Meeting With School Leaders in Verrettes

Here are Richard and Tim Ferri meeting with some of the school leaders in Verrettes. We had some problems getting everyone together at the same time, but we met with leaders from two schools on Tuesday.

We were happily surprised to find that one of the schools is still using soccer equipment we gave them 5 years ago! Richard talked about our vision for a pilot project in the area, starting about 5 soccer programs and having the teams play each other. The leaders from the Verrettes school told us they had participated in a local tournament and that they were only able to do that because Richard had given them equipment 5 years ago and they took care of it by collecting the cleats and everything after every use.

We went to visit one of the schools in the area and found that it had several pressing needs. The roof is rusted and leaking in a lot of places, the school started building new latrines but was never able to finish, they need new benches and don't have enough space for the students. It was somewhat overwhelming, but it seemed like a good thing that we could only visit one school. It seemed like God was having us focus on this one school instead of being overwhelmed by several with all these problems.

Here's Richard talking to Emmanulie, the Director of the Orem (Sp?) School that we visited.

Tim is hoping to bring a work team to do a project like this. One work project that seems logical to do first, would be to finish the latrines.

As for starting the pilot project...Richard asked the schools to select 3 or 4 teachers to come to the TREC training (AIS's training for coaches doing soccer ministry) that will be held in December. We talked about the dates and a few more details. It was a good first visit for the project.

Soccer Contest with Compassion Kids

Sunday afternoon we had the rescheduled contest for the Compassion kids that was supposed to take place at the national stadium before the big game between the Cleveland City Stars and the Haitian National U-17 team.
Eleven boys were able to come and about as many adults came with them. Although it was a shame we couldn't do it at the stadium with all the kids, this was much less crazy. At the stadium there were too many problems to deal with before the game. We had the rescheduled contest at Quisqueya Chapel which worked out great. They seemed to have a good time. There was even a short rain storm in the middle of the event, but we got the kids under the gazebo and did one of the contests there. Then they were back outside. We gave them hotdogs, chips and juice and then handed out prizes for the winners. All the kids got a book about the Bible, and the winners got a pair of cleats, a new soccer ball and a T-shirt.

It was great having Tim Ferri here visiting us from our home church. He helped out and really seemed to enjoy the kids. Later, at home, Tim hung out with some of the guys from the neighborhood. Unfortunately, most of them wanted to play only soccer. Even though basketball is really Tim's game, he played soccer. He hasn't been intimidated by not knowing the language--he's been learning a couple words each day, noticing which ones are similar to Spanish. He learned "zanmi" (friend):

Tim got here safely

Tim arrived safely today. He was held in immigration for a little while because we forgot that he would need to have our address to fill out his immigration form. After a little while, they let him go.
This afternoon he and Richard held the soccer contest with the Compassion kids who were supposed to have this the day of the big match in the stadium, but the timing didn't work out.


The kids had a great time in the soccer competition. And we provided hot dogs, plantain chips and juice for them afterward.

A Visitor!

Tim Ferri, a friend from our home church, Crossing Community Church is coming to visit us. He will arrive on Saturday and stay for a week. Tim has been a faithful member of Crossing, and we appreciate the influence he has had on our kids in Crossing's youth ministry. We've worked with him at an outreach in the Kensington section of Philadelphia, too.

Tim's goals are basically to enlarge his mission vision, to check out the possiblity of bringing a work team to Haiti in the future and to see how God may use his skills in basketball to reach Haitian youth. We have a couple of basketball clinics planned for next week and Tim will join us on our trip to Verrettes next week to see the needs of the schools out there. He will also be helping us with other ministry activities during the week.

We've really been looking forward to his visit...he's been a great encouragement to us, espcially of the past year or so, in our efforts to get back to Haiti, and get the new ministry going. Please pray for the basketball clinics and that God will use this week according to His will in all of our lives.

Pilot Project

We have chosen 5 UEBH schools to work with for a pilot project for the soccer ministry. These schools are fairly close to each other in the Verrettes area, which is about 2 1/2 hours away from Port-au-Prince. We chose schools with students supported by Compassion, Int'l. because Compassion strongly encourages the schools they assist to have a sports programs. This is often very difficult for schools in these poor areas to provide.

Tuesday morning we will be going out there to meet with the leaders from these 5 schools. Please pray that God will direct us in this.

Haitian National Under 17 team Defects in New York

We were so sad to read the news that 13 out of the 18 players on the national Under 17 team defected in New York on Wednesday during a layover on their way to the Under 17 World Cup in South Korea...and relieved to find that they have been located and 11 have come back to the squad. Two players have been sent back to Haiti as a punishment and were replaced by alternates.

We've heard about players using overseas matches as a way to leave Haiti, but this was shocking, not only because it was 13 players, but also because they were on their way to the World Cup and so many people in Haiti were excited and proud of this accomplishement.

It seems no one, except those involved, really knows why this happened. Although these young players probably had some desire to find a panacea in the US, did that alone cause them to forsake their country’s dreams of being well represented in a World Cup tournament? There were probably other factors involved since someone had to arrange the van to pick them up and whisk them away. Some suspect political motives (people trying to make the current government look bad) and maybe these guys had to deal with too much corruption and there was some anger about that. One thing we’re sure of, a lot fans in Haiti will be thrilled to see their team playing in this World Cup.

As you know, our goal in Haiti is to use soccer to develop Christian character and teamwork among Haitian school children, and this incident shows that it is not enough to develop soccer talent in Haiti. Character training must also be included if these young men are going to lead successful and fulfilling lives after their soccer careers are over and make a lasting contribution to Haiti.

You can read more about it at http://www.haitiwebs.com/ in the sports section.

Prayer request - betrayal

Please pray for Richard. He has been betrayed by a friend, someone we have helped a lot has been stealing from us and selling the stuff he steals. He has also given in to temptation on other serious issues. Please pray for him and his wife and two young children. The reason I ask for prayer for Richard, is that he really enjoyed their friendship. Since we've been back in Haiti we've tried to deal with him in gentle ways, but now it's obvious we have to "cut him off" ie. not hire him for anything anymore and not lend him money even for necesseties. After having several things confirmed by several people, we see that we would only aggravate the problem by trying to help out. There are good pastors and other Christian people he can go to for help, but Richard will miss his friendship. We pray that this young man will be honest and be willing to change so that the friendship can be restored someday.

Joy, the courageous

On Tuesday we drove Joy out to Cazale to work at a medical clinic. Wow, we were overwhelmed by the place. They do 3 clinic days a week and see about 250-300 people each of those days. The rescue mission there cares for a lot of kids. In fact, they hire about 65 Haitian people to take care of them 24 hours a day. We were amazed and impressed with the work that Lori Moise, her sister, Licia, their Dad and their husbands, along with all the Haitian workers do in that relatively small space, 11 kilometers away from civilization :).

We were a little queasy seeing the children with severe malnutrition and just being in the crowded, warm clinic. And of course, we've all been sick lately, so we weren't surprised when we called Joy on Wednesday morning and found out she had passed out. She said she was OK, though, and wanted to stay. The next day she felt sick, but she still wanted to stay to learn something and hopefully help out.

Yesterday she talked about witnessing stitches and putting an IV in a baby's arm. For those of you who don't know, Joy has wanted to help Haitian kids in some medical capacity, but she's never been anxious to deal with blood. But, I guess, she can't avoid some of that, and now she's got the opportunity to see what goes on first hand. Pray for her...that God would use this to give her direction...and for her protection.
Sorry, no pictures, yet, until she comes back, or puts some on facebook. But you can check out Lori's and Licia's blogs.
xanga.com/haitinurse4life
xanga.com/no_I'm_not_a_nurse

Captain of the Flora team

The captain of the Flora team shared about his relationship with Jesus and

how much that has meant in his life.

Fun at the Beach

Pics of St. Marc game

Pics - Cap Haitien Match

Tour Results so far: Cleveland City Stars 2-2-0, 6 points

The Cleveland City Stars beat Haiti's ACS professional team in Cap Haitien (3-1) putting the results for the Tour so far at 2 wins, 2 losses, no ties and 6 points scored. Several of our players have been dealing with some traveller's diarrhea and dehydration. So, unfortunately, not all of them could go up to Cap Haitien. Goals at that game were scored by James Jaggard, Alec Lemmon and Carlos Calderson...Hope I got the names right, I'll have Rich check them when he gets home :).

Tomorrow is the last match of the Tour, the Futsal match against the Haitian National Futsal team in Port-au-Prince. This morning the team was headed out from Cap Haitien to see the Citadel, the most famous historic site in Haiti.

I'm sorry I'm not able to post the news and pictures on this blog sooner. More details and pictures will be added as soon as possible.

Carlos Calderson, Kent and Aaron Tredway in Port-au-Prince

Carlos Calderson, CCS Reserve Team Coach, Kent Manson, leader of the tour and Aaron Tredway, Executive Director of CCS at the Sylvio Cator Stadium in Port-au-Prince.

Pics at the big stadium in Port-au-Prince

Pastor Pierre of Campus Pour Christ speaking at Hafltime.
Pastor Bilda
speaking during the second half of the game...doing what the Haitians call 'chofe' - warming up the crowd and making sure everyone knew about the door prizes.

Update on St. Marc

I’m sorry the news is a bit slow in coming, I haven’t always been able to reach Rich on his cell phone up north. Finally, here’s an update of the past couple of days. (And I still can’t upload pictures until Rich comes home tomorrow afternoon.)

On Monday and Tuesday, the team played two games, one against Flora, in Arcahaie and one in St. Marc against Tempete, a professional team in that city. In the game in Arcahaie, Flora won 2-0. In the game in St. Marc the Cleveland City Stars won 2-1.

Even though they didn’t win the Arcahaie game, Richard said that the team captain of the Flora team, who is a Christian, shared about his life with the spectators at halftime, and then went out to score a goal right away. In St. Marc, kids could come on to the field after the game to play and hangout with the CCS players. They really like the interaction with the kids…that’s what it’s all about.

At each game, door prizes have been given out and at the Flora game, we gave the Flora team some equipment, as well. The way this has been organized is that the spectators fill out a card with their name and address and they can indicate if they received Christ as their Savior, or if they would like more information, or have a prayer request they would like to share. The counselors at each game give out and collect the cards, then there is the drawing, and finally they sort the cards to see what follow up should be done. At Port-au-Prince 629 checked that they had received Christ as their Savior, At Arcahaie, 55.

In each town we visit there are really two teams that are involved in the game. The Cleveland City Stars, of course who play on the physical soccer field, and the team of counselors who are in the stands talking with people and distributing the response cards. This team is working in the spiritual realm where hearts are changed and life-changing decisions are made.

In St. Marc we were blessed to have a particularly well-trained and enthusiastic team of counselors working with us, and out of the several thousand people that were there, 170 indicated that they had come to know Christ personally.

Tomorrow the team gets a break and then they come back to Port-au-Prince in the afternoon. They leave for Cap Haitien on Thursday morning to play ACS Thursday afternoon. The old “Montezuma’s revenge” has hit a few of the players and one leader, so pray that they feel better soon, and that no one else has health problems.

The big match in the stadium

Thank you for praying for the big match at the stadium
First, some answers to prayer:
· The weather was good for the game – a light drizzle while it was starting and then it cleared up.
· None of the players were sick.
· No one was seriously injured.
· Pastor Pierre did a good job presenting the gospel.
· The turn out was pretty good
· Our STEP (seminary) intern has been doing a great job

As for the game…Haiti won 2 to 1. The Stars are a team of very good individual players, but this team has not played together for very long—only about 3 weeks. I’m sure that being in a third-world country for the first time (for most of the players) had an effect. Also, the locker room was very hot before the game, but the air conditioning was finally turned on.

Forgive me for writing this post so late, and with no pictures, I caught a nasty cold/flu that's been going around. All day yesterday I had a sore throat and headache and last night I had a fever.

More about the Port-au-Prince match

It was a very difficult day for Richard and me. At 7:00 am we went to pick up “pates” (pronounced pah-tay) to be sold at concession stands at the game. Since the Federation was getting all the money from the ticket sales, we were looking for a way to recoup expenses and we were told we could do the concessions. But when we were told by the Federation that they would not take any percentage of that, we thought we would have all the profits. But later we found out that the Stadium was taking 60%. That’s why we were trying the sale of “pates”. But in retrospect, it added an extra stress that we did not need. And not many were sold because there are vendors who carry baskets around in the stands and there was no announcement that these pates were on sale at the concession stands.

After picking up other things and taking them all to the stadium, we went to church. One of the players, Elijah, did a great job giving his testimony. After church we all went back to the hotel for the brunch there, but it was served an hour late. We wished we hadn’t waited for it because when we got to the stadium there were more problems. First, we had a problem at the gate. The counselors were supposed to meet in the conference room, but they were not allowed in the gate that would give them access to it because most of them had the lower priced tickets. Then we were told we could not use the conference room. So we had the counselors split up, some in the cheaper section, some in the higher priced section. This made the organization of the counselors difficult.

We had heard from our announcer, via phone, that there was no sound system yet. (Their’s had broken and they had agreed to rent one). Then as soon as we got in, the Federation people called us into their office. They were upset because they heard Richard “talking” on the radio & other announcements of the game that gave the ticket price as 50 gourdes, when it had been changed to 100 gourdes. (see previous post ). They also told us that they would lose money on this match and they asked Richard what they should do about that. Richard showed them where he had taken notes in his notebook about the President of the Federation approving the 50g ticket price and reminded them that they had changed the ticket price only a week before the game. Radio spots and interviews had already been taped. After this, we didn’t know if they would have a sound system or not, but they did. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let our announcer emcee the game, even though they had agreed to this before. We were supposed to have players give their testimony before the game, but that didn’t happen—I’m still not exactly sure why.

Another issue that complicated halftime was that the Federation’s sponsor, Digicel, decided to do a presentation of cell phones to a few of their players at that time. And people did not stop talking while Pastor Pierre made his presentation. We thank the Lord that you could still hear him over the talking, but most likely some people were not paying attention. We did get a lot of decision cards handed out, filled in and collected. Of course, it will take time to sort them out and set up the follow-up. One reason people filled them out was that we gave away door prizes. There was a sticky situation for a few minutes when two people showed up to collect the first prize of a laptop. But Pastor Pierre and Pastor Bilda handled it really well, calmly and with smiles. It turned out that these men had names that sounded almost exactly the same.

Cleveland City Stars Arrive!

Finally...here's a picture of the players on the Federation bus at the airport with their Haitian flags. Sorry this is out of order, more recent pics below.

At the orphanage yesterday

Yesterday some of the players went to the Servants in Haiti orphanage and had a good time playing basketball and soccer.

Haitian National Under 17 team & coach

This was an interview with Richard and the coach of the Haitian National U17 Team and a picture of the whole team, during a recent game in the national stadium.

Police & Digicel girls picture

Here are our faithful security police officers and in the background, on the bus, you can see two of the Digicel girls (mentioned in a previous post) while the bus is being loaded at the airport.

Surprising welcoming party, police escort, a good beginning

They're here!
Yesterday afternoon the Cleveland City Stars reserve team arrived in Port-au-Prince for their goodwill tour. Richard went to the airport in the driving rain to pick them up, but by the time all the players and luggage got through, the rain had stopped. Richard was not the only one to greet them. It seems that the Federation (Haitian Soccer Federation) sent not only the bus and security escort, but several "Digicel girls" as well. Digicel, a cell phone company, is an/the official sponsor the Federation. When I heard that, I was worried that they might be dressed like Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, but they were dressed normally, wearing bright red Digicel T-shirts.

The police escort was pretty exciting. Two policemen on motorcycle led the bus through the crowded rush hour streets to make it to the hotel in record time. The Federation really came through. The bus was not only air-conditioned, but actually cold.

The players got into their rooms, had dinner and then we had a time of worship and orientation.

Several of the players expressed their eagerness to jump into this cross-cultural experience--they loved the Chips Bananes (Plantain chips) and wanted to learn some phrases in Creole.

Of course, God is doing little special things all along the way and we want to share them with you. One of them was that Rod Meadth (Math teacher at QCS who leads the QCS Chapel worship band & does worship at this church) came to lead the worship and did a great job as usual. Also, it worked out to bring Joy and Ricky to help lead worship. Ricky played his Haitian drum and Joy sang. The kids and I can't participate in a lot of the activities because it's the end of the school year and we have final exams & projects (and grading). Another blessing was the room we got to meet in. We had been disappointed that El Rancho, the hotel, could not provide a free room for us to meet in. We were going to walk up to a nearby restaurant because the owner had said he would give us a room for free for the evening. But a couple things changed, Richard met a "brother" who worked and a group who was using a large meeting room finished their seminar for the day, so we got to meet in there. We really appreciated that.

So it was a good beginning.
Today, the team went down to the stadium for a practice and some were going to do a Coaches Clinic and to visit the Servants of Haiti orphanage in Cite Militaire.

trying to keep you posted....
Carol

SCHEDULE OF MATCHES - Cleveland City Stars

It just occured to me that some people here in Haiti might be looking on this blog for the schedule of matches. Here it is:

DATE & TIME : GAME (TICKET PRICE)
Sun. June 3rd at 5 pm: vs. Haitian National U17 team in the Sylvio Cator Stadium (100 gdes.)
Mon. June 4th at 4 pm: vs. Flora in Arcahaie (100 gdes.)
Tues. June 5th at 4 pm: vs. Tempete in Saint Marc (100 gdes.)
Thurs. June 7th at 4 pm: vs. ASC in Cap Haitien (100 gdes.)
Sat. June 9th at 4 pm: Futsal Match against Haitian National Futsal team at Place Jeremie (free)

Tickets must be bought at the gate, we don't have them ahead of time.
There will be Christian music playing and a halftime presentation with interviews of a few players.
Hope to see you there!