Tour d' Haiti

Tuesday Tate took off for Haiti, his 10th trip to Haiti in the last year. We are pretty sure the stewardesses didn't know this fun little fact, but his bump up to first class for his flight into downtown PaP was a great way to celebrate a year of crazy travels.

This trip for Tate is a little different than most. First off, the first half will be consumed with riding bikes across Haiti. Well it is a bit more than riding bikes across Haiti, but that is the gist of it. The Global Orphan Project is putting on the inaugural Tour d' Haiti which begins tomorrow Jan 8th. This bike ride was put together to commemorate the 1 year anniversary of the earthquake & to bring a little joy to some of the children that survived the quake. 25 riders will be riding around Haiti delivering children's bikes to some of the GO Project's orphanages. The adult bikes have been there for a week or two, but the childrens' bikes have been stuck in customs for quite a while. Thankfully yesterday they were released and just in time for the team to begin assembly.

Joe assembling the adult crossover road/mountain bikes to be able to handle the rough roads in Haiti

Just a few of the 200 children's bikes that will be delivered, thats going to be a whole lot of smiling faces!!

The 25 riders will be surrounded by assistance vehicles, police escorts, a bus, a box truck full of bikes, oh and a few human body guards one of them being Tate. There has been a ton of work put into this event but because it is Haiti there are still many factors that can not be controlled, so prayer for everyone involved is much needed. If you want to watch a little interview of Mike talking about the Tour you can view it here. Oh and Garmin is filming the whole thing so hopefully soon you will be able to watch highlights of the Tour d' Haiti on your very own TV :)

The other 1/2 of Tate's trip will be back to business, but not business as usual. They are starting construction on the GO Project's first village in the Dominican Republic, so if all goes as planned he will be crossing the border to the DR and getting things started on the other 1/2 of the island.