Gluttons for Punishment

Who is? Us. That's who. No matter how many times I bitch and moan I keep getting sucked into the non profit madness. Why? Because apparently my heart wants to keep making a difference even though my head is saying, 'stop the madness." And it doesn't help that Nick has taken the reigns fully and run with them. We just sit back and let him go.  And go he has. Did you know that our very own Nicolas Victorin is being sworn in as the Mayor of Pignon on February 7th? Yes. It's true. Open Hand has opened (hey, didnt even plan for that but I'll go with it) many doors for him in his community. He's become much more well known and beat out 26 people to become the next Mayor.

Here we are 6 months after the first 25 loans were given and we had 100% pay back. *jaw drop*
So Nick has come up with a new strategy that will double our loans being given out without costing anything more than the first 25 loans. It's quite brilliant. So everyone pays 1/6th of their loan payment every month which enables us to within 6 months give out 5 more loans each month for a total of 50 loans out by the end of a six month period. Money constantly rotating. That ends up being 100 loans a year when we only had the money for 50 a year. How cool is that?

So in the next few weeks we will start again but with 25 new people. Fingers crossed they are upstanding Haitians like the first group so that we can continue the cycle.

Picture This

A girl walks into a bar (ok... it was Kona Grill's bar but you get the point)
Sits down next to her husband and her husband says, "I have $250,000 to spend on a charity. How about Open Hand?"
Girl thinks and says, "no thanks"

Why you ask? Because girl is done. Girl has no desire or passion to go back to Haiti. Girl could care less. Girl is over it. Yes, the project in Pignon is going great. Everyone is paying back 100% but I don't want to add more. I don't even want to manage what we've got which basically we aren't anyways b.c Nick is running the whole thing. So girl doesn't want the money. Girl knows that it is offered because she is the wife and he loves her. Not because husband is interested in Haiti. But that's not even the point. Girl is done. Passion is gone. C'est fini.

Well... wonders never cease

Monday was the first collection day for our new loan project in Pignon. We were anxiously waiting to hear from Nick but I was also hesitant to want to hear from him b.c I was afraid of what the answer would be. Yesterday I sent him a message asking how it went and we didnt hear anything from him. Of course, no news is bad news but this time is so different because we got the money and then funded the project. We didnt get a project and then scramble to raise the money. So my emotional investment is nothing compared to our first project.

Lo and behold we just received this text from Nick, "Friends of mine. We've got the best news for the first month. 100% of them came to pay their loans before noon. The group that lives the farthest is the one that arrives first. They are doing business and we have testimonies."

I'm stunned. How bad is that? Stunned. Maybe the Haitians aren't all the same. Wouldn't that be nice?