The Bowman Family Adoption Fund

 

 

 

 

Dear friends and family,

 

We are writing this letter to share some very exciting news with you and to ask for your help. Vince, Logan and I are what we call “cautiously excited” for the arrival of a baby girl, due February 6, 2014 who will hopefully be joining our family … forever! We’d like to share how we got to this state of “expecting through adoption”. We have also posted our full adoption story online at www.gogetfunding.com (just type, Bowman Family Adoption, in the search area) and also on our Facebook page, which is also Bowman Family Adoption.

 

For the past 6 years we have wanted to grow our family   Approximately 3 years ago, after many months of unsuccessful fertility treatments and a devastating miscarriage, we felt that God was calling us to adoption. We decided to become foster parents in hopes of adopting.  We were blessed with our first foster son, an adorable little boy named Adrian. We had wondered if we could love an adopted child as much as we love Logan and after having Adrian, we knew we could! We loved him very much, and still do, He is now home with his mom and dad, and luckily they let us continue to still be a part of his life. We have since had 6 other foster children in our home for various amounts of time. We love them all. We miss them all! We continued to pray for a child that could stay with us and become part of our family.  

 

Patiently we waited, but the roller coaster of emotions that comes with fostering began taking its toll and we felt as if every door was closing in front of us. We finally made a difficult decision to surrender our foster care license, believing it was only “Our” desire (to have another child) and not God’s.   About 3 months ago, sitting in a small bible study with two other women, I (Amanda) told them that Vince and I had made a decision to stop knocking down doors and that if God wanted us to have a baby, that He was going to have to drop one on our doorstep! He literally did just that!! Three days later I received a phone call from a relative who had a cousin that was pregnant, already had a young child, and just could not keep this baby. She wanted to place it for adoption. They immediately thought of Vince and I and our desire to adopt. The young lady wanted to meet us the next day. I talked with her for a little bit and left feeling a mix of emotions, but mostly my thought was …this is just too good to be true. This does not “just happen” to people! Then, I remembered my prayer (or rather my request) for God to put a baby on our doorstep. I realized, through HIM, all things are possible!

 

The following (Tuesday) we met with our adoption attorney, her, and the baby’s father. We talked about the adoption plan, and gathered the necessary information that the attorney needed to begin the legal process. Since then, I have spent some time with her (birth mom) over the past couple months. We’ve gotten to know each other better and have a sense of how all of this will work. I attended the ultrasound last month and it was revealed that we will be bringing home a baby girl! So now we just wait and continue to prepare for the arrival of this precious baby. It is exciting, scary and everything in between. However, we will continue to keep our eyes on the Lord and trust in his plan and provision!

 

The adoption will cost us approximately $14,000. Yes, that is a lot of money (and yet far less than most domestic adoptions).

So now comes the part of this whole process that we like the least, and that is asking for financial help. God has laid on our hearts to trust in His provision. We are humbled by the generosity of others and we will give all the glory and praise to God for it. We know and trust that all the money in the world belongs to God and when he directs it toward our adoption we will use the money to bring this baby girl into our family with gratitude.

 

So we humbly ask for your help. First, and foremost we ask for your prayers. Prayer for the health and safe delivery of the baby. Prayer for our family as we navigate through the many interviews, classes, paperwork, and emotions. Prayer for the birthmother, as she faces her own journey. She is one the most loving and selfless people I have ever met. We can never express our gratitude to her for the priceless gift she is planning to give us!

 

Second, is for financial assistance. We still need to raise $8,000 by December 31, 2013. We have an online fundraising site at www.gogetfunding.com (in the upper right search bar, type: Bowman Family Adoption once found click on our photo).   We also have an Adoption Fund Account set up at Horizon Bank. Checks can be mailed to Vince & Amanda Bowman, 205 Farmwood Drive, La Porte, IN 46350. 100% of all funds collected will be deposited towards the adoption.

 

Third, if you have any ideas or talents that would help us in creating some fundraising opportunities please let us know! We are always open to new ideas for fundraising.

 

Lastly, please SHARE our online pages and our story with all those that you know! Our network of family & friends is limited, and we don’t want to limit those whom God may choose to help meet this need. We are truly finding the meaning of “it takes a village”!  

 

Please continue to follow our progress through our online pages, and feel free to ask us any questions that you might have.

Stepping forward in faith, the journey begins…. Thank you for coming along on the ride with us!

 

With Love,

Vince, Amanda, & Logan Bowman

 

 

 

 Financial picture~ I want to start by letting everyone who is reading this know that this is the part of all of this that I like the least. I am not a good fundraiser and I HATE asking for help when it comes to money. But I have been asked by several people how much it cost to adopt and how they can help. I also hope that if anyone is considering adoption that this will help them as well. We are... working on some fundraisers and some other things but I wanted to let people know the clear picture of what this looks like for us and many other couples. We are very fortunate in the adoption situation because we are doing this privately we have been able to avoid the additional cost of an adoption agency. The additional cost is almost double. We have taken out a home equity loan to pay for the initial fees since they have to be paid within 10 days of receiving the bill (that was 4 days ago).  The total cost for our adoption will be in the range of $11,500 - $13,000  again that is about half the amount of a traditional adoption through an agency so we are so blessed to be able to move forward with this privately. There is an adoption tax credit that allows you to claim about $13,000.  Those funds will come back to us over time usually several years and we could see that money back by 2017 or 2018. Any funds that we receive we will be giving back to the bank to pay on the home equity loan that we had to take out. If God blesses us with over the amount that we had to borrow we are going to put those funds into a college fund for the baby and also give some back to our church as well. We believe fully that God has called us to this and HE will provide. We trust that! If you decide that you feel lead to donate towards our adoption we thank you! If you decide you can pray for us and encourage us we thank you!
Initial attorney fees  (within 10 days of first meeting) $2980.00 Home study (paid within first month ) $2500.00 Counseling for the birth mother $2500.00 Attorney fees (due at birth) $4000.00 Any additional travel, misc. $1000.00 Est. Total $12,980.00