Presenting the Center of Hope Partnership proposal to Quisqueya Chapel

Today,March 18, 2014 - Important Meeting about a Sports Ministry Center with a Turf Field

Sunday May 18th was flag day in Haiti, but for me it was a “banner day” because after church I presented the idea of Ambassadors Football building a “Center of Hope”on the church property to the eligible voters who, according to the constitution, have the right to accept or deny the project. Below is a summary of the project:

Overview of Ambassadors Football Center of Hope:

On January 29, 2014 Jonathan Ortlip, the Director of Ambassadors Football (AF)flew to Haiti to present representatives of the Board of Quisqueya Chapel (QC) with a proposal to build a “Center of Hope” (COH) sports ministry facility on the property of Quisqueya Chapel.

What is a “Center of Hope” Sports Ministry Facility?

In essence, it is a sports facility centered around an artificial turf soccer field that will attract children and adults who love soccer to get involved in the various ministries that will take place at the COH. These ministries include:
- summer soccer camps in English
- soccer leagues for children and adults
- A soccer school in English that focuses on developing skills through Futsal.
- Concerts and other outreaches, most of which will be conducted in English.

How will the “Center of Hope” Sports Ministry Facility be paid for?

Ambassadors Football will raise the funds to build the COH and will also operate the facility as a ministry / business with the goal of producing some profit to help fund the nation-wide work of Ambassadors Football Haiti. Income will be produced by renting the field in the evenings for soccer leagues and also through running a soccer school which focuses on Futsal. Quisqueya Chapel will receive an on-going percentage of whatever profit is produced, and will also receive a small monthly rent.
It our hope and prayer that as we partner together with Quisqueya Chapel in this ministry that we will be able to reach many English-speaking parents as we minister to their children. This will in turn increase the membership at Quisqueya Chapel and create a spirit of both spiritual and financial revival at through strategically located sports ministry center.

Yes!

On May 18th Quisqueya Chapel’s eligible voters agreed to continue with the process and take a final vote to accept the partnership on June 8th. So please keep praying!

We are hoping that the field will be ready next time Ricky and his friends get back to visit the church!

A Week I will never forget!

Dear Praying friends,

This is turning out to be a week I will never forget - A week of great sorrow because of the loss of my friend, George Knoop, but also a week or endurance, perseverance and blessing.

Yesterday I got up at 5 AM to get ready to travel to Gonaives to meet with our leaders who were trained last year how to teach our players how to raise goats. As we started out, I noticed that our trusty Toyota 4-cab pickup truck’s manual transmission seemed to be slipping, especially on hills (which Port-au-Prince has many of!). Sure enough, soon I smelled the awful smell of rubber burning- our clutch was starting to go! We already had the car packed, and there were 6 of us going on the journey, so I called my mechanic and discussed the situation and decided we would limp along pretty slowly. So a trip that normally would take 2 hours ended up taking about 3. But thanks to a lot of prayer, we made it and were very happy to see about 40 of our leaders there waiting for us.

The meeting and administration part went well. We had couple from France who taught our leaders how to grow Moringa, http://www.moringanews.org, a type of tree whose leaves are very good food for both humans and animals. I felt a little like “Johnny Appleseed” as we handed out seeds to our leaders afterwards!

Then we broke into small groups to talk about the good and the bad of the program. Here are some responses to one of the question we asked: Do you have a story of how God is working through the “Give a kid a kid” program?
“Since God is a shepherd, He also calls us to be shepherds. Depending on how we raise our goats, God can see if we are good shepherds or bad shepherds.”

“Because of this idea our players and learn more about God. God is serving with (GKK) to help our players understand how to raise goats. More people are understanding how this can help with their finances, and more players are getting saved.”

“My goats gave birth to two baby goats, but that same day, the babies both fell into an open latrine. I didn’t know what to do, but a friend came along and got a rope and was able to save the goats! I was surprised because people around here just don’t do things like that! So I cleaned them up with soap and now they have started to grow! I thank God for that!” Pastor Jonas

Many told us how much their players love their goats, and try hard to care for them, some under difficult conditions, like when it does not rain for a week or two.

After this, all 43 leaders had to get in line and have their administrative paperwork checked and updated to make sure everything was in order: Had their goat had babies? Did their goats or babies die? This really helped us know what was happening and we will give you an update after we analyze the data collected. After that they were each provided with a meal of rice and beans and chicken.



Finally, we had a question and answer period. All of our leaders in the soccer program are volunteers which is a very difficult when most of them receive very low pay as teachers where we have teams. Some of them asked if we could offer them a small monthly stipend to help them with their needs. I responded that this was the reason we launched the GKK project, hoping that the offspring of their initial goats would help them be able to respond to these needs in the future. Like any good, stable way of making money, raising a herd of goats takes time, but in the long-term will be a good thing (Think of how rich Jacob became after only 14 years of raising Laban’s goats).

One of the things that made the trip so pleasant was that I had four young Haitian men who are doing internships with me this summer to help. We worked as a team and it showed. The other pleasant surprise was how well our new administrator of the GKK, Chantale, presented the role in GKK and how firmly, yet kindly, she dealt with our leaders.
So, in general, as we approach the one-year anniversary of the start of GKK, we are encouraged and are doing all we can to help our leaders and players become good shepherds, both of the goats and of our players!



(PS: the meeting ended at 3 PM and we limped our way back to PAP and arrived around 7 PM after a long, but satisfying day!)

Happenings this week

Just a little update on some things that went on this week.

Last weekend (April 25th & 26th) Lucas and Rochenel went to Leogane to train leaders in futsal and they started the teams off on our Bible contest. For the first time, they had three guys from Quisqueya Chapel who are very interested in serving come along to learn more about what AF-Haiti does.

Wednesday – My discipleship group came over to our house after school to watch To Save A Life. Weve been trying to do this for months, but I was trying to schedule it when all 5 girls could make it. Now that I look back, I think I should have done more than one of these with whoever could make it. We had 4 of the 5 that day and in fact, I didn’t know anyone was coming on Wednesday morning! But it all came together that day and we had a good time eating chocolate chip cookies and French bread pizza. Of course we watched the movie and had a discussion of it and got to know each other better—like who likes to bake and who doesn’t. One girl said she and her Mom have only tried baking something once and it didn’t turn out! I’m planning to have her over again to show her how easy it is. These girls have been pretty open this year and this get together brought us a little closer. Please pray for their spiritual growth.

Thursday – Labor and Agriculture Day in Haiti - Richard took some guys with him and also Francoise’s family (with a carload of materials and food) up to Venita’s house for a volunteer workday. Venita’s needed work on her doors to have security. Although her house is small, it was built with three doors. Since she has been having problems with security, they bricked up the side door which was never used and put that solid door on the back of the house. Then they added a handle and a padlock to the front door. It was a long day--Richard was gone 12 hours. So much for that idea of getting a break from your labor! Since they had to let the cement dry on the door-frame for the back door, Francoise’s husband Audaince went back up today to put the door on.
It was also the first time Francoise and her husband and kids got to see Venita’s house. (It’s far away and hard to get to). We love getting these two friends together because they encourage each other so much and their kids love playing together.

Friday – I got word that one of the nursing homes in Lancaster will probably have an opening this week, so I was hurrying to get the application done. But my sister in Lancaster took Mom to visit it and she did not like the looks of it and wouldn’t go inside. I’m not sure what’s going there exactly. When I was there in March she had a great attitude about all the places we saw. She’s probably been down because of something that has happened in our family. Please pray—it’s a lot for my sister to handle and there are a few hours a day when Mom is alone.

Meanwhile, Richard went out to Verrettes on Friday to work with Chantale who has been trying to get up to speed keeping track of the goat project (GKK). It has been a challenge, so Richard made the trip out there to help her. Although it might be nice to have someone in Port-au-Prince do this job, she's more centrally located to do the visits to check up on the goats and their owners. That was another long day.

Friday and Saturday - Lucas and Rochenel went down south to visit an area that hasn't had a visit since getting started in 2012. They did Level 1 training for chaplains, coaches and administrators.

Thank you for praying!
Carol