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