PITTSBURGH — Jimmy closes his eyes and raises his small chin. A sweet lilt rises from his parched throat. "Jesus, Jesus, Jesus, keep my light for me please," the 11-year-old Haitian orphan sings, slowly opening his eyes to face his new reality.

Jimmy is one of 54 orphans rescued from the rubble of earthquake-ravaged Haiti and brought to Pittsburgh in a daring mission that included the White House, the Department of Homeland Security and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, who flew to Port-au-Prince with his wife to ensure the journey's success.

On Wednesday, Jimmy's adopting family, Brian and Debbie Lepp, took him to his new home in Colville, Wash., leaving the poverty and the orphanage he called home for six years in the past.

Jimmy and at least six other orphans have already been released to their adopting families in the United States, leaving 47 of those airlifted out of Haiti on Tuesday in the Children's Hospital of Pittsburgh, most waiting for final paperwork before going home.

All but seven of them have families picked out, and the adoption agencies, the Department of Homeland Security and local Pittsburgh social service agencies are working furiously to ensure the process is speedy.

"We are hopeful that this will be done very quickly," Marc Cherna, director of the Allegheny County Department of Human Services, said. "Within the next couple of days we should be pretty well cleared out."

In many ways, Jimmy is a normal 11-year-old. His favorite food is ice cream. His hobbies include soccer and American football. His dream is to ride a motorcycle, and his favorite subject is English. But in so many other ways, he — and the other Haitian orphans — are different.

Ranging in age from 11 months to 12 years old, this is their first foray into a nuclear family, the first time they will have parents, and for many, one of the first times in their lives they will enjoy extended periods of one-on-one attention.

The Lepps said they first met Jimmy in March 2007, and have spent the past two years overcoming the legal hurdles of international adoption.

In hindsight, the earthquake, and the operation Jamie and Alison McMutrie — the Pittsburgh sisters who ran the BRESMA orphanage Jimmy called home — launched, using Facebook and Twitter to pass along the message they needed to ferry the children out of Haiti as soon as possible, sped things up.

Nathan and Catrina Brock, have been waiting four years to bring 7-year-old Dania home to Toccoa, Ga. After years of wading through paperwork — which was lost twice, once in Haiti and once in the United States — they feared the earthquake would further complicate matters.

"I had moments of madness, truly, where I was like, get a plane and parachute in there," Catrina Brock said, describing the days since the earthquake when not only was the health and safety of the children at risk, but it appeared impossible to get the children out of the country.

The couple was only waiting for a visa to bring Dania to the United States. She almost made it in time for Christmas. It was a week-by-week wait — until the earthquake struck.

In the end, the disaster expedited matters.