New Week, New Family

Hey Everybody,

I hope you had a good weekend. Man, you guys are impressing me to no end lately! Your generosity is astounding. Seriously astounding. Every day when I get the total update from the family of the week I find my jaw dropping. Anyone who saw it would laugh. Really, you guys are awesome. We have obliterated the thousand dollar goal for two weeks in a row now. Amazing. So enough about how awesome you are (and your hair looks really good right now, by the way). Let's move on to our newest family. Say hello to the Bowmans. *Hi Bowmans!*

Karen is mom, and she's informed me that they have no family pictures of all of them together. :) Know the feeling?! We understand. So here's Mama Karen and their little sweetie, Natalie.



Natalie is three years old and was adopted in 2009 from Ethiopia. As it goes with kids, it takes you a little while to settle in, but before long you're thinking about another one. They're addictive little suckers, aren't they? And honestly, just look at Natalie. Yeah, I know.



Oh, and here's Dad, Chad and Natalie. Daddies and daughters are so cute.



So back to Natalie needing a sister. The Bowmans believe God's plan for their family is to be entirely built by adoption, even though infertility is not an issue for them. And I think that's really cool. Not just of them, but I see that of many people lately. And I love that adoption is becoming commonplace enough that we all have this unique story and tapestry as to why and who and from where. Anyway, so they figured it was time to have another and have made the unique decision to adopt a child older than Natalie rather than younger. Most agencies discourage adopting out of birth order, but as we all know, God has different plans for each of us and "the rules" don't always apply 100% of the time. The Bowmans feel that older children need to be adopted as well and they're willing to break the rules a bit to give an older child a home. They're adoption will probably roll a lot faster than many because they are adopting older. The lines aren't quite so long. So let's just bless this family and this adoption and help get Natalie's big sister home with as little financial stress as possible so they can focus on their family.

Wanna know more about the fabulous Bowmans? Here's their blog. So you can follow along with this whole process. Here's a great post that Karen wrote about their decision to adopt an older child. And here's a little hello video. Ready to give? Blast that Paypal button. Go!