Trip to Northwest Haiti

From April 1st to 7th Rich and his assistant, Midi Osner will be visiting leaders from about 40 of Ambassadors Football Haiti's school teams in the Northwest of Haiti. The purpose of the trip is to encourage the regional committee leaders responsible for the teams, collect completed ministry agreements from volunteers and players who make up the teams, and also take their pictures for badges. All this is to prepare the teams for evangelistic soccer tournaments we hope to start later this year.

In addition, we will be distributing soccer equipment and Christian literature for the Bible studies with the players. We also give literature to the school directors we work with so they can give them out to the entire school.

So please pray for safe travel, good meetings and for the Holy Spirit to work through us to touch hearts and minds on this trip.



Forging a River in Northern Haiti and Distributing books

A Classical Resurrection Day

A Classical Resurrection Day

Rich volunteered to lead worship on Easter Sunday and because of his love for classical music, decided to pick traditional hymns interspersed with selections from Handal’s “Messiah”. The morning will start out with somber songs commemorating Christ’s crucifixion and evolve into a celebration of Jesus’ resurrection ending with the singing of the Hallelujah Chorus from the Messiah. Flowers given in memorial of loved ones will decorate the sanctuary for the Glory of God and visually complement the sounds of beautiful, God honoring music.



As Hebrews 10:22 reminds us: “let us draw near to God with a sincere heart and with the full assurance that faith brings, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water.”
Thanks to Christ’s death and resurrection this is possible!

Rara Bands in Haiti on Good Friday

Rara Bands in Haiti

Good Friday in Haiti is a day of dancing in the streets for those who practice Voodoo. While it is not clear why there is such joy on the day Christians set aside to remember the crucifixion of Christ, it sometimes seems that voodooists are celebrating Satan’s supposed victory over Christ on the cross.

These street celebrations are led by a “Rara” band. “Originating in Haïti, rara is a form of festival music used for street processions, typically during Easter Week. The music centers on a set of cylindrical bamboo trumpets called vaksen (which may also be made of metal pipes), but also features drums, maracas, güiras or güiros (a percussion instrument), and metal bells, as well as sometimes also cylindrical metal trumpets which are made from recycled metal, often coffee cans.” (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rara)

To see a 3 minute youtube on Rara you can check out: http://festivalfilmjakmel.com/raymond/?p=4

As a musician, I find Rara music very repetitive with a strong beat. There is no melody or words and it seems to mesmerize those who are dancing.

Some Haitians say that a man and his wife can get so caught up in Rara, that they may not see each other until the next day. Many in the Rara bands use the revelry to drink home-made boot-leg liquor called “Clarin”, and so don’t remember much of what they did while dancing in the streets.

While dancing in Rara bands can provide temporary relief from the daily cares that seem overwhelming, Haitians who have trusted in Christ realize that only the resurrected Jesus can change the hearts of people in Haiti and help their country find true peace.

However, by Easter morning all the Rara bands are done and Christians have a chance to celebrate the Resurrection of Christ in peace, not his death.

Joy in Substitution

Joy in Substitution

A couple of Sundays ago, Carol was asked to substitute teach for the middle school Sunday morning class at Quisqueya Chapel, the English-speaking church we attend sometimes.

She arrived early and soon a student walked in. Figuring that this was a divine appointment, Carol asked the young man how he became a Christian. He replied: “ I've been a Christian since I was a baby.” So Carol gently asked him questions to help him understand that being born into a Christian family does not make one a “Christian”.

The conversation continued one-on-one until a few other students showed up. But the value of a few minutes of challenging discussion of spiritual things cannot be underestimated in the life of this young man.

Although he didn't indicate he trusted in Christ that morning, he definitely learned some spiritual truth that will guide him to the right decision when he is ready.

Visits with two regional committees representing 28 teams:

Visits with two regional committees representing 28 teams:

From March 7th to 10th, 2013 I visited with the Ambassadors Football Haiti’s two Regional Committees located in the Artibonite Department (think “state”) of Haiti.

First I visited the four teams we have in Archaie, where the “Betsy Ross” of Haiti came from, and where the first Haitian flag was sown. This committee did a great job with their first tournament last August and said they were thrilled that 60 people had trusted Christ as a result of this tournament. However, they reminded me that I had promised some Bibles for them to use in follow up. Now, thanks to some recent funds that came in, I can provide them with these Bibles.

The second visit was with our Regional Committee of Lower Artibonite in the town of Verrettes. This meeting went for a couple of hours as we talked about the challenges they faced and different ideas of how to resolve them. In the end we all left tired, but encouraged that we had a good meeting.



The following day we passed through Gonaives and picked up the president of the Regional Committee of Upper Artibonite named Nesly Gustave. He served as our guide as we travelled to Gros Mornes where we have 4 schools involved in the AFH program. The road to Gros Mornes is very bad, so it took us a little longer than expected, and unfortunately we got there late and couldn’t meet with all the schools we had hoped. In the end, we only met with one team and took their pictures for their ID cards. Nesly is going to have to go back on those rough roads to take the pictures of the other teams and collect their administrative forms.



Saturday we got up early to do a special training with our 8 teams in Gonaives. Players from 7 out of the 8 teams showed up little by little. When we got to the field we found half of it taken up by construction material and equipment. It seems like wherever you go in Haiti, roads are under construction! In addition, there were other teams training on the field. But next to the field was a park that had walkways that were actually just perfect for the drills I wanted to do that day, so God provided! We got some chalk and outlined the squares we needed for the training on the walkways, and at one point had 5 squares of 4 players going at one time. I showed the other coaches present how to do the drills and then had them supervise the players. When more players came, we sent the first group to a lesson about the dangers of dirty water and then related that to the importance of keeping their spiritual lives clean as well. Then when all seven teams we showed up we added a third activity because the team practicing on the field challenged us to a friendly game. They ended up beating us 2-1, but our players held their own! At the end we got all of the players together so I could tell them the story of how I was shot in Port-au-Prince and remind them that “today is the day of salvation” as we never know when our life will end.





After that, we visited an orphanage that is on the same grounds as a school that is in our program. I showed the boys a few things they could work on to improve their soccer, and also showed one of the girls a few things. They gave hugs and then we had to run.



Then I had lunch with 4 of the 5 members of the Regional Committee members. We talked about how the teams were going and also about how each team needed to take more responsibility for their finances. This lead to a discussion of different ways the teams could raise money locally like asking the players to contribute a small amount each practice, charging admissions to games, and asking local businesses for contributions. We also talked about how we can help players who show potential to get into programs that can help them possibly become professional players.

Our final trip that day was to the town of Ennery, the birthplace of Toussaint L’Ouverture, the “George Washington” of Haiti. There are four AFH teams there, and three of them showed up to have their pictures taken for identity cards. While they were waiting I had lots of time share my life story: The loss of my Father at age 11, how I started to play soccer, how I started Ambassadors Football Haiti, and how I was shot. Throughout the story I mixed in Bible verses and spiritual lessons. I also taught them a worship song I had translated from French to Creole. The words in English are “Jesus gives peace, Joy and love”. I had to change one word because the French work for “love” – “L’amour” sounds too much like “lamò” in creole which means “death” – it wouldn’t do for children to sing “Jesus gives death”!







So in one day I figure I spoke in Creole to about 180 of our players. Plus, I gave 200 nice evangelistic soccer booklets to the players on the team we played against. So I am praying that God’s Word will touch the hearts of all who heard me on this trip!

Haitian Hospitality

Haitian Hospitality

In many cultures, hospitality is highly valued and respected. This was definitely the case this weekend when Nesly Gustave invited me and my Haitian driver, Midi Osner to stay at their house for two nights while we visited the 16 Ambassadors teams in the Gonaives area.

You may remember that in 2008 and again in 2009, Gonaives was flooded and mud filled many houses up to 6 feet. This was the case with Nesly’s house, where you can still see the marks on the wall where the water rose. The water flooded so fast that they could not escape their house and were forced to sleep on the roof under driving rain for two days. The following day all they had to pay ten times the normal price for some crackers and water because the flood had carried away everything in the town.

Their house did stand in the flood, but it took them over 2 months to clean out all the mud and muck and let it dry out. Today the house has 2 small bedrooms, and a small living room which doubles as a bedroom. This is where my friend and I slept. It also has a storage room which serves as part of the kitchen, since most of the cooking is done outside. One nice new addition to the house since I last visited was a new cement-floored outhouse which doubles as place to take bucket-showers. It was clean and had a good ventilation system. The other wonderful thing was they had a new outdoor pump that provided good water for bathing. It was fun for me to learn how to pump water by hand while the children laughed, but I’m sure it gets old pumping water after a while!

All this supports a family of 10 children, with 4 still living at home. The rest are married and out of the house, and one lives in the US with his wife and child. Nesly’s mother told me she had 12 children, but her last one died as a baby, and another died around the time he was learning to walk. She proudly told me that all of them had attended school, but Nesly had gone the farthest and is studying to be a lawyer.

She told me that she came from a family of 12 children also, but now only five are still living, which makes sense since the life expectancy in Haiti is still under 50. She and her husband have been married for 24 years, and seem to have raised children who get along well together as adults and love each other. These are blessings that money cannot buy!

She was an excellent cook as well, and I can honestly say that I lacked nothing while there: food, drink, water, shelter and a clean bed with a mosquito net! The Bible tells us we should be content with these basics. It wasn’t the Hilton, but as Proverbs 17:1 says, “Better a dry crust with peace and quiet than a house full of feasting, with strife.”

On Sunday morning Nesly’s Mom took her granddaughter to church hopefully introducing another generation to Christ and setting the foundation for another loving Haitian Christian home.

Haitian Children love stories!

Haitian Children love stories!

In the past few days I have had a chance to several stories about my life in Haiti and also that illustrate the Gospel to two groups of primary school children.

At one school, I told the story of a little boy who begged his Father to buy him a soccer ball. After a long time, the Father was able to sell a goat and buy the boy a soccer ball. The boy loved the ball and enjoyed many days of playing soccer with his friends. But one day, after playing a hard game, he was very tired and went to sleep next to a window with the ball lying on his chest. A thief took the ball while he was sleeping and when the boy woke up, he realized it had been stolen. A few days later, his mother asked him to go buy matches at a store and while walking down the street, he saw his soccer for sale in a store. He ran home and told his Father, but he said the only way to get the ball back was to buy it back. So the Father did this because he loved his son.

Then I told them the story of creation and how Satan tricked Adam and Eve into sinning and how they lost their beautiful garden home. (Just like the boy lost his soccer ball). Then I drew a parallel between how God send Jesus to pay the penalty for our sins, just like the Father in the story bought back the soccer ball for his son.

At another school, I meet the 18 young players who make up our team and was able to tell them the story of how God preserved my life after I was shot, and also got to show them the bullet holes in my truck.

I challenged both of these groups to examine their hearts and make sure they have a relationship with God through Christ, because we never know when we are going to die!