They’ve had popcorn for breakfast for the sake of eating what’s left in the pantry. They’ve been immunized. And their children — Nia, 5, Nico, 4, and Josiah, 22 months — have learned that cold baths are in their future.

It’s all part of the preparation.

The Apex family is moving to Haiti, where Nick and Gwenn will be house parents to about 20 orphaned and abandoned children at the Haitian Children’s Home near the city of Jacmel.

Since 2005 the family has taken numerous mission trips to the Caribbean nation; they also traveled to Haiti to adopt Nico. During a 2007 mission trip, tropical storm Noel touched down in Jacmel and the Mangines saw its devastation first hand.

But Nick, 29, and Gwenn, 32, weren’t too bothered by the country’s severe weather, or its high risk of infectious diseases such as hepatitis A and E and typhoid fever. The fact that 80 percent of Haitians live below the poverty line wasn’t a deterrent to the Mangines either. Instead, all these hard truths were reasons they wanted to go.

“All of these things that I had heard and read about Haiti ... I guess I just thought it was an exaggeration or that [media] were just showing the worst of the worst,” Gwenn said. “But then you go to this place and watch children drink out of puddles, and you go to the market and see mud cakes for sale. And you think, ‘this is not OK.’”

So the couple decided to move to Haiti and open a second, new home at the Haitian Children’s Home. While they were nervous about the transition, they said it was clear that moving was the right decision for them.

Convincing their friends and family was another story. “People knew we were getting more and more involved, but I don’t think anybody really thought we’d move there,” said Nick, a computer programmer and software writer.

It didn’t take long for friends and family members to begin offering financial support to the Mangines’ cause. The couple’s church, Crosspointe in Cary, raised more than $405,000 to purchase the land that the second children’s home was to be built on.

“I still don’t have a rational explanation for it. God did something incredible that week in the heart of our community that forever changed all of us … and, in turn, is changing countless lives in Haiti,” said Jonathan Bow, the church’s lead pastor who has known the Mangines for four years.

Even amid the support, some people still had questions about sanitation, safety and other issues, Nick said. “There’s an insinuation that somehow we’re doing something that’s not good for our kids,” he added.

For the Mangines, positives outweigh negatives. While Nia, who is described by her parents as empathetic, will have to give up her bicycle, she’ll gain the opportunity to feel good about helping others in Haiti. Nia will also gain a beach for a backyard, which the 5-year-old says is her favorite part of Haiti. Well, the beach and goat meat are her favorite parts.

And while Nick won’t likely see his sons play on an American football team, Nico will have the opportunity to grow up in the country he was born in. Gwenn expects to miss her large bathtub and favorite restaurants the most.

While they’re giving up a comfortable way of life to move to Haiti, the Mangines insist that they’re not special and say it seems funny to them when people describe their efforts as “amazing.”

“Yes, we’re going to Haiti to do this for the Haitians, but we also like it in Haiti … we fit better there … we feel better there,” Nick said.

At the end of this month the family will move to Haiti for six weeks of language school, where they’ll learn Haitian Creole. Then they’ll spend four weeks in training, where they’ll learn how to work with their staff (which includes four nannies) and teams of visiting missionaries. Nick and Gwenn expect to welcome children to the home before the end of the year.

Their goal isn’t to Americanize the children in their care, but to make them successful and productive Haitians.

Bow believes they will accomplish this. “Nick and Gwenn are driven to make sure these often neglected and forgotten children are loved, treasured and given hope,” he said. “They’ll be successful because they genuinely care … and to survive the ups and downs in the slums of a third world country, you have to care.”