Our Haitian Adventures

One day left in our Haitian Adventure and we have accomplished so much. First off, picture this: 2 women in their 30's carrying an additional 50 pounds RUNNING full sprint through the Miami Airport to catch our connecting flight - I thought my heart was going to burst it hurt so bad. We arrive at the gate out of breath and ready to barf b.c we have hoofed it and they were ready to close the gate but we made it. Phew! Then we sit on the tarmac for two hours b.c of mechanical issues. At least we burned some calories right?

We made a trip into town with our Haitian guys to run errands. We left it up to one of them to get us transportation. I will put it to you this way - the 'vehicle' we rode in one of our Haitian men refused to use again. Said even the Haitians don't consider this a vehicle but being the adventurous women that we are we navigated our way into the van that was completely stripped down to the metal. The windshield had a huge hole in it that was stuffed with something so the air couldn't get through and the seats were like sitting on ply wood but they rocked b.c they had rusted out and no longer stayed in place. The highlight of all of this was when Nicolas stepped out of the 'van' and the floorboard fell out of the car onto the side of the road. Oh yes, we were riding in style.

We managed to open a bank account in only 3 hours, get unlimited internet for our guys and get our own Haitian cell phone that we can use while we are down here and add minutes to when we return.

So after running around all day in that sad excuse for a vehicle we were ready for dinner. As we stood in the buffet line in front of the rice and beans I had to step back b.c the man serving the food smelled awful. I quickly filled my plate and went to sit down where Alisha says to me, "I think our food stinks" and I lean down trying to be non obvious and sniff and reel my head back trying not to gag. Any of you familiar with the movie Bugs Life when they say "Who ordered the poo poo platter?" I think that about sums it up. If you are up for a laugh you can watch the link http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv5DlbpOt30

Needless to say we didnt eat the rice and beans and spent the evening in our room hysterically laughing that we thought it was the man who smelled, repeating that line from the movie and replaying the heap of junk or more commonly referred to as POS that we have bravely used that day.

We have 640 applications and will be adding 60 more that will be men and off those 700 applications we need to chose 300. We have women who ranging from 19 to 80 years old applying for loans. Every time we come down here we learn something new or that plans have changed. We brought all the paperwork needed for Franck to begin teaching October 15th but some meetings we were not aware of need to take place before that and so we are having to push back our training till January. More than likely the marketplace won't open until June 2014 which gives us more time to raise money. So just for fun - we added up all the money that the applicants were asking for and all they want is 1.2 million. Seriously. I don't know what they are thinking asking for such huge loan amounts. They are obviously not just for the inventory needed to start their business. So how do you tell someone that instead of getting the $12,000 they asked for they are going to get $300. And how do you tell half of your people that they are not going to get a loan? How do you decide which family to 'save' and which will have to wait until the loans are repaid and they can be in the next round. Do you tell the woman who has 12 people living in a 10 x 12 room that she is/or isn't going to get a loan? Or the woman who is feeding her children mud b.c that's all she has?

When we leave our guys are going to call all the applicants to get more information from them. Since Franck was the only one taking applications he wasn't able to get all their information and we really need it in order to make the decisions on who gets a loan. So they will be doing that while we are gone. We have entered all the information into an excel spreadsheet should something happen to the actual papers - we stayed up till 2am doing that and each man will get half of the applicants to follow up with. We are also going to have them go out into the various marketplaces and see how much it will actually cost to start the businesses that the people said they wanted to start. I'm sorry, but selling bananas is not going to cost $2500 dollars. We must be made out of money.

Speaking of which, one more funny story from the bank. We had to answer all kinds of questions and they wanted to know how much money we make. Alisha said zero. Franck stared at her, the bank lady stared at her and Alisha said zero again and held up her hand in a big 0. To which Franck grabs a piece of paper and hands it to her and says, "if you don't want to say just write it down." Man, we had a good laugh about that one that night too. We make 0. 00.

We are excited to say we got permission to put stuff on a LAC container and it will be stored here until we come back and can distribute to the village we went to back in June. We will also put everything for the office that will be Open Hand's in the marketplace on that container as well. Can you see Alisha and I in a UHaul driving down to Florida? Oh man. I can't believe our husbands let us do all this. ha! And another small pleasure - after the first two nights of being so hot in our room we couldn't sleep Sherry said we could have the AC on all night. Now that is a big deal. We are so grateful for that!

And another HUGE accomplishment - when we went to the bank on Tuesday we were told checks take 15 days to arrive which obviously was not going to work for us b.c we are leaving on Saturday and need to pay our guys with advanced post dated checks and low and behold, our anxious pleading and many phone calls caused these awesome bank ladies to get it done. Oh yeah! Who Rocks? Open Hand does that's who!

Wanna See Something Awesome????

Ha! Too late - you opened the post! Now you have to look whether you wanted to or not :)

 

300 Folders for Loan Recipients

Each one of these folders represents 5 lives which really means impacting 1,500 lives. Our loan recipients will receive a folder like this:

 On the inside we have note paper on one side and a 'personality/how do you work' type "test" on the other.

This is a close up of the outside of the folder. Everyone will write their name and their group number and turn in their folders after each class and then at the end of the 20 hour training this folder will be theirs to take home. We have also printed out a Business Plan for them which will be distributed at the end of the entire study when they will have a much better understanding of what it is they want to sell, where they will get their products, etc.

Alas, Alisha and I had a very hard decision to make. Save the planet or save people. I feel it is only necessary to make this disclaimer:"many trees were harmed in the making of these folders, binders, and paperwork for all the loan recipients and it would not be a stretch to say that we are carrying over 100 pounds of paper with us to Haiti." There. I'm sorry green energy people. But on the plus side it's only a one time offense until that is... we do this all over again in Haiti (once the loans are repaid) and in Africa!!!! (sorry. I had to add that)

Workman's Comp

Is there such a thing for a non profit? I may have lead poisoning. Carpel tunnel.  Does it come on quickly? My eyes are all blurry. Strange. But seriously... you should see my aching, throbbing, blister ridden, lead stained hands from sharpening all 300 pencils that we are taking with us to Haiti for our training classes. You'd think we would buckle up and buy the electric sharpener huh? No sir, we like to do things the hard way here at Open Hand. Or injured hand... I'm not sure which right now.

We leave in a week or so and we need to have all the training materials/office supplies for Franck because he will begin training on October 15th. As we have been making copies, printing materials and 3 hole punching materials I encountered another casualty of war... RIP dear 3 Hole Punch. Literally broke into pieces.

So yesterday I was on a mission - a "how cheap can you get a folder" mission. I went from big box store to store looking for the cheapest folders I could find for our loan recipients. We want them to have some note paper and a place to keep their notes. I was on the hunt for the elusive '10cent folder' and convinced Alisha had sent me on a wild goose chase. Shame on you, Walmart because of course, I tried you first but alas you disappointed me. My last stop was Target and as I headed back to their huge picked through school supplies section it was like I could hear angels singing as I came across the 10 CENT FOLDERS. It was like finding the pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. They exist! I almost did a little dance. Now the fun part, to stand there and count out 300 folders and to make sure they were the correct 10 cent ones because everything was all mixed up by this point. Then when I get up to the counter to pay for them the cashier has to count every single one because there are different bar codes for some. Oh jeez. Half hour later I exited Target with my 300 folders. Now here's the funny part - those suckers weigh a ton! We are going to have to take extra luggage in order to bring all our supplies down to our guys. But we will have them prepared!

Oh.... silly me for forgetting to tell you this - Franck started taking applications this week and has taken almost 400 so far!!!! People from all over the region are coming and hoping for a loan. We have the desperate people, now we need to reach the ones with the money to help them.

An Open Letter

To my bestie,  (first off I want it to be known that I wrote this before you called me)

I don't really know if you read this blog but as I'm sitting here in Georgia today, and you are in California I'm tearing up. I'm tired, I know you are tired and you've been battling physical illness and yet you traveled across the country to speak to as many people as you can about what Open Hand is doing in Haiti. I'm excited to be on this crazy adventure with you and I know we are both working every contact we have to get the money that the Haitians need in order to provide for their families and to keep themselves and their children from being trafficked. You have a HUGE heart to make a difference, you are a woman of character and I know your life hasn't been an easy ride and you are such a fighter. I can't help but think of the song Overcomer by Mandisa. This song will be Open Hand's song.  NOBODY can ever say that we are slackers, that we are sitting back and hoping/praying the money will land in our laps. I have seen the sleepless nights, and the countless hours you have spent in pulling your weight for this foundation. Every contact, every trip, every email, every text you are not a quitter.

You have so much to give, so much to teach, so many lives that you have impacted, are impacting and will continue to impact and I'm glad I can be along side you to see it all unfold. I know we are hoping our husbands will join us literally on this journey, ha! I'm so grateful they and our children are willing to be without us for a period of time so that we can do what we feel we are called to do. I don't think I will ever forget that night we were in Haiti laying on our beds and we had the windows open (even though we were worried about mosquitos and other critters) and all was quiet but suddenly we could hear the most beautiful voices singing and it carried all the way to our room and we looked at each other and got the biggest grins on our faces  - it was like we knew we were right where we were supposed to be.

I'm grateful that when you are down, I am up and that we both aren't down at the same time. Ha! We are a great balance. Sometimes you are the dreamer and I have to pull you back to reality but mostly, you have to pull me back :) Our personalities end up complimenting each others. With the help of generous people and companies WE.ARE.GOING.TO.BE.WORLD.CHANGERS. It's just how we roll.

Love,
Lisa

It's Been Awhile

Since I've cried in frustration about Open Hand so I think today is as good a day as any. Once again, the idea of this blog is to show behind the scenes of starting a non profit and it's also good to be able and go back and see how far we've come and when things have gone well so we can remember Haiti was God's idea, not ours and that there is only so much we can do before Someone bigger has to step in and make this happen.

Alisha is out in California working all her contacts to raise money and I have been diligently going through my husband's business rolodex and calling on every.single.person. he's ever worked with that he thinks may be interested in what Open Hand is trying to accomplish. First I call, then I send an email and after a few days I call back to see if they have any questions or if they'd like to just go ahead and cut a check right then and there :) You know the whole squeaky wheel analogy? Well I'm hoping to get a lot of oil!

I've had my calls 'accidentally' dropped on their way to voice mail, I've had men flat out tell me that they have no desire to help, I've had people not even open the email I sent them and send it straight to their trash bin, and I've had others, who when I mention my husband's name tell me to send them the information. My husband is in a very small industry and he has made a good name for himself. That being said, I will go back and reference my other post Chills Don't Pay the Bills and you start to get the idea. Yes, what we are doing is honorable and selfless and all that but write.the.check. Just be generous and see what happens.

Once I have called on, sent out, and re-followed up with all those I sent our email to - I'm done. I have no other resources to tap. And I have it on good authority that more than a handful of those I'm calling on could write a check for all we need in a heart beat and five times over!  Even one extremely well off company could be all Open Hand needs to bring in the money for these loans.

If the saying about 'working your ass off' was literally true I know for a fact, Alisha and I wouldn't have one.