Marathon Day on Day 1

After nearly 40 hours of almost no sleep for the Haiti team, we finished our marathon day by sharing dinner together and our first day debrief capturing the best things that happened today as we made our way up to Desire this afternoon.  The team was a group of real troopers as we endured a night in the Miami airport finding a corner on the fourth floor by an auditorium where it was quiet and relatively dark.  Trying to sleep on a hard floor with the air conditioning cranking kept even the most tired members of the team from getting any real sleep.
After finally arriving in Haiti a little later than scheduled, we began the three plus hour bus ride to northern Haiti to the city of Gonaives.  After checking into the hotel we gathered ourselves for the 45 minute ride of 12 or so miles to the Desire project.  Once again the arrival was almost magical as the kids scurried to run to the bus to meet us.
I had prepared individual photos of each child with names and birthdate so that we could begin learning the children's names and matching them with their faces.  I even surprised myself with how many names I remembered.  And to see the huge smiles when I said their names earned me a big "Oui" when I got it right.
Spending time with Pastor Jeannot after dinner to begin dialog and discussion about leadership was great- and an answer to prayer with the way he responded to our desire to partner church to church and have both our churches become all that God has in mind.
Tomorrow we have a heavy agenda to have kids paint frames that will come back to the U.S. and bless our church family, and the older kids will participate in our English activities pilot program.
This is just the beginning...  expecting God to show up in a mighty way!