Ronald had made contact with Mercy Corps so that we could partner with them in their program to use soccer to train youth in health practices as well as civic education. They are having a training program in August, and we explained to them how if they train some of our coaches, we would disseminate their message to the schools we work with.
After that we went to a meeting at the Haitian Soccer Federation. On the way we stopped for lunch and it was a good thing because we ended up waiting an hour for the meeting to start. Finally Carlo Maslin, the General Secretary of the Federation invited us into his office.
During the meeting we talked about our plan to organize a national tournament for boys under 14 years old. As we talked about the training we wanted for our coaches, he told us that he wanted all of our coaches to have level 2 Haitian coaches training before we could start the tournament. In addition, we did not feel we had enough qualified referees in the areas we work with. Therefore, we talked about the best way to train our coaches and some referees over the next year. These factors combined with the fact that fund-raising for the tournament has been going slow has lead us to the conclusion that we need to start the tournament in the fall of 2013.
After the meeting we saw a team of young boys outside the office. So I went out to talk with them and found out that it was the U-14 National Team. I quickly asked Justin if he would be willing to show the boys some warm up exercises, and he did a great job doing this. After the exercises I introduced Ronald and Jean Paul our Haitian staff. When they learned that Jean Paul was a chaplain, they asked him to talk with them. So while Ed and Justin and I went to visit the four girls AIS Haiti has on the girls U-14 team, Jean Paul talked with them. It turned out that four of the young men trusted in Christ with Jean Paul and that he made arrangements to follow up with them in a few weeks when he has a Bible study with the girl’s team.
In the meantime, we talked to the four young ladies from our girl’s soccer program in Verrettes that made the U-14 team. It turns out that one of them is now the captain of the team. We have been supplying them with equipment during their time they have been in the residential program at the Haitian Soccer Federation’s campus.
They told us a sad story: One day they were told by their coaches to leave all of their cleats outside of their dorms, probably because they got wet and smelled. That evening someone stole the entire box of cleats! The next morning the coach was so mad she made the whole team practice in bare feet on a rough field full of rocks. When the captain of the team from our program protested and refused to practice because of the chance of injury, she was sanctioned and they threatened to kick her off the team. Ronald William, our head coach, had to go out and talk to the coaches and the Federation about the situation and managed to get everyone reconciled.
That evening we went to visit the tenants who rented our house and see Ecdes who lives at the house. Ecdes is the 18 year old young man that does the yard work, etc. in exchange for us paying for his schooling.
Ecdes told us he strongly suspected that one of the young men that used to play soccer with us, and who also attended a few of our Bible studies over the years, had stolen about 40 soccer balls and several basketballs from our soccer depot. So Ecdes and his cousin Paules and I talked about how this had happened, and how we could prevent it from happening again. We also talked about how best to confront James. Unfortunately, we did not have time to talk to James before I headed back to the US. In the meantime, we put up more barbed wire around the house to prevent future thefts.
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