Canadian Team from New Brunswick Arrives

On Saturday, August 17, 2013 the HEADR team from New Brunswick Canada arrived at PAP airport. They left Canada at 3 AM and arrived in Haiti at 5 PM!

For the first time since I arrived in Haiti in 2000 the customs officials at the airport pulled the team over and asked them to pay customs on the equipment they brought in for us. After some negotiations we ended up paying about $100 US. But it was well worth it as they brought in 50 brand new futsal balls, and tons of uniforms and other stuff for our ministry.

Art Moore is the leader of the team, and this is his 5th trip to Haiti and his third as leader of this team. He is a school teacher and rugby coach and recruits his former students and players to join him on this trip.




This year he brought of his friends who have been to Haiti before: Corey, Chris and Kaitlyn, plus one newcomer named Nick.



We are heading to the island of La Gonave today to run and evangelistic soccer tournament, train some officials, visit some schools and probably work painting a new hospital.



It is a quick trip as we will return to the mainland on Wednesday morning.

Many thanks to our Canadian friends for coming down to serve and encourage!

Our first distribution of Goats to our leaders!

Today (August 13, 2013) was our first goat distribution to 51 leaders from 16 teams from three towns in Haiti: Gonaives, Ennery and Gros Mornes.

These leaders work with 288 players, 18 from each school.

It was a beautiful day, but thankfully not as hot and humid as it has been lately, so the goats fared well in the back of the two pick-up trucks and small dump truck we took on the trip.

When we arrived at Gonaives all of our leaders were waiting patiently to get their goat and after a short devotional and review of the contract that explained the program, they each got a pregnant female goat of mixed Haitian and Boer stock.
In addition, each town received a half Haitian / half Boer buck to continue to breed with the program’s female goats and also share with their communities.




We left at 7 AM G and did not get home until 7 PM, but it was all worth it to see our leaders so excited about getting their goat and also desiring to teach their players how to raise goats!

La Gonave Training goes well!

Our training in La Gonave went really well. Representatives from all 8 schools that were invited came: Four from Anse a Gale and four from Palma.

Not only did the schools send a coach, administrator and chaplain to be trained, but there were at least 4 school directors who came as well.

Samuel Dorsainvil, the Technical Director and head coach of the Haitian National Futsal team trained the coaches, I trained the administrators and our summer intern from a local seminary, Fenick, trained the chaplains. Lucasse, our other Ambssadors Football staff member took care of logistics.

Each afternoon after the training we played futsal together so they could see and experience how it is played. Those who played really liked the 4-a-side plus goalie format of Futsal and both days we played until 10 goals were scored!

This training was in preparation for a pilot project evangelistic tournament to be held from August 18 to the 20th when a team of 5 young adults from Canada arrive. This Canadian team raised the funds for the training and the tournament.

We also met a family from California that has donated lots of soccer equipment to schools on La Gonave. Last year they sponsored a tournament for high school students with over 22 teams.

The family has four boys, all of whom play soccer, and so we played soccer with them one afternoon at the youth center they are building in one of the poorest sections of town.




While there I took this picture of a cute little girl who was playing in a water basin!




They put us in touch with all the schools that participated in the tournament and they want us to form teams at their schools and train leaders in Futsal as well.

So we hope within a short time to have at least 30 schools on La Gonave trained in Futsal and ready to participate in evangelistic tournaments this fall!