What a great trip!!!

What an amazing trip! Right when we got home, we both wanted to head right back!

I wanted to start off with telling you about the amazing people that are FFCIN, and that make our trips so amazing.

This is Rebecca, the founder of FFCIN. She lives in Haiti and devotes so much of her life to this cause. She is an amazing woman, and one of my heroes. I look up to her so much. Rebecca works so hard to get volunteers to Haiti, and then helps the volunteers help others. It is such a great work she is doing! Joel and I feel very blessed to have met Rebecca and are so glad that we have the opportunity to help her with the work she is doing.

In this photo, she is organizing the math books we brought down with us. These math books were made by two Boy Scouts for their eagle projects. The math books are for the school that Rebecca is starting for some of the street kids in Haiti.

This is the group that we had in the house with us. In most of these photos, we are in the FFCIN guest house. The first time I got the the guest house, I was amazed at how nice and homey it is. It's so nice to have a comfortable, safe, and clean home to go to after a long day of working with the kids. I just wanted to say that because what Rebecca has done with the home to make it nice for volunteers is great!

Bony, Patrick, and Jimmy have been there on every trip we have been on. These boys are our body guards and translators when we go out and about. And Patrick is our driver as well, which driving in Haiti... well... lets just say I will never ever attempt it. You have to be a very aware, awake, and defensive driver, and Patrick is great! These three guys are also the boys we are helping get to the US to study. Patrick is very close to getting here, we are just working on getting him a sponsor. Jimmy and Bony are currently working on getting their GEDs so we can get them accepted to a college here in the states.

Margareth is amazing! She is the chef of the house, and cooks delicious meals for us. She also keeps the house spotless! I got a few recipes from her while I was there, but haven't dared try them yet because I know they won't be as good as when she cooks them... :) Margareth is also working on getting her GED, and then once we find her a sponsor will come to the US to study. She wants to be a nurse.

Jonas works at the house, and helps Margareth with the house work. He recently had a little baby boy, Jonas Jr.

Marilynn is one of the volunteers that came down to help. Very sweet lady, but unfortunately, she got there the day before we left. So we didn't' get to do much together.

Neil is staying with Rebecca right now, and is just helping her with whatever she needs. He served a mission in Florida, Creole speaking. His goal is to eventually start his own organization in Haiti that would help the Haitian people start their own businesses.

This is Bony and Jimmy hard at work on their math. They are using the math workbooks that my brother Zach and another scout from Joel's scout troop put together for the street kids. These two boys are very smart. I can't wait to get them here to the US so they can further their education! One of the days while we were there, we devoted the entire day to school, and helped Bony, Jimmy, and Margareth get caught up and helped them review the subjects they struggle with. One of the many fun things in Haiti is driving around in the back of the truck. I got a great farmers tan while we were there!

The other people in this picture were at the house for a few days. They are with a college group that has been coming to Haiti for years to help start businesses.

I wish you could all see Joel interacting with these boys. He is such a great example for them, and they all look up to him. They have not had any significant male role model in their life, so Rebecca often tells us how much it means to her to have Joel there for the boys. If you have met Joel, you know that he is very much a people person, and a jokester. I would say at least 80% of the time, these guys were laughing while we were there.

This is one of my favorite pictures. You can see them all laughing, which kind of sums up the week with the boys!

We went out to lunch one day and had a delicious pizza.

My mom got this little music maker for us to bring, I think it's called a music maker... but they LOVED it! Whenever we had down time at the house, they would pull it out. We brought it to Lesly's orphanage one day, I will post pics are video later...

Jimmy and Bony are always smiling :)

Those are just the beginning of the photos we have! I wanted to introduce the people we love going down to visit, and who help make our trips special. So now that you have met them, I will start into the details of our trip!