You tube on situation in Gonaives

Watch this youtube on the situation in Gonaives (a city hit hard by hurricanes and the same one that had a huge flood in 2004)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sygFl7dwO48

If the link doesn't work, go to www.youtube.com and search for this:

Haiti suffers floods as Hurricane Ike hits Caribbean - 07 Sep 08

Photos of Hurricane Hannah's damage to Bolosse campus

These are some pictures of the hurricane's damage to the Bolosse campus. One of the pictures is of a school classroom with no roof - and school is supposed to start in 3 days!

Others are of our co-workers the McMartin's house. A tree fill just alongside it and would have destroyed the house if it had fallen any other way. Just one branch hit a corner of the house and put a hole in the roof.


I went over to the Bolosse campus today to encourage people, pray with
them and lend a hand. I took 50 pastries with me and some cold water, a
camera and a desire to encourage people spiritually.

The first place I went was the Christian school. The roof of 2 large
classrooms was completely blown off and there were other places where
trees had fallen on buildings.
We encouraged those cleaning up and working by giving them pastries.

Next stop was the house of our fellow Crossworld missionaries Bruce and
Cindy McMartin. A huge tree fell just next to their house wiping out
their side porch and very nearly destroying their whole house. As it
was a branch came crashing through the roof of their guest bedroom.
Naturally they stayed up all night, afraid of what else might happen.

Another missionary friend, David Schmid dislocated his shoulder when he
was avoiding a falling branch. He spent the night in the hospital and
was released today.

Then I helped Elysee Vaillant's family buy some rope to hold down their
roof from the wind and went into the neighborhood around the campus to
see the damage. In another miraculous event, a tree that was between 3
houses fell in the only open spot possible. If it had fallen any other
way the house of our cook, Margaret, would have been destroyed. Many
houses had lost their roofs and some collapsed entirely. The public
school at the top of the hill lost all of the roofs on all of the
buildings - and school is suppossed to open this Monday!!

Finally, I went to see the apartment our whole family used to live in
when we first got to Haiti. Ricky and the girl's old room had the roof
entirely blown off. I spend the afternoon moving the bedding and
furniture to a part of the apartment that still had a roof so it
wouldn't get ruined.

And the rain has not stopped - with 2 more storms possibly on the way.
Please pray for the victims of these storms and for us as we seek to
encourage them materially and spiritually!

update on Gustav

The rain finally stopped late this afternoon here in Port-au-Prince. We don't know what the damage is yet. Richard called a pastor in the south today but he also said he didn't know the specifics yet.

A boy from down the street came to our gate and said that he and his sister hadn't eaten in two days. Richard asked him a few questions and found that 9 people are living at this "house" with almost no roof. He came in and suggested we make a spaghetti dinner for them. He mostly made it himself while I was making our dinner. He and Ricky carried it over to the neighbors.

I never really thought about the fact that many Haitians have hardly any food at home, in cabinets or whatever...that they buy food almost daily...that there was probably no place open and their charcoal wouldn't light in the rain.

Please pray for them and people like them in the same situation.

Update on Hurricane Gustav

Thank you for your prayers.
Although we have off from school again today because of problems on the roads, we're fine where we are. It rained hard and steady from yesterday afternoon until about 7:00 this morning, now the rain is lighter.
The south of Haiti was hit harder than up here in Port-au-Prince. However, many people do not have decent housing, so they have the rain comes in and in some cases walls fall down. For example, Madame Levy who works for us, lives in a 4 room house with her husband and 5 children, but only one room is dry. We're going to lend them some money to fix their roof (we've already given them quite a bit of money this year for medical & funeral expenses). Please pray for them and others like them who are suffering because of the hurricane.

Tropical Storms & Food prices

Please pray for the people of Haiti. Tropical Storm Fay damaged some local crops, the food prices on basic food items like rice have continued to increase and today Tropical Storm Gustav is making landfall in the south of Haiti, too. This storm is predicted to be stronger than the last, so there could be worse flooding, wind damage, etc. The eye of the storm is expected to move across Haiti during the day today (Tuesday) with it coming closest to Port-au-Prince around 2 pm. Please pray for it to get blown south quickly to go into the Caribbean Sea.

Prayer requests

There are a few prayer requests heavy on our hearts...would you pray with us?
Please pray for my sister-in-law, Nancy Frankenfield's, family. Nancy's sister, Sue, was shot and killed yesterday by a woman with mental problems that she was trying to help. Sue's daughter is only about 19 years old. Please also pray for the spiritual lives of the whole family.

Please pray for our friends and supporters, the Nowalinski's. Their sweet, beautiful,20 year old daughter was killed in a car crash last week.

Please pray for my cousin & faithful prayer warrior, Betti for strong faith and wisdom facing an extremely difficult situation and for God to continue to comfort her.

Please pray for my friend, Sharon, who had back surgery for scoliosis, was opened up again because of an infection, and after that had an infection again.

Please pray for my friend, Susette, again. Although we had the good news that her cancer is gone, she has had complications because her esophogas was "burned" during her treatment and that has been very difficult.

Thank you, so much, for praying with us.

Results from the La Pointe Tournament

Results of La Pointe tournament:

57 people indicated they trusted Christ
21 Said they would like more information before trusting Christ
117 Said they were already Christians
134 Said they would like to study the Bible
62 Said they would like prayer

469 Total cards collected

The photos show the crowds surrounding the penalty shoot out and the two teams that played in the final. La Carinage won because their goalie stopped 1 penalty kick!

Moments like these make it all worth it!

I was struggling with a cold and it felt like my head was going to explode. It was wet and rainy and dark. But last night I forgot all about my « light and momentary afflictions » as my heart rejoiced over a young man who gave his life to Christ.

We were all together after the rain scattered everyone just as we were about to present the trophies to the winning team. We all huddled on a porch to escape the downpour. We were glad because at least we got to finish the penalty kicks when the final ended in a tie.

I had just finished counting the response cards for the game: 16 indicated they trusted in Christ, and 13 said they would like more information.

Just then a young man came into the middle of us and knelt down. He asked us to pray for him. Nelson, a STEP (seminary) student asked him what he would like us to pray about and he said he wanted to trust Christ. Nelson patiently explained the Gospel to him but made it clear that we could not pray for him to trust Christ, this was a decision he had to make on his own. After this explanation and him asking a few questions he was ready to pray, and what a simple, sincere prayer it was!

It's so neat to see God moving in the hearts of people. We were just faithful in proclaiming the Gospel, and this young man sought us out because the Holy Spirit prompted him.

Moments like these make it all worth it!

When you do it to the least of these

When you do it to the least of these, you do it to me

The other day I was driving around Port-au-Prince in a hurry as usual trying to pack too many errands into an already full day when I passed a woman with a baby sitting on the side of the road. This is a common site in Haiti as sometimes women “borrow” a baby so they can earn more money begging than if they didn't have one.

But this woman was different, as I raced by her, she didn't even bother to lift her hand and beg.

I did my errand, but could not get the picture of this woman and baby out of my mind so I re-traced my route and found her sitting listlessly by the road with a naked baby boy in her arms.

She was talking to someone, so I parked the car and waited a few minutes before walking up to her. At first I looked at the baby and saw that he was doing OK, but looked very hot and de-hydrated. So I went back to the car and got my water bottle and gave him a cold drink. At first it was too cold for him and he pushed the bottle away, but when he realized it was water, he started to eagerly guzzle it.

Then I looked down more carefully at the woman. She had a large wound on her breast and I couldn't even bare to look at it.

I gave her more than twice what I usually give to beggars, but still it wasn't much.

I drove away wishing I had given her more, and had spent more time with her, but I had other things to do.

Still I did go back to her, and stop and gave her baby a drink of water and her a little money, and I did it because I love Jesus!

Who knows, when I get to heaven this may be the one thing that Jesus rewards me for the most.

Tournament in La Pointe - the best yet!

The Tournament at La Pointe - The best yet!

Yesterday I flew to the North coast of Haiti to visit the 7th tournament of this summer.

I was delighted with what I found.

In spite of all the obstacles of organizing a soccer tournament in Haiti, the committee had done an excellent job.

First of all, not all of the 8 schools we invited participated, so they had to re-organize the schedule.

Then some of the food we sent up on a bus got soaked with rain because the bus broke down en route.

In addition, they decided to allow two teams to stay in dormitories for the week since one is over an hour away and the other is a 2 hour walk.

Last night I shared my testimony with the two teams that were staying overnight. They listened intently as I told them how my Father was murdered when I was 11 and how God used that experience to draw me to him and also to ask him to give me the power to forgive the man who killed my Dad.
Most of them don't have Dad's, so they were touched by what I said.

Afterwards, I reflected on what a blessing it is to be able to speak to these dear boys in their own language and be able to share heart-to-heart a story they could really relate to. God has given me this ability, and I want to use it for His glory as long as He permits me to.

It was a miracle that we were able to provide food for this tournament because all summer we were praying for food, but not until last week did we actually receive any.

So this week each day we feed over 200 players and coaches. This allowed everyone to stay all morning for the Bible studies and then have enough energy to play the matches in the afternoons.

In addition to organizing the matches and arranging for the food, the committee also raised about $150 US from local businesses. This is the most of any tournament this summer, and is something we want to encourage so that eventually each tournament can become entirely supported by their respective communities.

Right now the players are participating in a Bible contest and the winner will be announced soon.

This afternoon is the second Semi-final and Sunday will be the final.

We are going to do Evangelism during both of these games and in the evenings we will show 2 different evangelistic films.

We hope to share the Gospel with hundreds of spectators during these two games and already have a team of trained evangelistic counselors to help us with the follow up.

It's great to see our local leaders catching the vision and sharing it with churches, schools and even businesses in the community!

Difficult Day at Fort Jacques

Yesterday (Sunday) afternoon we went up to Fort Jacques for the final match in the tournament up there and to show the film "Le Combat." Things started out very well. We had bought a new cable for the speaker and we were playing lively Christian (Haitian) music while people were filling the stands.







The game got started a bit later than we had planned on, but it was off to a good start. Claudy, our contact from the local church was there. He kept his suit on from church, we guessed because he was in a hurry. His church had had a harvest festival which ended at 3 p.m. Now I wonder if there are other reasons he would wear the suit. Young people in the neighborhood respect and listen to him, and we found out that that is very important.




Marken was there as comentator (he had helped out in this way earlier in the week, too.). He's good at it and knows the names of most of the players.

During half time Celestin, a STEP Seminary Student presented the gospel and other STEP students gave out cards for people to sign up for a drawing and indicate if they were interested in trusting Christ, being in a Bible study, etc.
Sadly, after halftime people started getting angry and a spectator threw a rock at a player. Then lots of people started throwing rocks at each other. It's such a shame when a few people ruin a nice thing for everyone. Many people in the stands came running towards us to get behind the community center. I (Carol) went inside with the computer I was using to play music. The comentator tried his best to calm things down, as well as Claudy and others. Our group got together in the Community Center to pray while others continued to try to calm things down and convince the players to finish the game. People stopped throwing rocks, but were still angry, so the game had to end. So that the crowd would not get angrier, the trophy was given to the winning team.
We prayed and talked about whether we should still show the film. Our friend, Mme. Levy and I were the only ladies and we said we weren't too afraid, so we decided to try to show the movie.
When the kids and teenagers came into the community center they were loud and rowdy. They would not calm down enough for us to do the drawing--most people couldn't hear us, so we started the movie and they quieted down. We even had problems with the computer freezing up for a few seconds many times during the second half of the movie. Everyone laughed when a man who was being baptized was held under the water by the pastor and the picture froze like that. I couldn't help laughing. But the movie came back on after several seconds. Celestin did a good job staying cool (as did all of our Haitian volunteers) and at one point when I was trying to get the computer the stop freezing up, he talked a bit more about the gospel and the point of the film.
Then, it was very late when we finally did the drawing and many peoples' names were called who had left by this time. We kept drawing names until we had winners who were present.
When we packed up and started heading down the mountain, it was late. We ended up driving some of our volunteers home and one had to stay overnight with us because he lives further away. We got home exhausted and very aware of how hard the work is sometimes and how we need God's wisdom to reach tough kids. Please pray for them and for us to be able to reach out in ways that are effective according to God's plan. It doesn't have to be according to our plan, but we want people, especially young people, to hear and understand God's message of love.

One without hope in Haiti

Nothing focuses us more on life than death.

On Tuesday, July 8th I took some of my former Lemuel Soccer team players and the coach of College Evangelique Maranatha up to scenic Ft. Jacques to help me with an evangelistic soccer tournament we were organizing.

Ft. Jacques is a fort that was build in the early 1800's to defend PAP against the impending invasion of the French after Haiti won it's independence in 1804. It has a spectacular view of the city and is a favorite place for young couples to meet and find a secluded corner to snuggle in.

The young men who went with me had never visited Ft. Jacques before and there was a break in the action, so I said they could go on a tour of the fort. They started to enjoy the view with the binoculars I had lent them when they heard a commotion behind them. They turned around to see a group of people standing around a hefty young man who was dressed nicely and had new sneakers on his feet. But this young man was flat on his back and his new jeans had bleach stains all over them – you see he had tried to commit suicide by drinking clorox bleach and was writhing in pain and convulsions. This young man, obviously not a poor young man, had lost all hope and had tried to take his life.

Since I was the only one around who had a car, the coach ran to get me and I quickly backed the car up to a place they could carry him to. However, the people there said I should contact the police first because if he died in my car on the way to the hospital, I could be held liable. Fortunately, this had already been done by a “good samaritan” and we were able to lay him in the back seat of the car, wreaking of clorox and vomit.

As we drove him down to the hospital, we prayed that God would save his life and give him another chance. It also caused me to reflect on life in this country of Haiti, and why I am here. I honestly wonder why there aren't more suicides here because without Christ, I don't see much hope for the people socially or economically. But I know God loves the people of Haiti, because he is still sending Christians here to minister to the rich and the poor, the families and the orphans.

This past week I had the opportunity to lead many people to Christ, as over 120 people indicated they trusted Christ for salvation. On Tuesday, I had the opportunity to perhaps physically save the life of this young man who was without hope. Naturally, I would rather talk to people about Christ before they become hopeless and try to take their own lives. But on Tuesday, it was clear that I was at Ft. Jacques “for such a time as this”.

The last thing I heard about the young man was he was transferred to the public hospital. Please pray for his physical and spiritual healing.

Maybe God won't call you to physically save a life today, but you can always encourage others with a smile, kind deed, prayer or act of generosity – just like Christ did when he was on earth. Who knows, you may give hope to the hopeless.

Teams, Tournaments, even one for girls!

On Saturday, July 5th Ian Moore, Jonathan Bryant, Steven Gassaway from the US and Frantz and Jean Paul, our Haitian helpers all arrived safely back in Port-au-Prince. God protected us in many ways on this two-week trip around Haiti. No one got seriously sick, the truck did not break down, there were no accidents, nothing of great value was stolen, and we did not run out of money. We drove over 500 miles on some of the roughest roads of Haiti. The roads were so rough that my metal cage around the back of my truck came un-welded in several places and by the time we reached home every seam was cracked. Thankfully, this happened on the last day as we were entering Port-au-Prince, otherwise we would have had major packing problems!

Another AACH team arrived in Port-au-Prince on Saturday as well. Opal Golden and three High School students from the school she teaches at in New York state arrived and we all had a grand reunion at our house. Altogether, 13 people ate and slept at our house on Saturday night – a record for sure. Four of the guys slept on our roof to escape the heat and humidity in our house.

This team was headed to Les Cayes in southern Haiti to run a U-15 tournament for boys from July 7-13th and the first ever girl's tournament from July 14-20th.

Thanks to the generosity of another ministry, we now have another truck for the AACH/AIS soccer ministries to share. It is a big 'ol Chevy pick up, army vintage with a diesel engine that has benches and lots of room for stuff.

We packed up the team heading off to Les Cayes on early Sunday morning and sent them on their way. They have been having a great time helping with the tournament there and have been working hard to build relationships with local churches so that those who trust Christ through the many outreaches during the tournament can be followed up with.

Just before we left we posed in front of the big truck for a picture. (Hopefully we'll be able to upload that soon) It's neat to think that just about two years ago Carol and I returned to Haiti with a vision for using soccer as a tool for evangelism not knowing anyone else who had the same vision. Now through our partnership with AACH, we have hosted two teams from the US and now work with about 100 Haitian leaders in 8 out of the 11 departments (like states) in Haiti.

One down – Seven to go!

The summer U-15 soccer tournament at Verettes is officially over. The final and semi-final matches were both hard-fought games which ended in ties and had to be decided by penalty kicks.

In the end, it was the team from Borel that won the tournament. Apparently, their coach did a good job teaching them how to shoot penalty kicks!

The semi-final game between the home team Verettes and the visitor Borel was the best game of the tournament. Verettes dominated the first half and scored two goals. It looked like they were going to win the game. But about 10 minutes into the second half, they were awarded a penalty kick and scored making it 2-1. Then a miraculous goal just before the game ended tied the game, sending the game to penalty kicks. The goalie of Borel made two spectacular saves to lead his team to victory.

Two semi-final games were played on June 25th with the final being June 26th. Our Haitian brothers who did the evangelism did a great job sharing the Gospel at all the games. At one game he told the story of a boy who always wanted a soccer ball, so his Father worked and saved in order to buy him one. The boy loved that ball and played with it every day. One day he came home hot and tired after playing and opened the window in his bedroom and went to sleep with the ball beside him. When he woke up, the ball was not there. Someone had stolen the ball. A few weeks later he was still sad about the ball and was walking through town when he saw his ball for sale in a store. He knew it was his ball because he had made a mark on it. (In Haitian society, you can’t accuse someone of stealing unless you catch them red-handed.) So the boy told his Father, who then worked hard to buy the ball back for the boy. The Haitian evangelist went on to explain that, even though Satan “stole” the good things God prepared for us in the Garden of Eden by tempting Adam and Eve to sin, Jesus paid the price to restore us to God and eventually all things will be restored to us in the new heaven and new earth.

About 40 people indicated that they trusted Christ through these games and we collected well over 400 response cards. Through our partnership with 5 local churches in the area, each one of the people who responded will be followed up with.

In addition to the Gospel presentation at the games, we also have done two soccer clinics this week: One for young boys and another for girls where we presented the Gospel. Then on Thursday night, June 26th we showed two evangelistic films that were produced in Africa that contrasted African voodoo with Christianity. We had about 300 people at these films and many seemed to understand the message the films conveyed.

This afternoon we will do a soccer clinic for some churches up in the mountains surrounding Verettes. The youth in this area do not have the same opportunities to be coached as those who live in town, and we want to show these out-lying churches how they can use sports as a tool for evangelism.

Tomorrow we will visit a local church who is helping us with the follow up and rejoice with them over the work that God has done in their community this week. Then we will head to our next tournament in the North of Haiti in a town called Limbe.

Please continue to pray for God to touch the hearts many through these tournaments and for safety on the roads!

Lots of Help

Lots of Help!

This past Sunday (June 22nd, 2008), Ian Moore, the founder and director of AACH arrived at my house with 2 College students from James Madison University; Jonathan Bryant and Steven Gassaway. They came to help with the tournaments, do soccer clinics and learn about missions in Haiti. We will be together for two weeks and will visit 4 out of the 8 towns where we are holding soccer tournaments: Verettes, Limbe, St. Rafael and Hinche.

In addition, we have a Haitian Seminary student with us named Jean Paul who is helping us with the Bible studies for the players on the teams and also presenting the Gospel at half-time. Like most Haitian boys, he grew up without a Father in his life for many years, in his case because his birth was the result of an affair. His Father eventually became a Christian and accepted some responsibility for him financially and also let him live with him for a while, but some times he felt like a ping-pong ball going back and forth between his Mom and Dad. He became a Christian and while studying law at a University and felt God calling him to become a Pastor.

We are also getting lots of help with the tournaments from the committees we set up in each town. In Verettes, there is a committee of 9 men who have taken complete responsibility for planning the tournament and they have done a great job.

Please pray that we will stay healthy and safe, that people will hear, understand and accept the Gospel and the leaders we have trained will learn through their experiences this summer.

A Dream Come True

How do you feel when a dream becomes a reality?

On June 23rd the first game of our 8 summer soccer tournaments was played. Seeing the 13-15 year old boys in the beautiful new uniforms that were donated almost brought tears to my eyes since the week before it had taken me three days and $400 to get them out of customs.

But it was a beautiful afternoon for soccer and the two teams played a good, but lopsided match with Borel beating Gonaives 4-0. (Gonaives is the town that was totally destroyed by a flood the same fall as New Orleans – we hope to have a tournament there next year.)

Thanks to the new sound system provided by Northampton Presbyterian Church, we were able to present the Gospel to the spectators at the match, and will continue to do this at half-time and after the games for the next 6 games of the tournament.

Yesterday we presented the Gospel at 3 soccer games to about 400 people, and also at a soccer clinic for boys and girls with about 60 participants.

Today in the afternoon are the semi-finals of the tournament and we will have two games with the final tomorrow. This morning we are doing a soccer clinic with coaches and kids from the area.

Travelling

I'm writing this from the Dominican Republic where I'm going to study Spanish for two weeks. Partly because I'm working towards regular certification in the US, and partly because I love langugaes. Richard was here for the weekend, but now I'm alone in a country where I barely speak the language. It's good for me because it helps me remember what it's like for people who are beginners in French or English. I'm staying in the apartment of a friend in an area where I don't know anyone who speaks English, French or Creole. It's forcing me to use the little I know! |It was interesting going to church in Spanish. They even did the one Spanish chorus that Richard taught me years ago: "Alabare." That was fun. The embarrassing part was when they were doing the announcements at the end and my brain was tiring of trying to understand so I just looked at my bulletin and focused on reading the announcement s until....out of the corner of my eye, I saw a lady waving at me. I looked up and the whole congregation was waving at me. The pastor was saying something in my direction0--I don't know what! but I figured they were saying hello to visitors. So, I said that I didn't understand but I was here for 2 weeks to study Spanish. My course starts tomorrow.

Tomorrow is a big day for Richard, too. He is driving out to Verrettes with Ian Moore (AACH) and two college students who have come to help with the evangelistic tournaments in that area. In the next two weeks they will be going to Verrettes, St. Raphael, Hinche and Limbe. Please pray for safety and mostly for the success of the tournaments, presentations, etc. in each town.
Hopefully we'll put some pictures up soon.
--Carol

Australian Film Crew

Here's "our Australian film crew" :) (see below). Unfortunately, I don't have a picture of them filming or taking pictures, but Here they are having a meal at our house and jamming with our kids.
Thank you Andrew, Connie and Andrew!

Ambassadors in Sport sends film crew to Haiti

How do three young Australians end up in Haiti? They volunteered to make a documentary for Ambassadors in Sport, International and film footage of how God is using soccer worldwide to introduce fans and players to Christ.

Andrew Cameron and his friends Connie and Andrew arrived yesterday and for the next two days we will be filming the ministry in Haiti.

I'm very excited about this opportunity because it will allow us to share the vision God has given us for the youth of Haiti with many more people. I just found out that tomorrow we will be able to film the championship game of a school tournament in Verettes with hundreds of spectators and the two best teams in the area. One of the teams is from a school we trained in soccer evangelism called "La Providence" (Providence). Some would call this luck, but we call it God's providence!

Pray for us as we travel about the city and country in these next two days, for protection and good filming!

Recent training trips to Jacmel and La Pointe