AIS Pro-bowl Team

Let me introduce you to the AIS Haiti starting line-up. Guess which one is me!

Next to me is Jean Paul Noel, who will graduate this year from Seminary in Port-au-Prince. He helps us train our Chaplains in central and south Haiti.

Next to him is Sylvain Nelson. Sylvain graduated from Seminary two years ago and oversees the AIS work in Northern Haiti.

Next to him is Ronald William, AIS Haiti's administrator.

Please pray for us as we make plans for 2011.

All of these three men are now on AIS Haiti's staff. If you would like to support them as indigenous missionaries in Haiti, please let us know!

Francoise and her 3 children move into their house

Thanks for the generosity of our brothers and sisters at Crossing Community Church, we were able to build a small house for the family that had been living with us since the earthquake. They moved in just before the end of the year.

The builders had to remove over 10 feet of earth to find a good-enough foundation, and now we have to build a retaining wall.

It is small, but solid and much better than the tent they were living in for most of the year!

Rich as Pied Piper

This week we went to Verrettes to check on the water purification project and also visit the Regional Committee there. While we were waiting for the meeting to start, we went to the school were we are doing the water project and soon I was surrounded by school children. So I decided to tell them a story. Can you guess what I am doing in one of the pictures? Yep, that's right - I was showing that I was crying about a soccer ball that was stolen! They loved my silly actions - and I held their attention enough to tell them about Jesus, and his love for them!

Happy Reunion of Earthquake Victims

Last Sunday we had a happy reunion with Venita, her husband and two children: Sarah and Gaeton along with Francois and her 3 children.

It was a joy to see little Sarah walking and jabbering since we had not seen her for about 6 months. She had scabies so we gave Venita some money to take her to the doctor.

Needless to say, it was a noisy, but fun time!

Ricky's First High School Basketball game!

Here are some pictures of Ricky's first High School Basketball game. He grabbed 15 rebounds and scored 5 points with only 2 fouls in a 55-40 win!

Baby Doc Arrested

I just heard that Baby Doc Duvalier (former dictator of Haiti) was arrested.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/jan/18/proscecutor-police-meet-with-haitis-ex-dictator/

Suprise Return of ousted Dictator Baby Doc

He was kicked out of Haiti 25 years ago and is now returning.

I read that he and his family are accused of taking about 100 million $ from Haiti and putting it in Swiss bank accounts and that even the 4 million that the Swiss government is trying to get him to give back to Haiti, is being blocked.

A lot of people think he shouldn't be allowed to come back.

http://m.current.com/news/92924643_video-haiti-urged-to-arrest-baby-doc-duvalier-for-his-return-to-haiti-after-25-year-exile.htm

Ambassadors in Sport Int'l conference a little bit of heaven

The AIS International conference has officially ended, but the memories and encouragement and prayers lifted up will linger on.

Fifteen nations were represented with the following languages and more spoken: Czech, Albanian, Haitian Creole, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Afrikaans, English, Thai and several African tribal languages.

When we prayed together, we prayed in many different languages, and when we sang, it sounded like the choir of angels in Revelation.

I fly through the night on Sunday to Miami and then fly to Haiti early on Monday morning.

It will take me a while to reflect on how to apply all the things learned and ideas discussed at the conference, and I have lots to share with my Haitian con-workers in Haiti.

Youtube of first Amputee World Cup game Haiti vs. England

Here is the link for a nice Youtube of the Haiti vs. England match of the Amputee World Cup in Argentina in Oct. 2010:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ERjXJVGzvas

Ambassadors in Sport International Leader's meeting in Brazil

This group of over 60 leaders from around the world has been meeting at a beautiful campground in Brazil for the past few days. We have two days more.

It has been so encouraging to see what God is doing through soccer ministry around the world.

There was a video played tonight from a closed country that reminded me so much of Haiti: Dani, A young 10 year-old player who is the 6th out of 10 children gets involved with the AIS program. Neither his Mother or Father have jobs, and last year he did not go to school because they could not afford to send him. Now he is learning soccer skills and getting help so he can go to school, as well as attending a Bible study.

This is the same situation most of the children we work with in Haiti are in! The main difference is that of freedom of religion. In Haiti we are free to share the Gospel even in public schools!

Please pray for us as leaders that God would help us encourage each other and share experiences that can advance His kingdom worldwide. Please pray for Dani and his family as well, and for the many Haitian children that are just like him.

January 3

Richard made it safely to Brazil for the AIS International bi-annual leadership conference. The conference starts tomorrow and he'll be back this weekend. If he gets a chance, he'll post pictures from there....Hopefully not just boring pictures of ministry leaders in meetings wishing they were out on the soccer field or the basketball court! ;)

School starts tomorrow for QCS, but we're not sure how things will go with political unrest. People are still angry, but took a rest for the holidays, so we'll see what this week brings...

Our daughter, Joy, whose trip to Haiti last summer was canceled when Richard was shot, is coming Wednesday. Please pray about the fact that the new election is scheduled for January 16th, the day she's supposed to return to Pennsylvania for Spring semester at Eastern U.

Good news! Francoise got moved into her new house. It's rough living for now, but hopefully we can get her set up with the essentials before long. Although it's common for Haitians not to have a kitchen, bathroom, electricity or running water, she still has to figure out how she'll make do in that neighborhood without them. Please pray that her close friend (& ours) Mme Jean Claude and her family can get their house rebuilt next door so they can help each other out.

Happy New Year & Update

We wish, and more importantly will be praying for a new year full of God's protection, presence and blessing in each of your lives.

I arrived in Haiti by myself yesterday and Richard is leaving from Philadelphia today for Brazil for the bi-annual international leaders' conference of Ambassadors in Sport. Our children, Joy and Ricky will arrive in Haiti on Wednesday morning, January 5th.

God did amazing things for us during this trip to see our oldest daughter, Grace, graduate from Biola University in California. The most important thing for her was for us to all be at the opening of her Senior Art Exhibition on December 13th.
We were supposed to fly on American Airlines December 10th so that we could help her set up the show. But, as most of you now know, from December 7-10 there were demonstrations going on in the streets of Port-au-Prince with barricades of burning tires to keep life from going on as usual. This was to protest the fraud in the Nov. 28th presidential elections.

So, American Airlines and other airlines canceled their flights starting Dec. 9th. But the fearless missionaries of Missionary Flights International, decided to try to reschedule their Dec. 9th flight for Friday, December 10th and we were fortunate enough to get on the list for that flight. Of course we still had the challenge of getting to the airport through or around the blockades and we weren't 100% that MFI would be allowed to fly. We had heard that the airport was closed.

After asking some wonderful Haitian friends for help, we came up with this team. They got us safely to the airport (you can read Richard's colorful account of this below). Here's a picture of most of the team and the motorcycle that went ahead of us. It just didn't feel right asking everyone to gather together and smile for a pretty photo of the event. We were smiling at the fact that we had made it to the airport, but we still didn't know what would happen.

Here's the DHL warehouse where we waited for several hours:

Here's us on the floor of one section of the airport. We waited in a few different places and finally got on the plane at 3:30 pm.


We were so grateful to get on the MFI flight! And grateful for the volunteers and missionaries who are willing to do stuff like this!