Meanwhile…Back in Haiti

As you probably already know, I (Matt) have been back in Haiti since Monday afternoon and it has already been a whirlwind trip. After not being here for the past 2 months, right now is the first time since arriving that I have had a chance to even sit down and think about what has been going on. In fact, I sat down to eat dinner Monday night and in the time it took me to make chicken salad and to open a can of Pringles (I didn’t have bread so I made a lot of miniature chicken salad sandwiches with Pringles instead) I had 4 people knock on my door to talk after which it was immediately time to go and pick the kids up for service. When I got back to start service, I saw the plate of chicken salad sitting on the table and realized that I had forgotten to actually sit down and eat it. Anyway, here is a rundown of this past Monday and the rest of my days have been at least this busy (including a trip into Port to buy some things for the teams coming):

• Sunday night I went to sleep at about 11:45. Since I was leaving, I wanted to feed Elijah one last time so when he woke up at 1:15 I got up to feed him. Since my taxi came at 2:45, that was the extent of my sleep Sunday night.
• I got to the airport for my 5:00 am flight only to find out that, even though it was only 1.5 hours prior to our flight, the airport had yet to open.
• I arrived in Miami at 6:00 and had a 5.5 hour layover where I made the mistake of eating steak and eggs at a Cuban restaurant in the airport.
• I ran into a good friend of mine who was also travelling to Haiti and staying at Christianville. He happened to be on my same flight, but we did not know in time to use the same transportation so when we arrived, we had 2 trucks and 2 drivers who had basically come from the same place.
• I got home to 4 of our employees standing at the house waiting to greet me, and then immediately went down to see the kids. That was awesome.
• The kids informed me that Monday was “Hope Rising” day so we went and played basketball together (not my finest basketball moment after being completely worn out, but still a lot of fun).
• Came back and met with the guy who will be installing electricity in our kids’ house.
• Then immediately met with a guy who is building a house directly next to us and who said he would add a second floor if we would be interested in bringing the kids there. This would mean that the kids would be literally right next door to us (we would share a wall which means we could put a door in and basically be on the same premises). I will write another blog about this soon as we are still trying to figure out if this would be good for ATN – there are some issues that we would have to work out also.
• We then did service together.
• I then came home, showered, and then slept for almost 12 hours of uninterrupted sleep!

To say that life in Haiti is busy would be a ridiculous understatement. In general it is very difficult to have any downtime, and it is truly impossible to do any relaxing. Something always happens. But it is also a lot of fun, and it was so great to walk into the kids house and be back with the kids that we love. Keep praying that I get a lot done in a little time as I will be heading back to the states on April 10. Also pray for Jess back home with the kids and especially Friday night for the 2017 Jacksonville Fundraiser.