A SOCCER TEAM AT A CHURCH?

On a bright Sunday morning I walked into a church in Borel, in the Artibonite Valley and what did I find? Eighty boys and girls in soccer uniforms sitting quietly in the pews being encouraged in spiritual things by local community leaders and church leaders.

I had gotten up at 5 AM to drive the 2 and ½ hours from Port-au-Prince to Borel with two of my other leaders-in-training: Ronald William who is on the AIS Haiti board, and Lucasse Henrilus, a former Lemuel player who works in the AIS office and helps me out when I travel. We arrived just as the service was starting.

The president of AIS Haiti's local committee, Wattnec Milfort is also an elder in this church and started a community soccer school as a way of reaching kids in the area with the Gospel. He has been coaching kids for a long time and two of his players have played on Haiti's national teams. His team was in the final of a soccer tournament he had organized that afternoon, and he wanted the church to encourage his players emotionally and spiritually before the game. And did they ever!

Some of the youth sang a song they wrote that said: “Jesus is happy when we pray. His grace is sufficient. Depend on Jesus. Be strong and of good courage.” Another song had a verse that said “Run straight towards the goal”.

I was asked to say a few words and used 1 Cor. 10:31 “So whether you eat or drink of whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.” to encourage them to play for God's glory that afternoon. I also shared with them a dream I have of Haiti someday sending some soccer players to Senegal to help the youth of Senegal come to know Jesus through soccer outreaches.

Wattnec's younger brother gave the sermon appropriately based on 1 Timothy 4:12 “Don't let anyone look down on you because you are young, but set an example for believers in speech, in life, in love, in faith, in purity.” He used the example of Maradonna, the famous Argentinian player who got in trouble with drugs to show how we can either be a good example or a bad example to others.

The team must have taken the good counsel to heart because they played well and did not let their emotions get the best of them, even when they lost in a penalty shoot-out. Sometimes we learn more spiritually when we lose than when we win!

But in the end, God was glorified because 17 people indicated they trusted Christ through the evangelism that was done at half-time of the match!!

Tig se Tig (A Tiger is a Tiger)

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The Haitian proverb above means that a son is just like his father. We would say “The apple doesn't fall far from the tree.”

As I have become like a Father to many of my Haitian leaders, it gives me great joy when, on their own, they begin to put into practice the things they have learned from us.

Recently we had the privilege of being invited to attend the final game of a week-long U-15 tournament in the Artibonite valley. As you may recall, this is the area where we started a pilot project last year and started soccer teams at eight UEBH Christian schools.

Wattnec Milfort, the president of the local committee we organized to work with these eight schools has enthusiastically embraced our strategy of using soccer to share the Gospel with young Haitians throughout the Artibonite valley. In fact, on his own, he organized a tournament and just asked us to help him with the evangelism at the final game.

Wattnec raised the funds, motivated the teams to participate, hired the referees, and did everything make the tournament a success, both physically and spiritually. He also did not do it alone. Following what we taught him about the importance of forming a committee and delegating responsibilities, he called upon several other members of the local committee that we had trained to help him.

The soccer results were that his team made it to the final game and lost in a heart-breaking penalty shoot-out.

The spiritual results were that 270 people filled out response cards, 17 people indicated they trusted Christ, 55 asked for more information before trusting Christ, 51 were already Christians, 59 said they would like to be involved in a Bible study, and 46 asked for prayer.

In addition, we gave out 3 Bibles as prizes and over 300 tracts to the spectators. PTL!!

Report on Business Training Seminar

Program:

Thirty-one Haitians between the ages of 18 and 35 attended nine days of entrepreneurial training (Oct. 15-25, 2008) in Port-au-Prince, Haiti made possible through Jèn@biz – 2008, the first annual business development program of the Haitian chapter of Young Americas Business Trust (YABT – Haiti). Twenty percent of the group was female and the rest were male. The participants, from a variety of backgrounds and business experience, shared sessions and group activities where they learned how to do market studies, financial planning and management techniques to help their businesses succeed.

Strategic Objectives:

Capacity-building
Personal and financial disciplines needed to succeed in business
Environmental scanning to identify feasible business opportunities
Organizational leadership to develop teamwork and project management
Entrepreneurship
How to write a business plan
Field research
Marketing their product or service
How to fund their business

Curriculum:

During the first four days of training, leaders and guest speakers provided an overview of business plan development. In the second week, more in-depth sessions were provided in the areas of marketing, production, internet research, management, finances, and the use of information technology in business development.
Throughout the program, an analogy of a tree to the process of business development was unveiled. The seed was compared to the business idea. The soil, the local environment. The need for sunshine was the need for financial capital, while the need for rain was like the need for good personnel. Just as it takes a long time for a tree to grow from a tiny seed, it takes time for a business to develop strong roots and bear fruit. The fruit then attracts birds, which were compared to customers who then go out and spread the word to others if the business is offering a good and attractive product or service.

Activities:

The delegates participated in many small-group activities throughout the training. In one activity, they examined the decisions made by business owners that lead to the gain, loss, and regain of a client’s trust. In groups of ten, each participant acted as a customer at a cyber café. Upon describing a strong reason that a customer places trust in the products and services of the business, participants passed a card representing their level of trust to the “owner” of the café. Each activity was followed by planned group discussions.
During the second week, participants were also required to perform field research each afternoon, exploring their respective target markets, competitors, opportunities, and challenges for their businesses.
Each participant wrote a business plan, complete with financial projections. For the final day of training, many participants prepared a display that highlighted their business plans. Ten participants chose to exhibit their business plan to the group in formal five-minute presentations.
Representatives from two local microcredit institutions gave sessions on their systems of providing financing for small businesses and fielded many questions. In addition, an entrepreneur from Haitian Partners in Christian Development's Business Incubator told the story of how he started his business.

Outcomes:

After nine days of training, most of the 31 participants handed in a business plan to the board of YABT – Haiti. Of the 31, we expect five to ten entrepreneurs will find funding and then we will mentor them for a year as they birth their business ideas into reality. Monthly training will continue for all participants.

The Story of Obias Exilus:

“There are many opportunities, but not enough services. People’s needs are not met.,” says Obias Exilus, owner of Design Plus, an informal printing services business. “It seems that businesspeople are not thinking right. We need more assessments of each area—to do deeper surveys to evaluate the real needs of the areas.”

Exilus was one of 30 participants in the recent entrepreneurship training program, Jèn@biz – 2008, held in Port-au-Prince for nine days. He entered the training with a hope to start Design Plus (a cybercafe and desktop publishing business), and, from the training, walked away with a better understanding of both the challenges and opportunities he holds as an entrepreneur.

“The biggest challenge is the energy problem because of the present price of gasoline used to fuel a generator for a café,” says Exilus. “Instead, we have to be equipped with an invertor or solar panels which takes a lot of money.”

In response to the challenges, Exilus has specific goals to make his business grow. In particular, he recognizes a budding target market which he believes Design Plus is able to meet. “I want to expand it to a cyber café,” says Exilus, “because we have a lot of students in the area who really need a place to do research and complete assignments.”

“Basically, I am learning what to do, what not to do, how to attract people to my...business, and how to increase production,” says Exilus after his experience in Jèn@biz - 2008. “I will get a profit which will help me sustain the business, and have a profit for the employees and myself.”

Acknowledgments:

YABT Haiti thanks the following individuals and organizations for their support of this project:
A Major donor from the US who funded the training
Haititec who provided 8 days use of their conference room for free
Dr. Leslie Jules and the Center for Specilaized Leadership for use of his curriculum.
Eagle Market, One Stop Market and Megamart who contributed drinks
Sogesol and Lumisec, two financial institutions who made presentations, reviewed the business plans and will finance several of the start ups.
The YABT Haiti board and teaching staff
TeleNational who filmed interviews and student presentations at the closing program.
Haitian Partners in Christian Development
AACH who handled the finances

School collapse

Pray for the families of those killed and injured in the school collapse that happened yesterday in Petion Ville (near Port-au-Prince). There also may still be some people trapped under the rubble.

Pictures of Business Seminar

Here are pictures of Jen@biz the business seminar we're working on YABT and AACH.

Prayer - Margaret's Mom - breast cancer

Margaret works for us 4 days a week doing all kinds of things around the house. She is a good Christian and has faithfully worked for us for from the time we arrived in Haiti. Margaret's mother has been diagnosed with breast cancer. Please pray for them.

The big Surprise!

Jim and Bob, from Bible Fellowship brought us a big surprise...what Ricky has been dreaming of...an electric guitar!

Right away, he tried playing with Joy on her acoustic. Joy and Richard had to try it too.

Now he's practicing a song to do with the praise band for our school chapel next week. He's a beginner, but he might be able to do that because God has given him a real talent for music.

We are so thankful to Bible Fellowship and especially Jim Compton and Bob Spicer.

Help for Hurricane Victims

Last week I posted about helping the hurricane victims and my director pointed out in a comment that our own mission, CrossWorld, has a relief project for Haiti. They have already disbursed $17,000 to provide aid and will continue to collect and distribute funds. If you would like to help with that, please check out http://www.crossworld.org/.

(I thought that once I "published" the comment, people would see it, but you actually have to click where it says "comment" below my post, so I thought another post would be a good idea.

An encouraging visit from members of Bible Fellowship

We were very encouraged by a visit from Jim Compton and Bob Spicer of Bible Fellowship Church this past weekend. They both left their jobs and their families for 5 days to come and learn more about our work here and plan a future visit from a larger team from Bible Fellowship.

We could not travel to central Haiti as we had hoped to because the bridge connecting the north of Haiti to the south was destroyed by the hurricanes and has not yet been rebuilt.

So we showed them around Port-au-Prince and visited Ft. Jacques where we held a soccer tournament this summer.

On Saturday morning we had a meeting with the Executive Committee of AIS Haiti and invited one of our leaders from Verettes to come and explain the needs of one of the schools there. We are thinking this is where we will bring a team early in 2009.

While they were hear they helped us fix up the house of one of our church members that got flooded from the hurricanes. They even donated enough money to put a new roof on it so that they don't get soaked from the next storm.

Of course we talked a lot about our plans for the year and how we hope God will use us. The biggest projects we have in the next 12 months revolve around training:

Training of young entrepreneurs in how to write a business plan, get financing and start a small business with Young Americas Business Trust - Haiti (YABT-Haiti) for short.(Oct. 15-25, 2008)

TREC 2008-2009 with Ambassadors in Sport: This will train our Haitian leaders how to train other Haitians in Sports Ministry. (Dec. 26, 2008 to Jan 4, 2009

AIS Haiti leadership Training: During this training the Haitian leaders we trained in TREC will train other Haitians in how to start their own sports ministries in their schools and churches.

We were overwhelmed by their interest and desire to help and encourage us in our ministry and look forward to when the entire team from Bible Fellowship will come alongside us for a week of ministry in 2009.

Anybody thinkin "How can I help Haiti?"

If you're seeing sad pictures of the aftermath of the recent 4 hurricanes that hit Haiti and wonderin how you can help, there are several ways.

1. Of course, pray. Please. There are neat stories going around of how God is providing for victims of these hurricanes. Like 27 orphns and orphanage workers whose orphange and school were washed away. I talked to Sherry, a missionary teacher (but not at QCS) yesterday at Quisqueya Chapel and she breifly mentioned how she would be receiving these 27 that afternoon even though she never expected to have an orphanage...God provided the building and bit by bit God is providing what these children need.

2. Get online or call Christian missions and ask if you can serve in Haiti helping with the relief efforts.

3. if you go to wwww.unjobs.org you can find jobs that are available with organization related to the UN who are organizing and carrying out relief. Most of the ones listed there are high level jobs, but it may be worth checking out if you are availble for an assignment of 3 months, 6 months or longer.

4. There are a lot of organizations collecting money to help the victims.

Flooding problems

The boy quoted in this article is in one of my French classes.

Posted on Mon, Sep. 08, 2008
Haitian family recalls `darkest night'
BY JENNIFER MOONEY PIEDRA

As the wind howled and rain tore through the Haitian village of
Messailler, Charles Amicy huddled on a dark staircase with his family.

Amicy and his wife tried to console the group of six children, three
of them his own. As they wept, he encouraged them to pray.

As the floodwaters raged around their two-story home, they sang
religious songs to help block out the screams of neighbors.

''It was the darkest night of my life,'' said Amicy, 48, a
Presbyterian pastor, recalling Hurricane Ike's wrath early Sunday
morning.
'People were crying, `Save me. Save me.' There was nothing I could do.''
The family, three orphans living with them and a maid, clung together
for hours as water crept up the walls of their home.
They survived, but so many others in Messailler and the nearby poor
oceanside town of Cabaret -- grandmothers, pregnant women, babies --
weren't spared.
Bodies of the dead were scattered on the grounds of Amicy's five-acre
compound, a former sugar cane plantation turned religious retreat
where local children learn, orphans feel loved and the faithful flock
to church.
Amicy's 10-year-old son, Allan, saw several corpses that had been
dumped by the river onto the grounds of the compound.
''This has had a big impact on his life,'' said Amicy, who lives in
Port-au-Prince during the week and at the compound on weekends. ``He
cries. He doesn't want to sleep alone.''
The horror began at 2 a.m. Sunday.
Amicy was awake, praying in his second-floor bedroom, when his
25-year-old nephew ran in, saying he heard a ``big noise.''
Amicy hurried downstairs and toward the front door to peek outside. As
he reached for the doorknob, he felt water on his feet, coming through
the cracks of the door.
Then, the door collapsed. Water came rushing.
Amicy ran toward the first-floor bedroom where his three children,
three orphans and a maid were asleep.
He ordered them all upstairs.
The children -- ages 3 to 18 -- were crying.
At daylight, Amicy walked outside.
What he saw, he will never forget.
''Houses washed away. There are no more walls. Everything is
flattened,'' he said.
``Everywhere you look, devastation.''
Toilets were flushed down the river, tires shred to pieces, tables floated away.
Also stolen by Ike: More than $300,000 in prescription drugs from the
compound's pharmacy and five vehicles used by the ministry, including
a school bus, a dump truck and a van.
After assessing the damage and handing out spaghetti to hungry storm
victims, Amicy knew he had to somehow get his family back to safety in
Port-au-Prince.
But phone lines were dead and cellphone service spotty.
So they started walking.
Barefoot, with only the clothes on their backs, Amicy led his family
up the hills, away from the water, on a four-mile walk to a main road.
There, they were picked up and driven to the city.
Even after all the devastation and heartache among Haitians, Amicy's
spirit remains unfaltering.
''We will rebuild,'' he said. ``I don't know how, but I know that God
will help us.''


(c) 2008 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights
Reserved.http://www.miamiherald.com

Richard's home

Richard is home safe. We'll give an update of anything we hear about the woman's condition.

Pray right now if you see this tonight

It's 8:15 pm our time Tuesday night (9:15 in Pennsylvania). If you happen to click on this tonight, please pray for a woman in our neighborhood that Richard just took to the hospital, along with some of her family members and Ecdes, our helper. All I know is that she felt like she might be having a heart attack. Please pray for God's will, God's help, comfort & provision (they didn't have any money) and safety & wisdom for Richard.

Pray for flood victims

Please continue to pray for the flood victims of hurricanes Hanna and Ike. We keep hearing stories of the extent of the damage and it is extreme. I've read estimates of displacd people from 82,000, to 150,000 and more. Many of these are children.

Especially pray for the 18 refugees from an orphanage in Gonaives that our school is helping. There are 12 very young children & 6 workers. They spent 5 days the roof of their building which was flooded up to the second floor and were rescued by boat, but their food had run out after the second day. A Haitian pastor brought them down here and found a guesthouse where they could stay in the neighborhood of our school. The staff of our school has been providing food, clothing and even some fun playing on our soccer field.

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.