Evangelistic Match in Jean Rabel

The Regional Committee in Jean Rabel, one of the most remote parts of Haiti, did a great job organizing an evangelistic match in honor of our visit. Not only did they finance the entire game through local funding, they partnered with Compassion who provided funds for transportation and a meal for the players. AIS-Haiti's contribution to the tournament were the uniforms, balls, and sound system.

In typical fashion, the game that was supposed to start at 3 PM started at more like 4:30 PM, but the crowd was large and enthusiastic.

At the start of the game I was too busy setting up the sound system to notice that the coaches of the two teams and the referee were having a heated discussion at midfield. It seems that one of the teams had players who seemed too big to be under 15 years old, giving them a physical advantage. Even though this was just a friendly, non-tournament game, Haitians are very competitive and bragging rights of one town and one school against the other were at stake here.

However, our Board member, Elysee Vaillant noticed what was going on and intervened, suggesting that the one team offer not to play the bigger players at the start of the game. So the game started, and it was a very exciting game. Each team almost scored several times, but at the end of the first half the score was 0-0.

During half-time Sylvain used a gospel illustration with 3 balls on a stick to show how sin separtes us from God, but Christ can take away our sin and bring us close to God again. Several hundred fans heard this message and many filled out response cards which we have not yet had time to tally. These people will be followed up by the team of evangelistic counselors we trained to do this while we were there.

One young man approached a local pastor and asked trusting in Christ. The pastor was overjoyed to lead the young man to put his faith in Christ and is now more convinced than ever of how effective sports evangelism can be!

But the second half almost did not get played because the team with the bigger players were going to put them in during the second half to try and win the game. The coach of the opposing team heard about this and told his players to start walking off the field. Once again Elysee heard about this and served as an arbitrator to resolve this conflict, allowing the game to end in a 0-0 time at the end of regulation.

We were going to try to show an evangelistic film after the game, but the game ended late and then it started to rain, so we had to call it off. However, we left a copy of the film with the regional committee and they will show it to the community in the near future.

There was no score on the field, but there was rejoicing in heaven because at least on person trusted Christ as a result of the game!