Tournament in La Pointe - the best yet!

The Tournament at La Pointe - The best yet!

Yesterday I flew to the North coast of Haiti to visit the 7th tournament of this summer.

I was delighted with what I found.

In spite of all the obstacles of organizing a soccer tournament in Haiti, the committee had done an excellent job.

First of all, not all of the 8 schools we invited participated, so they had to re-organize the schedule.

Then some of the food we sent up on a bus got soaked with rain because the bus broke down en route.

In addition, they decided to allow two teams to stay in dormitories for the week since one is over an hour away and the other is a 2 hour walk.

Last night I shared my testimony with the two teams that were staying overnight. They listened intently as I told them how my Father was murdered when I was 11 and how God used that experience to draw me to him and also to ask him to give me the power to forgive the man who killed my Dad.
Most of them don't have Dad's, so they were touched by what I said.

Afterwards, I reflected on what a blessing it is to be able to speak to these dear boys in their own language and be able to share heart-to-heart a story they could really relate to. God has given me this ability, and I want to use it for His glory as long as He permits me to.

It was a miracle that we were able to provide food for this tournament because all summer we were praying for food, but not until last week did we actually receive any.

So this week each day we feed over 200 players and coaches. This allowed everyone to stay all morning for the Bible studies and then have enough energy to play the matches in the afternoons.

In addition to organizing the matches and arranging for the food, the committee also raised about $150 US from local businesses. This is the most of any tournament this summer, and is something we want to encourage so that eventually each tournament can become entirely supported by their respective communities.

Right now the players are participating in a Bible contest and the winner will be announced soon.

This afternoon is the second Semi-final and Sunday will be the final.

We are going to do Evangelism during both of these games and in the evenings we will show 2 different evangelistic films.

We hope to share the Gospel with hundreds of spectators during these two games and already have a team of trained evangelistic counselors to help us with the follow up.

It's great to see our local leaders catching the vision and sharing it with churches, schools and even businesses in the community!