Teams, Tournaments, even one for girls!

On Saturday, July 5th Ian Moore, Jonathan Bryant, Steven Gassaway from the US and Frantz and Jean Paul, our Haitian helpers all arrived safely back in Port-au-Prince. God protected us in many ways on this two-week trip around Haiti. No one got seriously sick, the truck did not break down, there were no accidents, nothing of great value was stolen, and we did not run out of money. We drove over 500 miles on some of the roughest roads of Haiti. The roads were so rough that my metal cage around the back of my truck came un-welded in several places and by the time we reached home every seam was cracked. Thankfully, this happened on the last day as we were entering Port-au-Prince, otherwise we would have had major packing problems!

Another AACH team arrived in Port-au-Prince on Saturday as well. Opal Golden and three High School students from the school she teaches at in New York state arrived and we all had a grand reunion at our house. Altogether, 13 people ate and slept at our house on Saturday night – a record for sure. Four of the guys slept on our roof to escape the heat and humidity in our house.

This team was headed to Les Cayes in southern Haiti to run a U-15 tournament for boys from July 7-13th and the first ever girl's tournament from July 14-20th.

Thanks to the generosity of another ministry, we now have another truck for the AACH/AIS soccer ministries to share. It is a big 'ol Chevy pick up, army vintage with a diesel engine that has benches and lots of room for stuff.

We packed up the team heading off to Les Cayes on early Sunday morning and sent them on their way. They have been having a great time helping with the tournament there and have been working hard to build relationships with local churches so that those who trust Christ through the many outreaches during the tournament can be followed up with.

Just before we left we posed in front of the big truck for a picture. (Hopefully we'll be able to upload that soon) It's neat to think that just about two years ago Carol and I returned to Haiti with a vision for using soccer as a tool for evangelism not knowing anyone else who had the same vision. Now through our partnership with AACH, we have hosted two teams from the US and now work with about 100 Haitian leaders in 8 out of the 11 departments (like states) in Haiti.