Relaxing on the beach, riding the waves, feeling the sand squish between your toes, the sun warming your whole body, up, down, side to side on a rollercoaster, experiencing the magic of Disney world. That is what my family was looking forward to when we would go on our trip to Florida over spring break. I was so excited to go because I had never been. Our cousins had gone that summer and the way they described it, it seemed like I had been there with them. Their pictures were so real that you could see the magic and smell the food and the freshness of the water. Every time my eyes would close I would see one thing, Florida.



Then on January the 12th 2010 the worst thing you could imagine happened. An earthquake with a magnitude of 7.0 hit the country of Haiti. It was horrific, just imagine the one this that is still in this whole world shake and crumble right underneath your feet. Thousands and thousands of people dead, even more were injured and now all were homeless. Three million people were just affected by the earthquake. Among the dead were parents and now many orphans wandered the streets without food and water, without a place to call home and without love. For many people adopting them was becoming possible, but the Haitian government had stopped all adoption from happening because of the earthquake. Luckily the one good thing that came out of the earthquake was that many children that were in the process of adoption were allowed to leave and go to their new homes.

My Aunt and uncle were among the few who were. They were adopting two children, a brother and sister, who were 15 and 13. They had been in the process of adoption for about four years, and when they heard about the earthquake, their hearts screamed for help and crumbled to dust. They tried everything they could to try to contact them or the orphanage to find out if their babies were even alive. For five days they sat waiting in the dark, on the fifth day God opened the door to tell them they were alive and doing well. A group of volunteers from Utah were going to go on a plane to Haiti bringing food water and doctors for the wounded. They were angels sent from America to the Haitian people. The plane also planned to bring the orphans to their new homes with families waiting for them in America.

Our parents told us this and we were so excited to have them come to America for a better life and a new family. We were overjoyed when they told us that they would spend the night in Utah with us. Then the bad news came, our aunt and uncle were struggling with money and didn’t have enough to bring them home to Alaska, and that we had the choice to give them our air fare so that they could get home. That would mean that I couldn’t go on my dream vacation to Florida. No riding waves or rollercoaster’s, any feeling the magic or sand was gone, no water to swim in. None the less we all had the same answer. Yes.

Our aunt and uncle came down to Utah and stayed with us. The volunteers took camera men with them so the whole time we could see the kids and volunteers. There were a few obstacles that got in the way and when it seemed like they wouldn’t be coming home a miracle would happen one after another and soon they were on their way to America. The miracles had to stop sometime, and the plane could only take them as far as Florida so our aunt and uncle took the next plane down there to pick them up. Then they went straight to Alaska.

It was so worth it in the end, to know that they would have a different life now, a better life and I got to help bring that to them. Even if I had to sacrifice my perfect vacation, when I saw them on the television boarding that plane to America, I reminded myself of how lucky I am to have to never go through what they went through. I got to build a family and that is a reward in itself and I can’t wait till the day when I get to meet Tayjha and Titus my new cousins.