When Scott and Connie Hoffman decided to adopt two children - a brother and a sister - from Russia, they chose the names Samuel and Hannah. 
        In Scripture, Hannah, a barren Hebrew woman, had prayed for a son, and vowed to give him back to the Lord. Her son, Samuel, would become a great prophet in Israel. 
        The Hoffmans had tried unsuccessfully to have children. Discouragement one particular Wednesday evening tempted them to stay home from church. "But we both knew that was where we needed to be," Connie told this writer, in an interview with The Christian View. "Not just because we're faithful to church, but also because, when you're hurting, that's your place of refuge, with the support of friends and family and giving the Holy Spirit an opportunity to speak to you." 
        The message from their Pastor that evening came from the book of I Samuel, she said. "Pastor's message was on Hannah's prayer, asking for a child. Because of our situation at that time, I was in tears. After the church service, we both said that we needed to be there that night and hear that message. Pastor had elaborated on the meaning of the names. 'Hannah' means 'grace of God', and 'Samuel' means 'for this child I prayed.' We fell in love with those names, and we said that we wanted a little boy and a little girl, and we wanted their names to be Samuel and Hannah. We had no idea that, down the road, we would be blessed with a little boy and a little girl." 

               
             


        Those blessings would come through adoption, which the Hoffmans had not even considered until last year. 
        A friend from church, Shannon Leatherwood, had discussed adoption with Connie. She knew about the subject firsthand, because she, herself, had been adopted. "At the time, I wasn't interested," said Connie. "I was even kind of upset that she would suggest that I had to go that route. I would talk to my Mom about it, and cry, 'Shannon thinks I should do this.' And my Mom would agree with her. I think the Lord was preparing my heart. 
        "I didn't realize it, but the Lord was dealing with Scott's heart at that time. The Christian radio station that Scott listens to had been discussing adoption that whole month. So, we were both being talked to, in different ways." 
        The Hoffmans have their own business, making custom cabinets. While at a client's house one evening, the subject of children came up. "We normally don't discuss our personal lives while we're on a job," said Connie. "We keep it very professional. But when she asked when we were going to start our family, it just came out of my mouth, 'We've been trying for five years.' Scott was surprised that I shared it, because we didn't talk about it with a lot of people. But she shared with us about a couple in their church whom they're friends with who had adopted children from Russia, a boy and a girl who are biological brother and sister. There are now 15 children at their church who are adopted. It kind of got us excited, and, when we left there, we said, 'We're not going to tell anybody, but we're going to pray about this.'" 
        That Sunday morning, the Hoffmans had volunteered to stay in the nursery at their church. "As soon as I walked in the room," said Connie, "the first child I was introduced to was a little girl who had been adopted from Russia."

                 


            



        The following month, the Hoffmans requested paperwork from the agency. "We didn't have the money," said Connie. "We've relied on God to provide through the business. It has been a struggle, financially, so borrowing was no resource, either." 
        One evening, after the Hoffmans returned home from CARE, a ministry of their church, Connie received a telephone call from her brother, with whom she had shared earlier that day their plans about adoption. Her brother told them to turn on the radio program Focus on the Family, as a woman was sharing how she and her husband had adopted, even though they had not initially had the finances to do so. 
        The Hoffmans would experience the same struggles and victories over those struggles that that couple had experienced. The total amount for the cost of adoption would exceed $30,000, but, throughout the next few months, the Lord would provide through the benevolence of family and friends and even strangers and anonymous givers.
        When the time came for the Hoffmans to turn in their application fee to the Greenville agency, a check for $2,000 came in the mail from a family member with whom they had not even shared their plans. "I know that you'll know what this money needs to go for," the letter read. That Sunday, the Hoffmans tithed $200 from that check. The next day, the President of the agency told the Hoffmans the $150 application fee would be waived if they would agree to share their story with a local television station.
        The Hoffmans received a referral for two children, a brother and a sister, born June 25, 2002, and February 26, 2004, respectively. "We didn't apply for two children," said Connie. "We had applied for a little boy, but we had stated that, if there were siblings, we wanted to at least have the opportunity to see them. When we had started trying to have biological children, our hearts' desire was to have three children, a little boy first, and then a little girl, and then the third one could be whatever God wanted."
        The first trip to Russia, to see the children, was scheduled for October 9 but was postponed until November 9. For that trip, they needed $5,000 in addition to the cost of airline tickets. "We didn't know how all of that was going to come in, but God provided," said Connie. "It came through people with giving hearts." 


            


           



        The Hoffmans spent three days with the children on that initial visit. "We were already in love with them at that point," said Connie. "We thought we would have them home by Christmas, but that didn't happen, and we were heartbroken.
"We felt like, every day, something different changed, and it was out of our hands, completely. One day, we'd get really good news, and the next day, we'd get horrible news. One day, we'd turn in our documents, and, the next day, they'd lose our documents. We had to get physicals, tuberculosis tests, and all of that. The doctor's office had done this several times. The forms got changed, so we had to do it for the new forms. We felt like every day we were having to redo what had already been done. And the process involved a notary every time. It was an emotional roller coaster." 
        The children came off the Russian registry at the end of February, 2005, and the Hoffmans had a court date set for March 11. 
        "I was totally unprepared for the call," said Connie. She rushed to tell her husband. "Tears welled up in our eyes," she said. "We just embraced, and had a moment. We were finally going to get them." 
        The week before the Hoffmans left for Russia, they still needed $1,200 to pay the remaining balance from the original $6,000 to the Greenville agency. In addition, they needed airline tickets, which would cost between $2,000 and $3,000, as well as the remaining $15,000 for Russia. "We didn't know how we were going to get it," said Connie. "From November to March, we felt like, 'God, why couldn't you have done what you were going to do during that time?' We left on Saturday, March 5. The Sunday before that, we started the week needing $1,200, airline tickets, and $15,000, and we had no idea how we were going to get it. I went to get the mail on Monday, and we had enough for the $1,200. Then, I was asked if I would share my testimony in the Tuesday morning Bible study at church, and I didn't know how I would share, because I was a ‘basketcase.’ I told the ladies my need and asked them to pray. From Tuesday to Friday, we had money for our airline tickets, and we were just a little shy of $15,000 cash. 

           

           


        "It was God. There is no way it could have been a coincidence. It was supernatural. For example, a lady in Bible study shared our story with a family member who was traveling. That family member was at an airport and shared our story with someone they sat next to, and that person pulled out their briefcase and wrote a check. We have been getting money from total strangers. 
        "To us, it is so humbling, yet also a huge responsibility. God is not only entrusting these children to our care, but He is using whatever He is doing in our lives to touch others. We don't know what ultimate purpose God has, but I know it is bigger than Scott and me being blessed with two children. We may never know the impact, but it has really strengthened our family, and it has really taught us that God deserves our trust. He not only deserves it, but He earned it in our lives. He didn't have to, but He showed us that, if He moves you to do something, He'll provide. And it may be the last hour. It's funny, because we were praying that we would have the money by Monday night. We were like, 'Okay, God, if you'll provide the money by Monday night, we won't have to worry all week long, but He didn't do it that way. It was like 7:00 Friday night, the next before we left, before we actually had what we needed, in order to go. People were so generous. It was overwhelming. We left with what we had to have for the trip. It was amazing."
The Hoffmans arrived in the region on March 8.
        "Samuel wouldn't take to us at all in November," recalled Connie. "We had been praying, since November, that God would help them to remember us, or, at least, feel a peace or calm and not cry. 
        "That first visit, he did cry a little bit, but just for a few minutes. After that, it was an immediate bond with both of them. We had a good visit. We went every day, twice a day, to see them." 
        Their Friday, March 11 court date was rescheduled for Monday, March 14. 
        The judge, the Hoffmans were told, did not want to grant custody of the children to Americans until Russian families were given the opportunity to adopt them. "Three families wanted a girl Hannah's age," said Connie. 
        She recalled the story of Abraham and Sarah in the Bible, how God had blessed them with Isaac but then asked them to give him up. "They were almost to the point of taking Isaac, and then God stopped them when He saw that they were willing to give up their most prized possession," said Connie. "All I could do was say, 'God, I don't understand why You would have brought us this far and ask us to give one of them up, but we might be going home without Hannah. If that's what Your plan is, then we accept Your plan. It's going to be hard, and we'll need Your grace.' We didn't know what was going to happen, and we couldn't understand it, but we knew that God was in control.
        "That Wednesday morning, we were trying to think of all of the good things in the Bible that happened on the third day. The very first thing we thought of was that Christ arose." 
        Court proceedings on the third day went well for the Hoffmans. The judge was told that one of the Russian couples who wanted to adopt a little girl would probably never be granted a child, because the wife was in the hospital, dying of cancer. It was further explained that the family court law stated that siblings could not be separated except under an extreme situation, such as if one of the children were handicapped, which would prevent other siblings from being adopted. Even though Hannah and Samuel had four other siblings, they were in another orphanage, which allowed Hannah and Samuel to be adopted under Russian law. "Hannah and Samuel were the sickest of the six children," said Connie. "When they were taken from their parents, Hannah wasn't even two months old. They were in the hospital for close to a month before they were taken to the orphanage. The other four children, another girl and three more boys, were taken to an orphanage for older children. I believe their ages now are from four to 10. The orphanage Samuel and Hannah were taken to is for children under the age of three, and there is a full-time doctor there. 
        "After three consecutive days of court, we were drained, emotionally and mentally," said Connie. "We were exausted from it. We were kind of intimidated, because we were in their country and their court system, but we knew that God was ultimately in control. 
        "We were granted custody on Wednesday, March 16. It was 5:00 p.m., too late to get the children, so, the next morning, we did the paperwork and got the passports, airline tickets from that region to Moscow, birth certificates, and adoption certificates. We did not actually get the children until Russian time 3:00 p.m. on Thursday, March 17. 
        "When we walked into the orphanage, Scott said a little prayer: 'Lord, help me to be like You, because they're going to want to be like me.' That's what we need now, the prayer that we'll be the kind of parents that we need to be for them. We want to raise them in a godly home and teach them about the Lord and what a blessing it will be for them to be able to meet Jesus and know Him as Lord and Saviour. They would probably have never been given that chance over there.
"Samuel was already saying a lot of our words. We had them in our arms, and we told them to say 'bye-bye' to the people, and he turned around and said, 'Bye-bye.' The people there were good to them, but he was ready to go. Neither one of them cried, at all." 
        The new family left the region on Friday, March 18, but not without complications, Connie explained. "It seemed that everything that could go wrong went wrong," she said. "Our flight was supposed to be only two hours long. We had taken this flight before, and that's all it ever is, but it was three and a half hours long, and we had no idea why. And we landed at the wrong airport. Our guide was at the other airport an hour away. When we got off the plane, we didn't know where we were. 
        "It was a hard trip," she continued. Their hotel room, which was across the street from Red Square and the Kremlin, was on the 10th floor, and was not childproof. "All of the light switches and windows, everything was down at the children's level," she said. "The electricity was 220 volts. We were constantly telling them they couldn't touch anything. At the restaurant at the hotel, the price for a meal would change from day to day, $30 one day and $60 the next. It snowed and was freezing cold every day. 
        "We got the visas Monday afternoon. We couldn't leave until Tuesday morning. By that point, we were desperate to get home. We wanted people who love us around us. We wanted to see the people who had been praying for us. We were ready to get home.
        "They did not book us on the 5 p.m. flight out of Washington, but they booked us on the 10 p.m. flight, and it made us have an eight-hour layover in Washington. At that point, the children had been up 24 hours, and we were all physically exhausted." 

           
                                           The Hoffman family