SAEGERTOWN — The Mattocks family celebrated Ezra’s 9th birthday Sunday.

The night before, 17-year-old Elijah and 15-year-old Jeff got together with a few other kids for an after-dinner pick-up basketball game — brothers against buddies.

Only days before, Ezra, Jeff and two other brothers, 12-year-old Peter and 11-year-old Jude, were still nearly 2,000 miles away from their new home in Saegertown, residing at In The Father’s Hand Christian Home in Port-de-Paix, Haiti, an orphanage about 150 miles north of earthquake-ravaged Port-au-Prince.

And the four boys were in Port-au-Prince recently as they waited for their international adoption paperwork and other process-related matters to be taken care of. Their adoptive parents, Dave and Neoma Mattocks, spent last week in Miami waiting for the arrival of the children, part of a group brought to the United States by Ian Bicko, a former French Creek Valley Christian School student who’s recently been working as an intern with Lashbrook Family Ministries at In The Father’s Hand Christian Home.

“We were in Port-au-Prince, at the embassy. We didn’t go out a lot,” said Jeff, who is fluent in Haitian Creole, English, Spanish and French. “I saw a lot of houses that got damaged — and other things — and people sleeping in the street.”

While there, Jeff said he helped unload airplanes that were delivering much-needed relief supplies, and also using his multilingual skills to help translate conversations between international and local Haitian relief workers.

Those recent days spent working, waiting and finally traveling with their new family to Crawford County marked the culmination of an arrival the family said has been around five years in the making.



Getting here from there

“We have been (waiting for) this for a long time,” said Neoma Mattocks.

The decision to adopt the four brothers, she said, was made after the family traveled to Port-de-Paix in 2005 as part of the mission work associated with Lashbrook Family Ministries. While attending a church service there, she said, she was overcome with a sense that something — or someone — life-changing was right behind her.

“I felt in my heart, ‘This is going to be your son,’ ” she said. “I turned, and it was Jeff.”

She said the family spent some more time with all of the boys, and effectively decided right then to proceed with the lengthy process of adopting all of them. Regulations require that an adopting family has an already-established relationship with the children being adopted, so Dave Mattocks had traveled to Port-de-Paix each year to spend time with them and offer assistance at In The Father’s Hand.

He said he had another trip planned for March this year, “then the earthquake happened.”

As it turns out, that catastrophe got the boys out of Haiti and into the United States faster, as so many more children are coming to In The Father’s Hand in the wake of the earthquake that space has had to be freed up for the new arrivals.



Looking forward — but not turning their backs

Now that they’re here, the family plans to home-school the boys for the rest of this school year before starting classes at the nearby French Creek Valley Christian School, where Elijah is currently a senior and Dave Mattocks coaches basketball.

“The kids all have friends from French Creek,” said Neoma, pointing out hand-lettered sign, made by FCVCS students, hanging above the living room couch where the boys were sitting: “Welcome Home Jeff, Jude, Ezra and Peter Mattocks.”

The family also plans to catch up on some of the time they lost together waiting for the adoption process to near its completion. Initially following the earthquake, Neoma said, a sense of panic set in as the family worried for the boys’ safety first, and then for how the disaster may affect the adoption process.

“I got a little doubtful there,” she said, her voice quivering with emotion. “I was thinking of the boys. They’d been waiting so long.”

Now, though, “we’ll have some time,” she said.

That doesn’t mean, however, the Mattocks family — or the boys they’ve adopted — are putting Haiti out of mind.

The mission lost one of its key translators when Jeff left, and he said there’s a crucial need for people with multilingual abilities to aid in the relief efforts. The mission’s school has had to be demolished due to damage from the earthquake’s aftershocks, and work to try to rebuild it — dependent on how much assistance may be offered — is just getting under way.

Patrick Lashbrook, French Creek Valley Christian School’s chief administrator, is the brother of mission founder Keith Lashbrook. He and Keith’s son, longtime Port-de-Paix resident Daniel Lashbrook, continue efforts to get people from Crawford County and surrounding areas involved in relief efforts in Port-de-Paix and around the country.

There’s much the children there can use, said Jeff, from all types of basic supplies to educational materials to shoes and clothing.

What’s also needed, Peter quickly added: “Love.”



Ryan Smith can be reached at 724-6370 or by e-mail at rsmith@meadvilletribune.com.



You can help

Lashbrook Family Ministries, in cooperation with French Creek Valley Christian School, continues its efforts to get aid to its mission at Port-de-Paix, Haiti and surrounding areas in the wake of the earthquake that recently devastated the nation’s capital city of Port-au-Prince.

To find out how you can help, call FCVCS at 763-3282 or e-mail fcvcssecretary@zoominternet.net. E-mails may also be sent to Daniel Lashbrook at daniel@lfmintl.com and Keith and Cindy Lashbrook at keithncindy@lfmintl.com.

Lashbrook Family Ministries is also accepting donations directly by mail through Globe International, PO Box 3040, Pensacola, Fla. 32516-3040; and online at www.gme.org. Check memos should state the donations are for “Haiti relief.”

n More information: Call French Creek Valley Christian School’s main office at 763-3282.