo video

2009-03-20T15:15:00.000-07:00

We have been working on all kinds of new promotional stuff for INSIGHT. This video is just a part of it. One of our students, Josh Flynn, made it, good work huh? So the video goes with the new website www.yearofinsight.org . Right now there is just basic info up there and a way to contact the different sites. Some day soon this will be a fantastically dynamic and interactive website full of information about INSIGHT for students, parents and churches that might be interested in becoming a host. Hopefully that some day is not too far out.

So we were just excited about the video and wanted to share it with you. If you know of any High School seniors who are passionate about missions and want to have the most dynamic freshman year of college ever, send us their contact info, we would love to have them at INSIGHT!

Adoption Class # 3: Infertility and Adoption

2009-02-24T15:31:00.000-08:00

Last night we walked into that office standing tall, handed over our 19 page thick home study questionnaire and paid our bill in FULL for the home study. It was a glorious moment. So much work done! We also got to meet our social worker last night! She is really nice and we met some families who worked with her as well and they loved her. Her name is Linda, and she will be doing our interviews, home inspection and working with us throughout the rest of the process. Things are really moving along!

The class last night was good. We talked about dealing with the grief of infertility. I think we were surprised as we both began to talk about our pain in the past tense. There is still residual pain, and this will always define us in a way, but last night we realized that we have dealt with our grief and are now in a really good place. God is so good and faithfully He has healed our hearts.

The second half of the class they bring in a panel of people to share their experiences of the adoption process. This time it was three couples with their newly adopted babies. They each told their story of meeting the birthmother, doctor appointments, the birth, emotions, bring home the baby, and the relationship they have with the birthmoms now. Each story was a little different but all of them were really encouraging.

While they talked, all I could think about was: that will be us, we are going to be sitting together with our little baby smiling at us, because we are their mommy and daddy. We will be a family.

Yard Sale Success

2009-02-22T09:23:00.000-08:00

Saturday was the most tiring day of our lives, especially since it came after Friday which previous held that title. Saturday we had a Yard Sale.

Over the last month we have been collecting items for a Yard Sale. Going through old clothes, books, etc. We have also been getting donations from people in our community for us to sell. The backroom in our house was piled high with all kinds of treasures. Friday we had to sort through everything and price it. Our house looked more like a furniture store that some kids lived in than a home. The signs went up at 11pm Friday night and we quickly fell into bed.

The sale started at the glorious hour of 7am. Which meant we were up at 5:30, even Melissa. We had great friends who came and help set up. They came of course for Prontos donuts we provided, but also out of the goodness of their hearts. There was a ton of stuff to sell and really nice things too! We are so blessed by this community.

The sale started off slow but we had a great late rush starting around 10. We were haggling and bargaining away. The time flew by. Adam was in charge of keeping track of what we were making and he had all kinds of predictions. There was even talk of statistically if we made proportionately the same amount every hour as we did in the first three hours we would reach our goal kind of thing, lol. That came from the boys. Adam loves numbers. Throughout the day Adam was collecting the larger bills from my money pouch, and every time he came I had one or two, I felt like they were growing in there.

Our reason for this yard sale was to help pay the last part of the Homestudy. Before the weekend we needed $900 to pay in full. We felt we would probably make about 400-500 on the sale and then we would just save the rest over the next couple of months. I could have cried when Adam told me what we made: $750! I didn't cry, but I did scream and do a little happy dance. On top of this two families gave us checks for the adoption fund. so the grand total: $900

God is so good and so faithful!

We can not wait to go to our adoption class on Monday night, turn in our completed homestudy paperwork and hand them a big check! We are so full of joy and thankfulness right now it is overwhelming. God has been so amazing in the ways he has provided for this whole process. Thank you thank you to everyone who helped out and all of you who have been praying for this. We love you!

Adoption Class# 2: The Profile

2009-01-31T09:50:00.000-08:00

We had our second adoption class and it was awesome. We really like this agency more every time we are there. A lot of the same couples were in the class again so it was nice to see familiar faces, and build those relationships.

This class was about creating our adoption profile. The profile is what they show to expectant mothers to help choose a family. They talked about what should and shouldn't be in the profile, and had a ton of examples that we could look at. That was really helpful because you could see what caught you eye. We got to take home copies of a couple profiles that we really liked to help us make ours.

The profile should tell a little bit about who we are individually, as a couple, our extended family, what we do for fun, where we work, why we are adopting, and how we see a baby fitting into our lives. It should also have lots of pictures highlighting these different areas. This is going to be a lot of fun to put together, and we are already scheming up ideas of how to do it. We also need a separate photo album of just pictures with small captions for them to look at if they want to get to know us a little better.

Over Christmas we were camera happy with our families because we knew we would need lots of pictures of them, so we got that covered. Now we are camera happy all the time because we need pictures of us at work, at play, with friends, with kids, just us, etc. The new phrase is "Profile moment!" when we feel the moment would be a good pic for our profile. Cheesy I know, but that is who we are.

If you have any great ideas for our profile we would love to hear them! When we actually start working on it we will post some of the pictures for yall to see.

We thought we would start with this one, what do you think?

Adoption News

2009-01-16T14:43:00.000-08:00

Sorry we haven't posted in awhile, we are busy getting back into the grove of INSIGHT after a long holiday with our families.

Monday with the holiday we are looking to spend most of the day going through the more difficult sections of the paperwork. As of yet we have filled out the biographical/informational sections as well as the descriptive sections outlining our lives. Now we have the difficult sections: a specific parenting plan for the next 18 years of their life (Not exaggerating that much) and the questionnaire of what kind of special circumstances we would be willing to accept.

These past few weeks have been filled with discussion about the adoption. It was great being with family over the holidays talking about the adoption and dreaming of what the next holiday could possibly hold. Everyone has been so supportive and encouraging us through the good and bad of the process.

I also want to give a quick shout out to those who have sent us gifts. Thank you for being a part of our dreams. We look forward to actualization of those dreams along side of you. As of today we have received around 35% of our goal of $4,000 for the first part of the adoption. We are blown away by your love. Thank you.

Our next class is a week from Monday (the 26th). We'll update you about the class after we've processed it.

Awesome Video

2009-01-05T06:42:00.000-08:00

Here is an awesome video from our time in Florida. I can't get the whole video in the frame so click the link to see the full screen on YouTube.

Adoption Class # 1 Update

2008-12-19T23:30:00.000-08:00

Sorry we didn’t get a post right up after we went to the class on Monday. This week we had to wrap up a lot of things in California before we head out North Carolina. We are in route somewhere over Texas as I type.

Well the class was pretty amazing. We were thinking it would be a 3-hour lecture from their staff on Lifelong Adoption Issues, but most of our time we spent with a real live adoptive family, interacting with them, hearing stories, and bouncing questions around. It was great to get the mother’s perspective of what we’ll have to go through in our adoption process. Even more valuable was hearing from her three teenage girls (all who were adopted at various times along the way.)

Let me back up and give some details of the people there and I’ll return to some of the big issues we discussed. There were about 8 couples there, ranging in race. We were the youngest couple there, at least by 5-years. Most couples seemed to be in their mid-30s and all had come from infertility backgrounds. One of the couples had an interview with a prospective birth mother; it was interested hearing their experience. Another couple had an adopted 5-year-old girl and were in the process for her younger sibling arriving. Again, we gained a lot of insight from them.

So here is what we learned while there.

1.) We Can Do It
There was a sense of “can we really parent and gain the respect of a child that did not come from our biology?” The resounding answer is “Yes We Can!” (I know all our democratic friends will like that one.) The mom there was not super mom, but she was a loving caring parent. We can do the loving caring parent thing. We don’t have to be Betty Crocker, June Cleaver, Tim the toolman Taylor, Bill Cosby, Super Mom and Super Dad all in one.

2.) The Issue of Loss
They said it and we talked about it: loss. The pain, the grief, the healing, the thoughts of blame, and unworthiness. We talked about it. We realized that all parties enter into this relationship through a loss. For us, our loss has been infertility. For the child, it is not growing up in the history and subculture they were born into. For the birth mother, it is losing her baby. For a child, I likened the feelings to a parent’s divorce, and everything the child feels in that situation. There is loss throughout the process for everyone. The sooner we realize it, the better we can understand everyone else. The sooner we can emotionally deal with our loss, the sooner we will be ready to acknowledge the loss of others. Not easy steps, but glad we brought it out into the open.

3.) Respect
We have committed to each other not to denigrate or tarnish the image of the birth mother for any reason. At this stage we don’t even know her. But it is important to love and respect the child by respecting the birth mother. We have committed to do so.

4.) “Where Facts Flounder, Fantasy Flourishes”
They said that most kids make up a story as to why they were adopted. Some are putting themselves to blame and some are fantasy tales of arriving on the back of a dragon. The point is the more information you can give a child as to their history, the less they will have to make up. Confidence in who they are and who you are is everything; this is what will allow them to be comfortable with their being adopted. The daughters there were able to be open with us because they knew their own history, sometimes knew their birth parents and why they were adopted. It made us realize things we can do now to help in future years for our children to see the process we went through (how much we wanted them) and once we get matched with a birth mother, finding out as much about her, the child’s father, their talents and abilities, their weaknesses, everything.

5.) Ways to help adoption make sense to a young child.
Adoption can be a scary thing for a child (dealing with the issue of loss and within that guilt, ect.) We learned two phrases that will really help us discuss adoption to our kids and let them know they are/were loved and at the center of the process (in a good way.) So here they go: “While you were growing in your mommy’s tummy you were growing in my heart.” And “Your birth mommy knew she couldn’t be your everyday mommy, so she searched for a mommy like me to be your everyday mommy.” So I know the first is kind of cheesy, but it gets the point across, you are special and I love you. The second one just makes sense.

So it has been a lot of information. They gave us another stack of paper work to read concerning issues of adoption and the make up of children who are adopted. Melissa has been reading away, makes notes, underlining things all day throughout our travel. Our next class is late January.

We’ll keep you updated with events from our trip home. We’ll be having many conversations about adoption, all the issues so we’ll let you know of the relevant things there as well. I think we are over Georgia by now so North Carolina, here we come!

Adoption Class # 1

2008-12-12T13:51:00.000-08:00

One of the requirements we must go through to be approved by the Kinship Center is a set of 4 classes. Each class is three hours from 6:30 - 9:30 on Monday evenings, once a month. While we aren't looking forward to the hour plus there drive fighting rush hour traffic in Los Angeles, we are looking forward to these classes.

One of the things we really respected and appreciated about the Kinship Center is their philosophy and strength in counseling (both adoptive parents and birth parents). This first class will be our first true exposure to the depth of the issue on their end. We've read portions of books but are always looking to prepare ourselves more.

The title to this session is called "Lifelong Adoption Issues." It should be good. I (Adam) usually like to prepare close the event instead of add a lot of distance from it. With parenting though, its different. You've got to have a game plan and you've got to know the issues before they happen. I want us to be proactive parents not reactive parents. I look forward to hearing different ways we can guide our child(ren) through their identities, both biologically and us as a family. My psychology background peaks up with these sort of things as well.

What about you. Do you yourself or some you know who is adopted/Adopting have any pieces of wisdom on Lifelong Adoption Issues, again focusing on relationship with the birth family and how adoption fits into their identity as they grow up? Let us know. We'll give an update on the session when we get back.

What an amazing community

2008-12-09T14:17:00.000-08:00

We recently called a few people and sent out a few emails finally announcing the whole adoption thing. (For those who didn't know before, surprise! we are adopting!)

What a response from our community. We've had friends from all walks of life email or call to let us know their of their prayers and encouragement. We've been overwhelmed with the love we've felt from these people and are even more strengthened to move forward. Know your quick drops of emails and comments warms our hearts and exhorts us to continue on. We will need all of you in the ensuing months during the roller coaster we face.

Some have shared their future intentions to adopt. Some have given their personal stories (whether adopted themselves or have adopted) or the stories of relatives. We look forward to the wisdom you've gained and the ways you can lead us in this process. We are glad we are not alone in the matter.

Thank you to those who've responded and thank you to those who are following our journey through the blog

We are going to be PARENTS!

2008-12-07T14:22:00.000-08:00

Friday night was the last night of Marriage counseling. A couple of months ago Fuller school of Psychology offered free marriage counseling, and we jumped on it. Why wait until things are broken to get a tuneup? We decided early on that we would treat ourselves to dinner at California Pizza Kitchen after our last session.

As we were wrapping things up at Fuller, one of the counselors asked if we had thought about all that we had learned and how that will effect how we will relate to our child as parents. Well to be honest we hadn't thought too much about this, and hearing it out loud was kind of overwhelming. In that wow this is really happening kind of way.

So as we sat at CPK eating yummy white pizza with apple smoked bacon, we talked and imagined a little about what it will be like. Of course we were kind of giddy as we dreamed but also feeling the heaviness of, Holy Diapers we are going to be PARENTS. We kind of stared at each other with the can you believe it look.

The night ended with us sitting at Starbucks scheming ways to save more money, organize a yard sale, get hand me downs, and smiling in the reality of it all.

Adding to the Hoffman Family.

2008-12-01T14:14:00.000-08:00

After a long year of trying to start a family and discovering infertility, We have decided to ADOPT!

We are so excited about this there are no words to express it. The decision was long coming, but we know that this is where God is taking us. We are still struggling with the emotions of losing the ability to get pregnant, but God has done amazing things to heal our hearts. Even the process of deciding to Adopt and starting to think about a child in our lives has brought us Joy and Hope is alive again. We are going to be PARENTS! Scary isnt it.

We have no idea how long this process will take, but we do know that God is with us every step of the way. Stay around for updates on the process.

Roses from Twigs

2008-11-20T22:22:00.000-08:00

Melissa here,
When we moved into our new house there were overgrown and somewhat dying rose bushes in the yard. I had a friend come over and show me how to prune them, He did some and I did some. It was so scary because you cut off almost all of the bush! It looked like a couple of twigs coming out of the grown, but slowly they began to grow back. Little sprouts appeared on the stubby twigs, and they turn to flowers and then all of a sudden there is a rose bud. It stays green for a long time and then one day I came out to water the garden and there was a rose. A beautiful yellow and pink rose. I was ecstatic!

I felt so accomplished that I had grown a rose. The time waiting was so anguishing becuase they just look dead, but when the rose appears it is so worth it. Once they bloom I have to start the cycle all over again, but this time I will be more confident and assurance that roses will come.

Pruning makes me think a lot about life. There are so many things in my life that I need to let God prune, or that He is pruning. I may look like stumpy twigs for awhile but if I am patient and let Him work one day all my twigs will turn into beautiful roses!

But it doesn't stop there, I am always in need of pruning, even those roses one day will need to be pruned back to make way for new growth. I am so thankful that we serve a God that loves us enough to teach us and help us grow through the pain of pruning, and that we can trust him more and more each time as we learn that Roses always come in the end.

Welcome

2008-11-18T11:28:00.000-08:00

Welcome, this is our blog about life, ministry, family and really whatever we want to talk about. Our hope is that this will keep us connected with our friends from all over the world, so we hope you stick around!