Haiti revisited

Its been 2 1/2 months since we moved back to America. Our life is still in quite a bit of transition as Shane works to find a job, I deal with the mountains of paperwork for the kids (and my) school next year and my clinicals and our kids still desire to have a solid group of friends. Our cars have both managed to need pretty big repairs and sometimes it feels like we brought our Haiti vehicle issues with us. Yet, overall things are pretty great.

I have weekly hour-long phone calls with Bob and Daphne about Elevate, our micro-loan program. We talk about payments they have received, how the families are doing, who needs some additional encouragement or help, school sponsorships, and Ti-Elevate (our kids program). 

Last week, it was time to go to Haiti and visit face to face. Our first order of business was the accounting piece. We went throug all of the books to make sure that their numbers matched up with mine and there were 3 errors...all of them mine. This is a huge win! I am so hopeful and excited about how seriously they have taken this part of Elevate. 

Together we identified who needed to receive a new loan, visited 4 different potential new Elevate micro-loan recipients, took pics of the kids that will be sponsored for school and visited some of their businesses to verify their purchases and that they are continuing to sell. It was hot, sweaty, dusty, and thirsty business. I took a moto most places in our little area (not my favorite thing to do but it was easier and way cheaper). We walked about a billion miles...maybe not a billion but in Haiti heat it feels like it. Bob and Daphne each had lunch made for us at their homes. We sat together and laughed together and enjoyed being in the same room breathing the same air. 

After this week I believe that Elevate will be able to continue. 

I believe that the work Elevate and Bob and Daphne are doing is valuable and right. We had another one of our recipients accept Jesus as her savior. This is the reasons we are doing this job. To show Jesus’ love to them. To keep families together. To empower them to be able to take care of themselves. To show that there is hope. 

Our job isn’t done yet!