The day has finally come!  We departed Orlando April 29^th and it all came with lots of opposition from the enemy. The last weekend in Florida was so full of things that “needed” to be done we found ourselves adding to the growing list of “to do’s” daily.  

John was non-stop working trying to leave the house and cars in working order to put his mind at rest and to take some burden from the kids. He also was tirelessly working on finding healthcare coverage and a new phone plan. Side note here… Paying your phone off does not necessarily unlock your phone, which we are finding out is harder than it sounds. And finding international insurance to cover a pre-existing condition is financially not going to happen.  So, we will have insurance but not covering any of our pre-existing conditions i.e. Johns headaches and my fibromyalgia and rheumatism.

I found myself trying to put the luggage together and determine what was essentials for the first trip.  Fifty pounds may seem like a lot however, the suitcases are roughly 8-10 lbs. empty, so needless to say you start trying to figure out the lightest way to carry things which may mean you need to unwrap something and throw out the cardboard box.  As well as packing I found myself trying to find new ideas for the local artisans.  

Sunday before leaving we figured out that we did not have a paper title to sign over to Morgan for our car it was an e-title which meant we had to be up and to the Tag office before leaving town and to top things off Sunday evening was a short night’s sleep landing in bed around 1-1:30.  That was just the beginning of our issues Monday.

Arriving to the airport just a tad later than we wanted we headed to the check in counter.  The gentleman asked us “how many checked bags”.  We responded “3 each”.  Problem #2 – we can’t take 3 checked bags into Haiti.  However, I was told by customer service weeks in advance that yes we could for a fee of $150 each bag over 2.  So, we immediately called Morgan since she had just dropped us off and had her turn around to come get the extra two bags. So all my diligent packing of each bag was null.  We opened a few bags and made quick decisions (some of which were not good, LOL) and sent the extra home with her so we could get at a later date.

A little frazzled we went to check in our luggage and found out I had accidentally thrown out my boarding pass while throwing out other trash. After finding my boarding pass int he trash, we headed to the security check.  Fortunately it was only 15-20 minutes.  

We had plenty of time now to sit a few minutes before boarding.  When our section got called we headed to the line.  John was able to get through fine however, they stopped me.  The computers were down for the whole airport (all the airlines) so the were manually checking everyone off as they came through.  They asked me when my return flight was, and I responded that I didn’t have one.  They pulled me aside and told me I had to have a return flight otherwise I couldn’t board.  John was already through the check point so I had to call him back.  We aren’t totally sure why he was not stopped.  So we both got on our phones and tried to book flights back.  However, however since the computers were all “down” no one was booking flights.  I also tried calling in but they couldn’t do that way either.  So we both started praying….we knew if we were meant to be on the flight then only God could do it.  Within a few minutes after praying the guy asked for our passports and entered our info into the computer and gave John and I clearance to board.  Halleluiah!!

Now we are in Haiti and have been busy everyday with prepping for a team to get here this Saturday May 4^th.  We’ve moved a lot of furniture cleaned out some storage areas and have made a few shopping trips.

The first trip we spent $131 on our personal groceries for a few days before everyone arrived.  The picture shows what we were able to get for that amount.  It might be interesting to some to see what you can get here.  A few things aren’t that much more expensive, however for the most part things are approximately 1 ½ times more than in America depending on where you live.