Please pray for Grace

Please pray for our daughter, Grace. She's at Biola University, she's doing well academically and she likes the school. I thank God for that, but I have some requests too :)

• Please pray for the right summer job for her--either at a camp or some kind of job that doesn't require a car (or for God to provide a car)--and God's wisdom about working in California to possibly establish residency there.
• Pray for a good roommate for her for next year.
• Pray for wisdom about possibly entering the Torrey honors program which would require more time and would probably make it diffiicult for her to have a job during school.
• Pray for all of us--being apart.

I think all of you Moms out there can appreciate these requests especially.

thanks

Carol

Richard on the Radio!

Well, Richard was interviewed on the radio this morning at 6:30 via telephone. (My job was to keep the household, mostly the dogs, quiet :) ) A lot of Haitians listen to the radio, so hopefully the word got out about the upcoming games with the Cleveland City Stars. A few minutes later, Reginald from Radio Lumiere called back and had set something up for him to be interviewed for another station. So, almost right away that was taped (over the phone again) and will be played on Monday. God is really providing a lot of great opportunities this week.

Preparing for the tour

With the Cleveland City Stars coming to Haiti in about 6 weeks, Richard has been busy preparing...working on logistics for the team and coordinating the matches to be effective evangelistic events. Here's his report on the last few days:


God has been opening doors for us left and right. This week I have met with several large ministries here in Haiti and all of them are excited about the team and want to parcticipate in the evangelization they will do.Compassion, League Biblique and Campus Pour Christ all want to put us in contact with churches in Port-au-Prince, St. Marc and Cap Haitien and help us publicize the games. In addition, they will give us people trained in evangelism to use as counselors at all the games.

I have set up a trip with the president of League Biblique to visit Cap Haitien the 7 and 8th of May to encourage the churches to invite people and provide counselors in the stadium. I have also met with several leaders from the Haitian Soccer Federation this week. They promise they will get me the official letter of invitation tomorrow (as they have promised for the past 3 days!).

The Federation wants us to play the U-17 team and I think this is a better opportunity that we could ever dream of. You see, the Haitian U-17 just qualified for the U-17 world cup that will take place 18 August to 9 Sept. in Korea. That means they are one of 24 teams to qualify for this privilge. In order to qualify they had tie Mexico (0-0), the defending U-17 champion, tie Honduras 1-1 (the other country that qualified from their pool) and beat El Salvador 3-0 to win their pool. This is a very good team and I think that they will give the reserve team a very good, high profile game. In addition, this will probably be the only international game they will play in Haiti before they head to the U-17 world cup and is likely to be highly publicized by the media.

I am meeting with the director of Radio Lumiere today to start preparing some radio and possibly some television spots. They are also going to put me in touch with the National Television Station to see if we can't get the game on television.

Please pray for all of these opportunities - that I would be able to manage my time well and find the best people to help me. Please pray that God would raise up other godly men and women to help with this huge opportunity, and that God would provide the needed funds for a sound system, printing evangelistic tracts and other literature. THANKS!

We got the pool set up

We've been especially hot since the big generator isn't working at school so we don't have air conditioning. But, we got the pool set up and we've been cooling off in it.

Our 22nd Anniversary

Richard and I celebrated our 22nd Wedding Anniversary at the beach. We had a really nice weekend. Since we had been trying to take the kids to the beach for weeks and it never worked out, (and since a friend and Richard's parents gave us money for a hotel stay) we took the kids and just got 2 rooms.

Unfortunately, Ricky got swimmers ear. He was a trooper, though and he enjoyed some of it.

Happy Easter! Joyeux Paques!

Here is a picture of us at Quisqueya Chapel, the English church near us. We love what they do every

Easter. They put up a cross during lent and the people of the congregation write on a piece of paper something they are "sacrificing" or a sin they are asking God to remove. Then they put the paper on the cross (it has chicken wire all over it). The papers are burned on Good Friday. On Easter Sunday, as we walk into church, one of the kids hands us each a flower which we put on the cross to celebrate what Jesus has done.

After church we went to a friends' house for coffee and Easter treats and a nice visit.

We had David and Phyllis Schmid (of CrossWorld) over for a nice Easter dinner. It was great being with them--we really haven't had much of a chance to visit with them since Thanksgiving!.

Here are the beautiful Easter eggs we colored on Thursday. The sad story of these eggs is... I tried to do my usual 3 things at once, so the job dragged on for most of the day.

Then I got involved in the last minute preparations for Passover. AFter the Passover Seder, I collapsed on my bed and fell right to sleep. The next day I forgot to put the eggs in the fridge. So, we started smell something bad. Throughout the day I kept saying things like, "We have to take the trash out, it stinks." Finally at the end of the day, Joy realized it was the boiled eggs. Eeewww what a stink, by then! It's possible that one of them was a bad egg to begin with. We've been buying our eggs from a lady that we pass on the way home, like many other foreigners do, and we always break them into a bowl to check them before we use them and often we find a bad one. Well, I've learned my lessons--just pay the $4 to buy eggs in the supermarket for Easter and don't forget to put them in the fridge!

We had better "blessings" with the chocolate covered eggs --another of our family traditions.

Please Pray for Stephen

Please pray for our friend Jawa's (Lionel Nicolas) son, Stephen. He is only two years old and has been sick a lot .

Last week they brought him to the doctor because he was sick and could not go to the bathroom at all. They took him to a clinic that used to be good but is now under new management and we are worried that he is not getting good treatment there. The doctor insisted that STephen stay at the clinic and he's had some tests, but there is still no diagnosis. Also, being in the hospital or a clinic in Haiti is very difficult because someone in the family has to stay with him constantly and provide anything he needs, like washing his clothes, etc.

Also, neither Jawa nor Esther has a job and they have already incurred a lot of expenses (well $150 US is alot if you have no job and what you could typically earn in a day is only $10-$12US/day.) We're afraid/guessing he may need surgery for a hernia and so far, we're the only ones paying the bills.
Pray for healing for Stephen, for wisdom for Jawa & Esther, and for us as far as how we help them.

we're too hot, you're too cold

This morning on the internet I saw that it was 34 o F in PA and when I talked to my Mom & sister on Skype I saw they had turtleneck shirts on and were expecting flurries. Well, down here, it's just getting hotter. Through the "winter" we've been pretty comfortable...especially for those of us (me) who don't play soccer. But now it's hot enough that the kids are on a mission to get the blow up pool set up. Unfortunately, Richard says we don't have enough water right now, so I guess I better try to distract them with making chocolate covered Easter eggs.

Passover 2007

Well, we celebrated our traditional "Christ in the Passover Seder" last night. We were glad we hadn't invited too many people over because Richard had a bad cold this week. It's hard for him to slow down when he gets sick (sometimes it seems like everything's hard in this country). I didn't expect it, be he managed to get us a lamb shoulder so we could have a lamb bone for our seder plate. So, yesterday I had off from teaching and Richard got to take a 4 hour nap. And, then, as you can see "Rabbi Richard" was in fine shape for the seder.

Our friends Kerline and Lesly came over for their first Passover celebration. They enjoyed it....Even if it doesn't look that way in the pictures! :)
By the time we realized that Joy wasn't in any of the pictures, our batteries wore out. I have to get copies of Kerline's pictures to show that Joy was there. :)

Some of you have heard me say that it seems like every year when I prepare for Passover, God shows me something new...well, it happened again this year! I was reading an old booklet that we had in our stuff packed away in Haiti called "The Meaning and Importance of the Jewish Holidays" and I found 2 new things. First, I learned that in the time of Jesus, people went to the temple in Jerusalem to get a lamb for Passover and when they did, the priest would indicate an appropriate (without defect) lamb by pointing to the animal and saying "Behold the lamb." Isn't that amazing since, when John the Baptizer pointed to Jesus he said "Behold the lamb...the lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world?"
The second thing was that the word "Afikomen" is actually a Greek word and that the tradition of hiding the afikomen began after Jesus died for us. Afikomen means "the one who came." That makes a lot of sense for those of us who believe Jesus is the Messiah because the Afikomen is the "middle matzah" that is taken from the matzah plate, which has three matzah, one on top of each other, broken (like the Messiah who was "crushed for our iniquities" Is 53:5) then wrapped in linen and hidden away until the children joyfully find it (reminding us of Jesus dying, being wrapped in linen and being found alive on the third day).
I really didn't expect to learn new things about Passover this year because we've been celebrating it for more than 10 years now...hmmmm....or maybe I'm so old I forget stuff and then learn it again! Well, if that's the case, just think of what a happy old lady I'll be going around saying "Guess what? I learned something new today!"

Soccer evangelism in the north

Good Friday
Croyance's Visit
If you've been praying for our friends who are up in St. Michel in the north (Elysee and Croyance), THANK YOU. They have been fine/safe. Not just safe, but reaching out too.
Croyance has been up there only a few weeks, but he's already got a couple of things going on.
He has a weekly radio program going. And through the radio, he's organizing a tournament for people in the 8 sections of St. Michel. He's working with 6 pastors and they're going to do evangelism at the tournament. Croyance was here today to borrow soccer equipment for the tournament. Please pray...the tournament will be next week.

Daniel

Last month, a friend mentioned that his nephew who is taking a year off before starting college, was coming to Haiti on a short term trip and that since he likes soccer, he might be able to help Richard with soccer ministry. That was music to Richard's ears because he has been feeling overwhelmed working a lot by himself. Daniel Scheirman came toward the beginning of March and left last week. He was a big help, a good influence on kids (including our own) and a great person to be around.

Daniel helped with the soccer teams at QCS. Richard has been coaching the boys' U15 and U19 teams (basically, high school and middle school), and the other Dads who were helping couldn't continue past the beginning of the season.

He also helped us when we did a special program for "Jehu's Boys," a boys' home for orphans. Richard, Daniel and Ricky held a soccer clinic for the older boys. He shared his testimony and a great, heartfelt message (with interpretation) with the boys about having an accountability partner.

Daniel helped Richard rearrange soccer equipment to make it more accessible. He has such a great attitude, being willing to help with all kinds of things. And, even though he came from Colorado where there is almost no humidity, he didn't complain about the high humidity here.

A Special Day with Jehu's Boys

We did a special program on Saturday, March 23rd with the boys known as "Jehu's Boys" at Bolosse Campus. Jehu Mettelus who is a graduate of STEP (the seminary where we used to live) started a ministry called Center for Education and , taking in boys off the streets of Port-au-Prince. About 5 years ago he had 11 boys, now he has 23. Some of you may remember we've done other sports events with them.

For this day, we split the boys into two groups: the older ones went to the field on campus for a soccer clinic and the younger ones stayed with Joy, Phyllis Schmid and I to play at Phyllis' house. We also helped prepare and serve lunch for them. They really enjoyed it and so did we.