ABOUT MINA:

Mina is a precious little girl recently rescued from an orphanage in Eastern Europe who is now finally home with her forever family! She had been without a mother or father to love her & care for her each day. No one to rock her, kiss her gently or tell her she's loved. She is blessed with an extra chromosome known as Down syndrome, which for her that meant a life of being viewed as worthless in the country she was born into & a life without hope. Because of this her parents gave her up at the age of 6 months when they found out the diagnosis & from there her life progressivly went down hill. We are the Gower family residing in OKC who recently adopted this little angel. She was extremely malnourished and unable to do just about anything when we first met her. She will be 2 in January & is the size of a 3-6 month old weighing 14lbs. She continues to amaze us at how quickly she is progressing with love and nutrition. She has learned to sit up, roll over, feed herself finger foods, hold her own bottle and loves to interact with toys and other children. Her life has changed so much in such a short period of time and will forever be changed! Thank you Lord for putting a burden on our hearts to rescue this little blessing and making her apart of our family!

Sunday, July 18, 2010

Garage Sale Praises!!

This past weekend was such a wonderful blessing. It was extremely hot, tiring, exhausting, oh and did I mention HOT!!! There is nothing like having a garage sale in the middle of July with 105 degree weather. One of the joys of living in Oklahoma!


So for any of the crazy garage salers who fought through the heat with us… just fyi we normally wouldn’t be this crazy and have a garage sale the hottest time of the year but did it simply for the fact of bringing our little girl home and leaving in 2 weeks. Never again do I think I will ever have another garage sale… especially in the heat of the summer!

~Dear Lord, Please never ask us to adopt where we have to hold another sale in July. Any other cooler month will do or please send cooler weather. Thank you in advance :)

We were able to meet so many wonderful people through the sale. We heard story after story of people who have adopted personally, know someone who adopted, or are in the process of adopting. We met a couple who is in the process of adopting from Ethiopia and is waiting on their referral. We just want to lift them up to the Lord and ask that they receive a referral quickly and that the process and travel date would come so quick so that they can go meet their child. There was a mom from here who has adopted three children that came out just to donate~ what a huge blessing she is to our family and I am so grateful for her faith in loving and caring for those children. Another man stopped by just do donate $50. What a huge blessing!


Thank you to all the garage salers who came out, found treasures, and helped support us bringing Mina home!! We are truly grateful! Thank you, thank you to all those who have graciously donated and given to help this sale even be possible!  We made $1,232 total at the sale this weekend!!!


GARAGE SALE LEFTOVERS & WHAT TO DO:
Then there was figuring out what to do with all the leftovers. I tried contacting people asking if they knew of any families in need that could use some of the things we have left over so that they could come look through and take what they needed and couldn’t find anyone. Thought about donating+ a tax deduction but just didn't feel that would be fair to all the wonderful people who blessed us and so we wanted to in turn pass on the blessing to someone else!  So then I contacted the Malone family asking if they knew of anyone adopting that wanted to have a garage sale to help raise funds for their adoption. They knew just the person. She called me and was so excited. She said she had just been praying to the Lord about what they were going to do and where they were going to get stuff from because they hadn’t received much to sale & her phone rang with the news! She said that her and her family would love to come pick it up and even help us box everything back up (something I was dreading doing after this long week.) So it was just perfect!! I am so grateful to all those who donated to us to help us raise funds to bring Mina home and so grateful that the Lord opened the doors for us to be able to pass the remainder to another family for the same purpose! They are coming this evening! What a blessing!



SPECIAL THANKS: There is so many wonderful people we have to thank! Thank you to Kate & Cody our neighbors for always helping with anything needed. Kate spent the week with me setting up for the sale & getting everything organized as well as sit at the sale and help me run it! Cody helped pick up several heavy items for the sale. What a huge blessing you have been to our family! Thank you to my Mimi for all your love & support for your great grandbaby. She watched Myla one day of the sale for us, came and set with us in the heat on another, and cooked us dinner the next day! Thank you!! Charmaine~ my Mimi’s good friend, for all your time, donations for the sale, love, and for sitting out in the heat as well and being our best sales woman :) We are so grateful for you!! Thank you for letting us borrow your cash register, clothes rack, and tables. You are such a wonderful person and I am so thankful you are a part of our lives! Thank you to my wonderful husband Jim for always being supportive, hard working, loving and most of all patient with me when I get impatient in the miserable heat :) I love you so much baby and couldn’t do any of this without you. Jim put up some awesome signs with arrows leading directly to our house. He moved boxes after boxes and heavy furniture/ tables day after day. He forced me to sit inside out of the heat for awhile cause he was worried about me. LOL You are amazing and I love you and am so grateful that you are my helpmate from the Lord!!

1 comment:

Liz said...

i saw your comment on my blog- thank you :)
i just sent you guys a donation through RR. i would love to adopt a RR kiddo in a year or two- you talking about taking along your two year old makes me smile- because i would be taking this baby i am pregnant with too :) i can't wait to read all about your trip!