Some ninth grade students helped us put together booklets for "The Peacemaker for Youth" (in Creole) the study to be used with the players on the AIS-Haiti soccer teams. Here they are in my classroom at QCS.

Richard left this morning with Sylvain and Ronald to go out to Verrettes and Gonaives. They will reconnect with the leaders in those areas and train the leaders in using the Peacemaker study.

Rich prepares for a Road Trip

This weekend Rich, Sylvain and Ronald will embark on their first in a series of trips to visit each of AIS Haiti's seven Regional Committees.

During these trips we will visit our 56 evangelistic soccer teams supervised by 7 regional committees throughout Haiti so that we can train the chaplains in a curriculum a fellow Crossworld missionary has translated into Creole: Ken Sande's The Young Peacemaker.

In addition to this important training, these trips will also allow us to accomplish the following:

1. Train the members of the Regional Committees in leadership and financial skills.
2. Distribute over 1000 lbs of soccer equipment we have already received in Haiti.
3. Help each region prepare an annual plan and prepare an outreach during the 2010 World Cup
4. Deliver over 20,000 pieces of Christian literature: Bibles, tracts and materials in Creole to be used to evangelism and discipleship.

Normally, three AIS Haiti leaders will go on each trip: Richard Mears, AIS Haiti Director, Ronald William, AIS Haiti Board member and Coaching Supervisor; Sylvain Nelson, AIS Head Administrator and Chaplain Supervisor.

This trip will take us to Verettes and Gonaives and will last from Oct. 31 to Nov. 4th.

Please pray for safety in travel and a good time of training and fellowship with our volunteer leaders in Gonaives.

Adjust your mirrors!

This morning as I was driving Carol and Ricky to school we got behind an SUV with both mirrors cock-eyed. The one on the right was tilted up to the sky, while the one on the left was pointing down. In otherwords, they were useless for what they were intended for.

This reminds me of when I forge ahead with my life without praying and consulting God's word for wisdom. God's Word says that all things recorded there are to teach us and give us wisdom. Sometimes we have to look backwards in order to get perspective on our current situation.

God to this day asks us to remember his sacrifice for us through the sacrement of Holy communion. He wants the Jews to remember the way he delivered them from the Egyptians, and so he tells them to celebrate the Passover from generation to generation.

Remembering God's great works in our lives and the lives of his people is like us adjusting our rear-view mirrors on the car: By looking backwards, we can often see what's coming at us in the future.

So it's always a good idea to adjust your mirrors before you start driving, but it's even more important to look backwards and remember the work of God in your life and ask Him for perspective and wisdom to handle what coming up behind you!

Punctuation by God

I'm always hesitant to claim "God gave me this verse" or that He's speaking through one because I suspect some people say stuf f like that too easily. But...

After posting on Sunday morning about Psalm 90 v. 1 which I had been reading & praying back to God, I got up, got dressed, went to church, sat down and what was the very first thing read? You guessed it, Psalm 90! I think God was saying "yes, I did say that" and was putting the exclamation mark on that for me.

This weekend

Here are some verses God has given me (Carol):
1. "Lord, you have been our dwelling place throughout all generations." Ps. 90:1
2. "Wait for the Lord, Be strong and take heart and wait for the Lord." Ps. 27:14

Here's what it seems the significance of each of the verses is:
1. The first could be God talking to me about an office for AIS. The office we've shared has not worked out very well. It's where we had the cybercafe and we were sharing with another ministry. (and it was not very big). We're not renewing after this month, so that's ending. We don't have another place and there really isn't money at this time to rent one. Richard mainly uses Joy's room since she's at college, but it's not really adequate for many of the needs. Our house is pretty small, not accessible by public transportation (people have to walk about a 1/4 mile and part of it is up a big hill), etc. But yesterday we had two meetings out on our porch, where we've had most AIS meetings. Our colleagues in AIS never complain about the walk to our house. Sometimes we go drive out to the "main road" in our neighborhood to pick them up or drop them off, or even out to the main road of this area. The point is God is in control of this and all other needs of the ministry.
2. I know the one about wait for the Lord is ALWAYS applicable, but for me now it's very much applicable to having to wait and take things slowly with the soccer & business ministries. A few weeks ago we mentioned that our good friend Ronald lost his job as soccer coach at a high school. He has worked a lot for the soccer ministry, but aren't able to pay him for his work. We help him out as we can. But it makes me anxious for us to get a business or businessES started that can support the ministry, so that we can eventually have a couple people supported to focus on the ministry. We do want to promote the idea of volunteer work in ministry, but it's hard when people have such dire needs. In his case, here he is jobless, no income, but people see him busy with activity in AIS and they assume he gets money for it. He has to tell them 'No, I don't. This is volunteer work.' But those who know that it's run by an American probably have a hard time explaining that.
Please pray for Ronald. His beautiful attitude and faith through frustrating the conditions of his termination for that job are a huge inspiration to us.

Girls' Small Group

Yesterday I had my first meeting of my small group for girls that is part of the Youth Ministry of Quisqueya Chapel. I think it was a good start.

The small groups this year are "interest groups," and ours will be doing some baking, cooking, sewing and crafts. We are also studying the book of Mark (as is the whole church--in small groups). I am co-leading with a another missionary who was out of the country this week, but is coming back this week. We have 9 7th and 8th graders, half of them MKs and half of them girls from the neighborhood around Quisqueya Chapel. It will be a challenge to get them to connect. Last year's group didn't go so well in that regard. But this year, instead of having the small group as a 10 minute activity at the end of the youth meeting, we're allowing more time and going to our homes when possible.

Yesterday we started out meeting at the church. I share a song with the girls (from my laptop) that I just discovered and really love. It's called "By Your Side" and it's by Tenth Avenue North. My daughter Joy recommended it. It fit perfectly with our Bible Study from the first part of Mark about the baptism of repentence. I shared with them what I had heard online by the musician who wrote it. He was expressing how God was impressing on him that when we sin, we can go to God immediately. He doesn't need us to feel bad about for a certain amount of time or try to get better first before repenting and enoying his forgiveness. Of course regretting the sin is part of the process and we should focus on not sinning in that way again, but we can come to him right away "in the dead of night" as the author says.

After the song, Introductions, Bible study and discussion, I got out my beads. I showed them how I like to make beaded bookmarks and stretchy ribbon bookmarks to sell to help people in need. (one of the goals of our group is to help others with the things we make.) But I told them that whenever anybody helps me with these, it seems they really want to make a necklace. So for the first day I let each girl make one necklace or pair of earrings for herself.

Just to let you know what kinds of things we'll deal with in the group....I'll share this....
One of the girls lives in an orphanage (J) and is being adopted by a Canadian family. But this adoption has been taking years. I dont' know what she's been through before she came to the orphanage, or what it's like for her living with 50 (?) or more girls, the directors and some nannys (boys are in a separate home, babies, I think, are with the girls). Anyway, she made a beautiful pair of earrings quickly and then started making other ones. I reminded her that she was only allowed to make one pair for herself. She immediately (and expressionlessly) put everything back in one of my bins and sat there. Still showing no emotion. I didn't know what to make of it so I wen taround to other girls for a bit. Then I said she could make a necklace if she wanted, because I don't have many earring holders. She turned me down. Just sat there. Later one of the MKs was having a hard time tying a knot and remembered that I had remarked about how well "J" did at tying tiny knots for her earrings, so she asked her to help her. "J" went over and helped her (still expressionless). At the end I said, "J, don't you want to take a pair of earrings?" "No."
I don't know what was going on inside. ('I don't need your stupid earrings!' ? or 'I was making them for YOU to SELL!' ?.....no idea.) All last year she was in my group and hardly talked. I'm sure her English is a little lacking too. Pray for her please. As I said, I have no idea--yet--what she's been through or what it's like for her.
Thanks,
Carol

Shipment Arrives!

Yesterday morning (Oct 12), Ronald William (in white T-shirt in the picture) and I made a place in our storage room for the 31 boxes we shipped from the US.

Then in the afternoon we drove outside of Port-au-Prince to pick up the shipment of soccer equipment. We drove out with two pickup trucks and made good time in the sweltering heat of mid-day.

When we got there, they simply loaded one pallet on each pick-up with a fork lift, and since they were still shrink-wrapped, we just secured them with bungy cords and drove away!

When we arrived, we had lots of help from Ecdes' brother and cousin and we were able to unload and put the boxes in storage in less than an hour.

Now the exciting part: We get to distribute the equipment! We have several hundred soccer balls, and 5-6 boxes of sneakers plus some clothes to send to our regional committees.

Many thanks to Christian Aid Ministries for handling all the details of the shipment and customs, and to Jason Hoeckele for helping us gather and pack the equipment in the US. And of course, we thank all who donated equipment this summer, and appreciate the many individuals (especially Ian Moore) and organizations that are still collecting things for us such as AACH, Germantown Academy and Calvary Chapel in Philadelphia!

If you have some things to donate, please e-mail me and I will tell you where to send the items.

God loves the poor!

Last week I (Rich) was feeling overwhelmed by the needs of those around me in Haiti. Everyday I have needy people knocking at my gate in legitimate need and it breaks my heart to turn them away. But even Jesus did not heal everyone who came to him, and so I pray for the wisdom of Solomon to know how to handle each situation.

But then I got a phone call from a friend of a missionary I know named “Ti Frere” or “Little Brother” (Even though he is in his 20's and is taller than me!). He said that he had been trying to get a hold of my missionary friend because he needed some medical care.

He explained that he felt like something was wrong with his jaw. This was a serious problem since he had a big operation last year to remove his cancerous jaw bone and replace it with bone grated in from his ribs. A generous oral surgeon had come from the US to do this normally very expensive operation for free.

I called my friend in the US and she said that she herself needed an operation and had no money to help Ti Frere at this time. But she suggested that we get an x-ray done to find out the seriousness of the problem. Well, Ti Frere didn't have any money for an x-ray, so we prayed about the situation and I decided to call my Haitian Dentist and ask if he would do an x-ray for free.

He said he would! So we went to his office and after he looked at the x-ray he said he had a Cuban friend who was an oral surgeon and he would ask her to look at Ti Frere that afternoon for free! Well Ti Frere was right – he knew something was wrong. It turned out he had an infection in his bone graft and if it was not removed soon, his whole re-built jaw would be in jeopardy.

I explained to the oral surgeon that Ti Frere had no money, and so she generously offered to do the operation two days from then (Friday, Oct. 9) for only $200 US. So we prayed again and wrote an e-mail to his missionary friend in the US and also to the pastor of his church in Haiti.
The next day, we got a call from his pastor in Haiti. While the pastor did not recognize the young man's name, he had compassion for him and understood the urgency of the need. He gave the $200 needed for the operation!!!

So on Friday morning I gave the money to Ti Frere and also gave him some money for car fare and food that evening.

That afternoon I went to see Ti Frere and he was doing well. His Mom and sister were there taking care of him and he looked good.

This whole incident reminded me that God loves the poor, and that God has ways of providing for them that I could never imagine. All I need to do is be sensitive to God's Holy Spirit and let him show me who He wants me to help, and trust that He will provide for the ones I cannot through other people.

Please pray for Ti Frere as he recovers, and that he will discover God's plan for his life.

The Perfect Uniforms!

One of our leaders from Limbe, which is about 5 hours north of Port-au-Prince, met with me last week. His name is Pastor Peggy and he is a professor at the Christian University of North Haiti in Limbe. Pastor Peggy had come to Port looking to purchase soccer uniforms for the University team. He was a bit discouraged after visiting several places and getting a quote of $1,800 US for a set of new uniforms.

We talked about his region's plans for the year. This fall they are planning on having a inter-school tournament with 6 schools in the area. At this point none of the teams in his regions have uniforms, so I invited him back to the house to look at the 4-5 sets of uniforms I brought back from the states. His eyes lit up when he found beautiful home and away Diadora Uniforms in forest green and white. He told me these were the colors of the University!

These uniforms came all the way from Ohio and were collected by a college student for a school project. But God knew we needed them in Limbe, Haiti, and so he sent them all the way here.
Unfortunately, these two sets of uniforms will have to be shared between the University, and the 6 schools that will participate in the tournament.

So please ask your contacts if they can donate any uniform sets to us. We have about 80 teams involved at this point and only a handful have uniforms.

Quisqueya Chapel Youth!

I (Carol) have been involved with the Youth Ministry at Quisqueya Chapel (an English church here in Port-au-Prince) last year and this year. It has grown so much! I'm so excited to see all these young people coming out on Saturday afternoon! We might have had 90 this week.

This week we are starting small groups. Please pray for my small group of 8 girls.

Update by Carol

Last week we celebrated Richard's birthday, this week, mine. I've had a great time since my students made a big fuss over me. My ESL students got a huge cake, drinks, cups, plates, etc. and invited all the Sophomores to surpise me on Wednesday since not all of them would be at school on Friday. They sang happy birthday and we had a short celebration before we had to get back to work. Then yesterday at chapel, the Student Council brought me and two other teachers whose birthdays are coming soon up in front, sang Happy Birthday and gave us homemade cupckaes. All day kids were wishing me a happy birthday and writing nice messages on my chalkboard and whiteboard.

Last night Richard and I had a fun night of dinner and board games with another couple who are in ministry in this area too.

I also got lots of electronic messages from all over!

I feel very much loved and celebrated!

Richard's 50th birthday

The party for Richard's 50th was really nice. Richard wrote the story of what God has done in his life (well, the highlights) and gave out copies to people as they left. It was a good time for certain relationships.

(see facebook for more pictures)