More pictures of South Africa

Rich with John Ortlip, the President of AIS Int'l.

We visited "Cape Point", where the Indian and Atalantic oceans meet.

Jon Ortlip grew up as a missionary kid in Haiti and that is the main reason he is so excited about what God is doing through us here.

Being in South Africa certainly gave me a world perspective on how God is using soccer ministry all over the world to reach everyone from prisoners in some of the worst prisons in the world to top professional players in the US, England and now Nairobi through the Nairobi City Stars, an international subsidiary of the Cleveland City Stars.

I've come back to Haiti encouraged and ready to see what God is going to do through us, and the team of Haitian leaders he has assembled for his glory here in Haiti!

Pictures of Rich's trip to South Africa

Rich with Peter from Nigeria and his Pastor Rich helped out with a coach's training on his first day in South Africa after travelling 36 hours!

Rich tries cricket for the first time and stays at bat for 5 minutes and about 20 runs!

Leaders from 12 out of the 15 countries that have Ambassadors in Sport ministries were represented at the International Leader's conference.

We had a great time discussing strategy and learning from each other.

I praise God for the opportunity I had to attend this conference!

Thanks for praying!

If you prayed for this, thank you! Joy was accepted at Eastern University's Templeton Honors College and was offered a good scholarship. She has been accepted at 3 colleges and now it seems that the decision is down to 2 of them. It's a relief for her to know that she's done with the applications and she has good possibilities.

Prayer request

Please pray for our daughter Joy -
1. for God's guidance about which college to attend, and
2. for her to be able to attend a CNA training program in June-July so that she can work as a CNA throughout her college years. It's going to be hard to get everything set up with us not being in PA because the Department on Aging has a lot of requirements. We're planning to get to PA around June 13th (and the program starts the 16th) because Joy graduates May 30th and she wants to do one last medical missions trip before spending most of her time in the US for a while.

Carol’s list of 25 random reasons why it’s good to be a missionary

Carol’s list of 25 random reasons why it’s good to be a missionary

1. You’re doing at least one thing God said to do.
2. If the liberals win the presidency, you have the consolation of the people in the country where you work being happy with the U.S.
3. You can appease your guilt right away because “the-starving-kids-in-Africa” are right next door.
4. You read more.
5. If your kid ever wants to be President someday, he or she can talk about how his different worldview gained while living overseas qualifies him for handling international affairs (that is, if being really conservative becomes politically correct)
6. You learn to appreciate things that are taken for granted sometimes.
7. You get automatic practice with learning patience and learning to trust God.
8. You get automatic help with your vow to not watch too much T.V.
9. You get less junk mail and hardly any sales calls. (Although I got one here in Haiti on my internet phone from a Fast Burn Weight Loss Farm. I didn’t have time to explain how I’m sort of already at one.)
10. Lots of people want to be your friend (so what if it’s because you’re a rich American who can take them to the U.S. where they can live happily ever after?)
11. You have a great excuse to spend time on facebook – keeping up w/ supporters
12. You get to play board games with your kids, because there’s not much else to do.
13. The people you live with say you’re really good at the language. (Unless you live in France.)
14. You tend to lose weight instead of gain because of withdrawal from American food addictions.
15. Women actually wish they had your hair.
16. You get more exercise than most Americans.
17. Instead of getting snow days off, which require you to shovel snow or pick at ice, you get political days off with no snow or ice.
18. You get to be around missionaries, who are really great people.
19. People think you’re better than you are because you’re a missionary.
20. You do things you never thought you could do.
21. Christmas is not too commercial anymore & it’s easier to avoid things like Halloween if you want to.
22. You’re likely to get to drive a truck and a motorcycle (unless your wife says no)
23. You learn by experience not to panic so much in scary situations.
24. You learn to be resourceful (in Creole, you learn to degaje)
25. You get frequent flyer miles and you pay less income tax.

Update on Richard's trip coming

Richard got back safely on Monday, excited about the trip, but quite sick with a stomach flu. There were urgent things to be done and now I'm sick. Today there is an AIS Haiti board meeting and then, hopefully we can post an update on the trip to South Africa.

Josh is doing great, thanks for the prayers

Yesterday we went to see Josh in the hospital and we amazed that he wasn't in his room! He had taken a walk with his mother to the terrace on the floor below. He was walking, talking and later using a laptop! He's in pain, a little groggy, but amazingly well! The last CAT scan showed no leakage of spinal fluid. Thank you for your prayers. He should be going home to Titayen today.

Here's a picture of the youth praise band leading worship on Youth Sunday at Quisqueya Chapel. Joy's leading, (in the middle) Josh Brumley is on the left with his red electric guitar. Ricky, is on drums to the left of Josh.

Pray for Josh, MK who fell from a roof (22 feet)

Please pray with us for Josh Brumley, the son of missionaries here in Haiti who fell from the top of a building (22 feet) Sunday night. Ricky & Joy are friends with him through their youth group and through Worship teams for both youth & Sunday AM. Ricky & he have spent the night over each others' houses to get together because he lives about 40 minutes from us. Sunday morning Joy was just saying how much she appreciates him because of his commitment to the Lord and great attitude. She was considering him as the best one to take over the leadership of the worship team when she graduates even though he's Ricky's age.
I think it's amazing how well he's doing considering what happened, but I don't think he's out of the woods yet. He has 2 fractures in his skull and one in his nasal cavity. Here's an email from his parents to explain where he is at this point.
"Just a note to tell you that Josh had a good night last night and if he continues to improve, they will take his catheter out and let him get up a little. he still is having headaches (may for awhile), but they are not as severe as they were for a time and we are thankful for that. He is very sore all over and has bruises everywhere. His fall was about 22 feet and he landed on his shoulders and back of his head as far as our intern who was with him saw. It is pretty miraculous that he has no other broken bones. There is a chance he may have some hairline fractures in his back or ribs, but it wouldn't show up on an xray for awhile if he does.Thank you , thank you for all of your prayers and e-mails and offers of help. Thanks for putting him on prayer chains-he has been prayed for everywhere (all over the world) and we are overwhelmed with that.It means so much that you are all standing with us. We pray we are past having to airlift him and it won't be necessary-we still are watching him for a cerebral spinal fluid leak because of the fractured ethmoid sinus, but so far so good and every day that goes by lessens that chance. We are also watching for any signs of seizures-that can happen after a head injury. He has shown no signs of that and at this point the doctors don't think we have to put him on medication, but we need to have it at home in case it should happen.We will repeat the CAT scan tomorrow morning and if it looks okay, we hope to go home Saturday! Josh has wanted to go home since he got here and it's hard for him that we are here day after day, but we have no choice and we are encouraging him to hang in there.We will write more as we have internet (the hospital helped us get on their network-they have been very kind and accommodating and we are very appreciative).We love you all, Chris and Sheryl

Our neighbors

Please pray for our outreach in our neighborhood. I've been getting to know Sophia, who is only 16, but the mother of a 2 year old (Sophonie). She and 2 other families live in an unfinished, abandoned house down the street from us. Several children from that "house" come to visit us...James, Katie-Fleur, Katie Belle-Branche, Dodline and others. Please pray for wisdom in knowing how to react to their physical needs and how to connect with them about their spiritual needs. Hopefully I'll be able to post a picture of some of these cute, smiley faces soon.

Safe arrival in Capetown

Richard made it to Capetown! Here's what he said in an email to me:

"It is beautiful here – our guesthouse is right on the wide sandy beach of the Souther most tip of Africa – Cape Town. I am looking out at the sea and can hear the waves as I am typing this.

I arrived in Cape Town about 6 AM local time. Right now it is 8:30 AM Haitian time [3:30 pm in South Africa] and I have not been able to get into my room and sleep yet – this means I have been up for over 44 hours with only about 3-4 hours of fitful sleep on the way over the Atlantic on Sunday night. I could not sleep at all on the 12 hour flight down to South Africa from Munich, Germany because of the narrow seats....more later..."

Richard is on his way to AIS's International Leaders' Conference in South Africa

Richard got on his way yesterday to New York, then Amsterdam, then Munich, and finally Capetown...but that will be tomorrow morning! I didn't realize it would be two nights in airplanes! Pray that he won't be too exhausted when he arrives.
And...we're still praising God that he provided for Richard to be able to be there! How exciting.