A Place Called Home

What an amazing trip we had taking Ezai to his new home!! He is such a great travel buddy! Here's a lil picture of us leaving the Butch and Trisha's house:

We found the lil stuffed dragon for him in Justine's closet. He loved it... okay, not so much, but he did love throwing it at Matthew and I in the truck and laughing and laughing! Sooo cute! You can't tell from this picture, but he's wearing PANTS for the first time ever! In Haiti, if you're a little kid (or it seems if you're not potty trained) you're not obliged to wear pants ever! I thought that pants might be a good idea for the trip. :)
Here he is happy on the boat as we ride through town on the way to the wharf. I kinda always feel like I'm in a parade as I ride through town in a boat being pulled by a tractor.

And he looks a little sleepy in that picture... because I gave him a little tiny bit of travel medicine to make sure that he didn't get motion sick since this was his first EVER ride in a boat and vehicle!
Jon Bena, our buddy, Ezai's friend, amazing interpreter, and great copilot, with Ezai! To find our way to Ezai's new home, we used a map, just like the one that Butch keeps on his wall (not quite an atlas, but the best that we've got) and in every town, Jon Bena would ask an older person which way to go. When we got a few people to agree, we when in that direction! It totally worked! 

Butch, our fearless leader, driving the boat (the Wish Fish) with a shot of LaGonave, the only home Ezai's ever known until now:

Matt and Ezai in the back seat... and I'm a bad mom-- I let him eat just Doritos for lunch! ;) It was all that he wanted! At this point he started calling me "manman m" (my momma), which was sooo sweet and flattering... until I heard him calling Jon Bena that too! It turns out that he only knows that word and one another, which is a good bit more colorful! Sorry, new orphanage!

Butch carrying Ezai HOME!!! 
It's the perfect place for him!!!! Seriously, he fits right in! It's like the place was made for him! Also, God is so amazing in how He works! Ezai makes them cap out at the number of kids that they have. They only have space for 32 at their current facility (which is right in their huge missions compound), and the week after I started dialoguing with her about placing Ezai there, another missionary got in touch with her about a disabled orphan, and that kid got wait-listed until the new facility is done sometime next year. God orchestrated this perfectly, right down to the HUGE blessing of letting me take him home myself. And he truly is home. It's the perfect fit for him. There were even other kids there making the exact same laughing moaning noise that he makes! I got to talk with some of the Haitian staff (they speak a really neat dialect of Creole up there!) and one of the ladies told me, "I am his momma now." And another added, "Me too; I'm his second mom." To which the first lady replied, "He has 12 mommies now." I almost cried. I definitely cried when we left. I know that he is in the very best place for him-- and what an amazing place that is-- but I still miss him. It was the greatest trip, though! Here's some pics of Ezai in his new home with new friends!