Thanksgiving weekend we decided to go and look at the campus where we had made reservations for TREC, the soccer training we are planning for Dec. 26th to Jan 5th, 2008.
Carol and I thought the facilities looked great – very plain but neat and clean with lots of space for our 50 participants. We also went and visited the full-size soccer field that we had seen from the road as we drove in. Unfortunately, it was full of tractor-tire ruts and was very uneven. It looked like it hadn’t been played on for a long time, and was in bad shape, but nothing a small bull-dozer couldn’t fix in a few hours. The person who gave us the tour said that the field was technically in a restricted part of campus, so the next day we called up the person responsible for the camp grounds to ask if he would make an exception to the rules and let us use the soccer field.
Unfortunately, the director said “No” which means we now had to find another place to hold the first week of the TREC training which is only a few weeks away.
I called up Ernest Sauvignon, my Haitian friend who works with the Haitian Soccer Federation and has lots of contacts and set a date to try and resolve our logistical problems.
We started out the day by asking God to help us figure out all the options. First we talked to the director of the guest house in Port-au-Prince where we had reservations for the second week of training. He was very gracious and flexible and said that he would help us fit everyone, in spite of the fact that some rooms were already taken.
Then we visited the National Stadium and found the Director right away. He said that we could probably use the stadium for the first week of training as well as the second week, but he would have to check.
Then we went to a sports center in Carrefour, about 20 minutes from the guest house we would be staying at. This sports center was built in the 80’s and in its heyday was magnificent. It had a wood-floor gym, an Olympic- size swimming pool, a stadium with a track and a soccer field in the middle, and several basketball courts. Unfortunately, nothing has been maintained and the once beautiful swimming pool is full of stagnant water and is now a mosquito factory.
The soccer field has not fared much better and is full of holes which have been filled with sand. Wasps have made their home in this sand and besides the possibility of getting stung; you can also twist your ankle when you go from hard dirt to soft sand suddenly.
We decided that this was not the best field to train on.
Then we went to our third option. A field at a Haitian Coast Guard outpost within walking distance of the guest house. We had sent them a letter back in October requesting the use of the field, but had not heard from them. So we stopped by and took a quick look at the field, which was in much better condition than the one at the sports center.
After about a 30 minute wait, we were taken to the commandant’s office who refused to see us, but ordered the personnel office to look into our request. To our great surprise, after about another 30 minutes, we walked out with a signed copy of our letter giving us the right to use the field in the morning from Dec. 27th to Dec 31st. This is a miracle because in government circles in Haiti it can take months to get permission to do anything!
So because God knew we would have this problem, he arranged for us to resolve it in a short time as we prayed in faith and trusted him to work. This doesn’t always happen. Sometimes God wants to teach us patience. But God’s hand was so evident that day that we just rejoice in his power on behalf of those who trust in Him!
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