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!

About Us- Contact Us!

We are the Gower family~ a family who is following hard to seek after God and go against the grain of this world!

 I am Melissa and my wonderful husband is Jim.  We have been married for 6 years and have an amazing family. Myla (2) is our daughter that we had a wonderful non-medicated natural childbirth, Mina (21 months) is our special gift from God with DS we adopted from Eastern Europe in August 2010, and I am currently pregnant with a little girl due in Feburary 2011.   We are so blessed that God has given us 3 little girls to love and cherish and look forward to the blessings to come.
Jim is a US Navy Veteran and has been self-employed doing videography work for over 4 years.  He has a passion and vision to make Christian videos that are uplifting, family oriented and pleasing to the Lord.  In the midst of all the garbage that fills so many TV screens these days he wants to make wholesome videos that would lead people closer to Christ rather than further into the desires of this world.

I am blessed to be a stay at home mommy and spend the day with my precious girls. I am a huge natural child-birth advocate and strive to live as naturally as possible eating whole foods and using alternative medicine.  We love to take our kids to the zoo and the science museum for some young educational fun and plan to start homeschooling in a couple years. I love music.  I think life should come with music always playing in the background.  I enjoy writing lyrics and hope that one day I may actually be able to put instruments to the words I've written. If I could only find the time to pick up my guitar and practice it a bit more often :)

After our recent adoption of our precious little angel, Mina and our eyes were opened (Prov 24:12) to the devestating need for these little children (blessings and gifts from the Lord; Psalm 127:3) we have been searching trying to find what it is that we can do to make a difference.  I think so many times we just become overwhelmed with the larger picture of the 143million + orphans in the world and think what in the world can we do to make a difference in the grand scheme of things.  So we are going to start small and do what we can do as God lays it on our hearts and hope and pray that one day we can make a big impact on saving many of these precious children from their devestating life or possible death.
We feel God has put on our heart to start a yearly garage sale where 100% of the proceeds will go towards the cost of adopting an orphan. Our vision is that over time it can become a large event that can help raise not just funds for orphans but also the awarenesss. We are in prayer that God will send people with hearts as ours in the (OKC area) that would be willing to volunteer their time to help gather items, price, and run a garage sale.  If you have items you would like to donate, or are interested in helping volunteer to raise funds for an orphan please email or contact me. Contact info is listed below.

Another thing we are doing is a Bumbo ministry. When we got to Mina at 20 months of age she was unable to even sit up and spent the majority of her life lying on her back (the back of her head was bald to prove it.)  The caregivers just can't possibly work with each child and help hold them up or teach them to learn to sit on their own so therefore if they can't teach themself they will spend alot of their life on their back.  We think bumbos are wonderful tools to help children learn to sit up and let their muscles and body experience and feel what it's like to sit up so that hopefully this can help them learn to sit up.  We looked everywhere possible in the town we adopted her from and there was nothing like a bumbo there. We showed the orphanage director and the head nurse a picture of a bumbo and explained to them the use and they said that there was nothing like that there and they thought that would be extremely helpful.  So we decided we would get together some bumbos once we made it home to the US and send them a package. Once home several friends contacted me wanting to donate their bumbo they had or buy one to send which orchestrated this idea.  Anyone who has a bumbo they no longer use they would like to donate; would like to buy one to donate; or donate $ for bumbos to be purchased they will be mailed to orphanages in Eastern Europe to help this need.  Please contact me if interested. Contact info is listed below.
Thank you all so much for your prayers, love and support for these children.  Anything you can do to help save one of their lives will be greatly appreciated and you can take part in changing lives forever!

Thank you once again and blessings to you!

Contact Info:

By Email:

Melissa Gower-  sweetraeoflove@gmail.com

Jim Gower-  jmgowerinc@gmail.com   

By Phone:

405-501-0997



Here's some pics of our family: