First things first

Well, after leaving both of our jobs, packing up and moving out of our apartment at the end of June (thanks, Nowaks!), and trying to tie up an assortment of loose ends, we have finally made it to our orientation with MCC in the bustling metropolis of Akron, PA.

A brief itinerary:
We will be in Akron until July 18th, when we will have one final weekend with friends and family beforeflying to Florida on the 21st. We'll spend about ten days at ECHO, a great place that researches hunger solutions for people in difficult situations. We are really looking forward to our time with ECHO--we have some knowledge of tropical trees from our time in Hawaii, but Haiti will obviously be very different.

After our time in Florida we will be on our way to Port-au-Prince via Miami, where we will meet a couple also beginning a service term in Haiti. Once there we will have four weeks of language training and a general crash course in Haitian living.

As for our time here in Akron, the first several days have been very encouraging. We're surrounded by people doing things similar to us (like leaving family and friends to live in the middle of nowhere). One couple in particular worked in Haiti several years ago and have been telling us stories and giving us good pointers.

We promise that most of our posts will be more interesting. This one is just to get our feet wet.

Bryan & Sharon