Changed lives

(Carol has been writing most of our blog entries, but this time it's Richard.)

Today I met with one of the 8 supervisors of the evangelistic counselors for follow-up of the soccer outreach in Port-au-Prince. His name is Yves.

I asked him how the calls were going and he said he made 7 calls and got 2 appointments with people who wanted to study the Bible with him.

Then I asked him if he had called any of those who had indicated they had trusted Christ during the game in Port-au-Prince. He said he had contacted 2 and then told me their stories.

The first was named Bernard. He had heard about the game over the radio and had come just to watch his favorite team play. When he got there he was surprised to see that it was something “Protestant”. He said he would never have come if he had known that. When the message was given he listened, and filled out the response card saying that he had accepted Christ so that he could have a chance at winning a laptop computer. But then during the second half of the game, the Holy Spirit touched his heart and he saw his need for salvation.

Even though it has taken us 2 months to follow up with some people like Bernard, they are still happy to hear from us. In Bernard’s case, Yves suggested they meet for 30 minutes, but he was so interested in what Yves was showing him from the Bible, that Yves spend two hours with him – and he wants to meet with Yves again. Yves is convinced that Bernard’s conversion is sincere and praises God that he has the opportunity to feed one of His lambs.

As Yves was telling me this story I was overcome with emotion and started to cry. Through my tears of joy I explained to Yves that even if Bernard were the only person who trusted in Christ as a result of the soccer tour, it was worth all the investment of time and money and heartaches that made the tour possible. Changed lives are the reason we’re here.

The second person Yves met with said he understood the plan of salvation at the stadium, but did not make a decision to accept Christ until the following week when he attended an evangelistic crusade near his house. Then he went home and promptly forgot about his commitment. If it wasn’t for Yves being faithful to follow up, this person could have been like the seed sown along the path that withered for lack of water. But now Yves has met with him and he wants to continue to study the Bible with Yves and grow in Christ.

Thanks to our friends at Blue Ridge Ministries, we were able to get over 2,700 New Testaments and Psalms to give to people like Bernard who is eager to study God’s Word. They also gave us several hundred Bible study books called “Beginning the Christian life”, also in Creole. Having these books to offer makes the job of those doing follow up a lot easier since most people are eager to receive them.

Please pray that we will hear many more encouraging stories about how God worked through the soccer tour!

Good Results - Training & Follow-Up

Left: Sylvain Nelson, our intern from the seminary leading a session
Below: the coordinators of the volunteers at the training session


The training session went well. There were coordinators from each of the 8 sections of the city plus some from Arcahaie and Saint Marc. We were really glad that Richard made the trip to Blue Ridge Ministries in Croix-des-Bouquets for the New Testaments and booklets because the volunteers really appreciated them. One said that he thinks it will be much nicer to make the follow-up visits since they will be giving something to the people. Things like that are much more appreciated in general because people have hardly any reading material (and you can imagine they don't get any junk mail!).
(Richard loading up the pick-up with all the stuff for the training session.)










Most of the Bibles and booklets were taken home by the coordinators and phone cards were given out as well.

Stories from Follow-up

It was good to hear a few stories from the follow-up that has already started. Our friend, Jaclyn in Arcahaie, told about a lady who was surprisingly the daughter of a Deacon of a another church, but indicated desire for spiritual help. She is now attending a Bible study.
The Bibles from Blue Ridge being delivered to the training site-Campus Pour Christ.

Soccer Contest with Compassion Kids

Sunday afternoon we had the rescheduled contest for the Compassion kids that was supposed to take place at the national stadium before the big game between the Cleveland City Stars and the Haitian National U-17 team.
Eleven boys were able to come and about as many adults came with them. Although it was a shame we couldn't do it at the stadium with all the kids, this was much less crazy. At the stadium there were too many problems to deal with before the game. We had the rescheduled contest at Quisqueya Chapel which worked out great. They seemed to have a good time. There was even a short rain storm in the middle of the event, but we got the kids under the gazebo and did one of the contests there. Then they were back outside. We gave them hotdogs, chips and juice and then handed out prizes for the winners. All the kids got a book about the Bible, and the winners got a pair of cleats, a new soccer ball and a T-shirt.

It was great having Tim Ferri here visiting us from our home church. He helped out and really seemed to enjoy the kids. Later, at home, Tim hung out with some of the guys from the neighborhood. Unfortunately, most of them wanted to play only soccer. Even though basketball is really Tim's game, he played soccer. He hasn't been intimidated by not knowing the language--he's been learning a couple words each day, noticing which ones are similar to Spanish. He learned "zanmi" (friend):

Captain of the Flora team

The captain of the Flora team shared about his relationship with Jesus and

how much that has meant in his life.

Fun at the Beach

Pics of St. Marc game

Tour Results so far: Cleveland City Stars 2-2-0, 6 points

The Cleveland City Stars beat Haiti's ACS professional team in Cap Haitien (3-1) putting the results for the Tour so far at 2 wins, 2 losses, no ties and 6 points scored. Several of our players have been dealing with some traveller's diarrhea and dehydration. So, unfortunately, not all of them could go up to Cap Haitien. Goals at that game were scored by James Jaggard, Alec Lemmon and Carlos Calderson...Hope I got the names right, I'll have Rich check them when he gets home :).

Tomorrow is the last match of the Tour, the Futsal match against the Haitian National Futsal team in Port-au-Prince. This morning the team was headed out from Cap Haitien to see the Citadel, the most famous historic site in Haiti.

I'm sorry I'm not able to post the news and pictures on this blog sooner. More details and pictures will be added as soon as possible.

Carlos Calderson, Kent and Aaron Tredway in Port-au-Prince

Carlos Calderson, CCS Reserve Team Coach, Kent Manson, leader of the tour and Aaron Tredway, Executive Director of CCS at the Sylvio Cator Stadium in Port-au-Prince.

Pics at the big stadium in Port-au-Prince

Pastor Pierre of Campus Pour Christ speaking at Hafltime.
Pastor Bilda
speaking during the second half of the game...doing what the Haitians call 'chofe' - warming up the crowd and making sure everyone knew about the door prizes.

The big match in the stadium

Thank you for praying for the big match at the stadium
First, some answers to prayer:
· The weather was good for the game – a light drizzle while it was starting and then it cleared up.
· None of the players were sick.
· No one was seriously injured.
· Pastor Pierre did a good job presenting the gospel.
· The turn out was pretty good
· Our STEP (seminary) intern has been doing a great job

As for the game…Haiti won 2 to 1. The Stars are a team of very good individual players, but this team has not played together for very long—only about 3 weeks. I’m sure that being in a third-world country for the first time (for most of the players) had an effect. Also, the locker room was very hot before the game, but the air conditioning was finally turned on.

Forgive me for writing this post so late, and with no pictures, I caught a nasty cold/flu that's been going around. All day yesterday I had a sore throat and headache and last night I had a fever.

More about the Port-au-Prince match

It was a very difficult day for Richard and me. At 7:00 am we went to pick up “pates” (pronounced pah-tay) to be sold at concession stands at the game. Since the Federation was getting all the money from the ticket sales, we were looking for a way to recoup expenses and we were told we could do the concessions. But when we were told by the Federation that they would not take any percentage of that, we thought we would have all the profits. But later we found out that the Stadium was taking 60%. That’s why we were trying the sale of “pates”. But in retrospect, it added an extra stress that we did not need. And not many were sold because there are vendors who carry baskets around in the stands and there was no announcement that these pates were on sale at the concession stands.

After picking up other things and taking them all to the stadium, we went to church. One of the players, Elijah, did a great job giving his testimony. After church we all went back to the hotel for the brunch there, but it was served an hour late. We wished we hadn’t waited for it because when we got to the stadium there were more problems. First, we had a problem at the gate. The counselors were supposed to meet in the conference room, but they were not allowed in the gate that would give them access to it because most of them had the lower priced tickets. Then we were told we could not use the conference room. So we had the counselors split up, some in the cheaper section, some in the higher priced section. This made the organization of the counselors difficult.

We had heard from our announcer, via phone, that there was no sound system yet. (Their’s had broken and they had agreed to rent one). Then as soon as we got in, the Federation people called us into their office. They were upset because they heard Richard “talking” on the radio & other announcements of the game that gave the ticket price as 50 gourdes, when it had been changed to 100 gourdes. (see previous post ). They also told us that they would lose money on this match and they asked Richard what they should do about that. Richard showed them where he had taken notes in his notebook about the President of the Federation approving the 50g ticket price and reminded them that they had changed the ticket price only a week before the game. Radio spots and interviews had already been taped. After this, we didn’t know if they would have a sound system or not, but they did. Unfortunately, they wouldn’t let our announcer emcee the game, even though they had agreed to this before. We were supposed to have players give their testimony before the game, but that didn’t happen—I’m still not exactly sure why.

Another issue that complicated halftime was that the Federation’s sponsor, Digicel, decided to do a presentation of cell phones to a few of their players at that time. And people did not stop talking while Pastor Pierre made his presentation. We thank the Lord that you could still hear him over the talking, but most likely some people were not paying attention. We did get a lot of decision cards handed out, filled in and collected. Of course, it will take time to sort them out and set up the follow-up. One reason people filled them out was that we gave away door prizes. There was a sticky situation for a few minutes when two people showed up to collect the first prize of a laptop. But Pastor Pierre and Pastor Bilda handled it really well, calmly and with smiles. It turned out that these men had names that sounded almost exactly the same.

Cleveland City Stars Arrive!

Finally...here's a picture of the players on the Federation bus at the airport with their Haitian flags. Sorry this is out of order, more recent pics below.

At the orphanage yesterday

Yesterday some of the players went to the Servants in Haiti orphanage and had a good time playing basketball and soccer.

Haitian National Under 17 team & coach

This was an interview with Richard and the coach of the Haitian National U17 Team and a picture of the whole team, during a recent game in the national stadium.

Police & Digicel girls picture

Here are our faithful security police officers and in the background, on the bus, you can see two of the Digicel girls (mentioned in a previous post) while the bus is being loaded at the airport.

Surprising welcoming party, police escort, a good beginning

They're here!
Yesterday afternoon the Cleveland City Stars reserve team arrived in Port-au-Prince for their goodwill tour. Richard went to the airport in the driving rain to pick them up, but by the time all the players and luggage got through, the rain had stopped. Richard was not the only one to greet them. It seems that the Federation (Haitian Soccer Federation) sent not only the bus and security escort, but several "Digicel girls" as well. Digicel, a cell phone company, is an/the official sponsor the Federation. When I heard that, I was worried that they might be dressed like Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders, but they were dressed normally, wearing bright red Digicel T-shirts.

The police escort was pretty exciting. Two policemen on motorcycle led the bus through the crowded rush hour streets to make it to the hotel in record time. The Federation really came through. The bus was not only air-conditioned, but actually cold.

The players got into their rooms, had dinner and then we had a time of worship and orientation.

Several of the players expressed their eagerness to jump into this cross-cultural experience--they loved the Chips Bananes (Plantain chips) and wanted to learn some phrases in Creole.

Of course, God is doing little special things all along the way and we want to share them with you. One of them was that Rod Meadth (Math teacher at QCS who leads the QCS Chapel worship band & does worship at this church) came to lead the worship and did a great job as usual. Also, it worked out to bring Joy and Ricky to help lead worship. Ricky played his Haitian drum and Joy sang. The kids and I can't participate in a lot of the activities because it's the end of the school year and we have final exams & projects (and grading). Another blessing was the room we got to meet in. We had been disappointed that El Rancho, the hotel, could not provide a free room for us to meet in. We were going to walk up to a nearby restaurant because the owner had said he would give us a room for free for the evening. But a couple things changed, Richard met a "brother" who worked and a group who was using a large meeting room finished their seminar for the day, so we got to meet in there. We really appreciated that.

So it was a good beginning.
Today, the team went down to the stadium for a practice and some were going to do a Coaches Clinic and to visit the Servants of Haiti orphanage in Cite Militaire.

trying to keep you posted....
Carol

SCHEDULE OF MATCHES - Cleveland City Stars

It just occured to me that some people here in Haiti might be looking on this blog for the schedule of matches. Here it is:

DATE & TIME : GAME (TICKET PRICE)
Sun. June 3rd at 5 pm: vs. Haitian National U17 team in the Sylvio Cator Stadium (100 gdes.)
Mon. June 4th at 4 pm: vs. Flora in Arcahaie (100 gdes.)
Tues. June 5th at 4 pm: vs. Tempete in Saint Marc (100 gdes.)
Thurs. June 7th at 4 pm: vs. ASC in Cap Haitien (100 gdes.)
Sat. June 9th at 4 pm: Futsal Match against Haitian National Futsal team at Place Jeremie (free)

Tickets must be bought at the gate, we don't have them ahead of time.
There will be Christian music playing and a halftime presentation with interviews of a few players.
Hope to see you there!

Today's the Day - The Cleveland City Stars are coming!

The day has finally come! The Cleveland City Stars reserve team goodwill tour will arrive today at 3:30, Lord willing.
Of course, we're up to our ears in printing out schedules, name tags, and vouchers; making lists, gathering stuff. The past few days have been crazy and stressful with late nights and early mornings. With tough decisions, like whether or not an orphanage or school is in a safe enough area to take the team, and changes, changes, changes!
But lots of people have been encouraging us, in person, on the phone and through email. Thank you, all of you. Keep praying, especially for Richard--so much rests on his shoulders. He knows it's truly the Lord's work. We keep having to give all of it back to him.

Richard on TV?!

Richard was invited to be interviewed on a live TV show tomorrow morning. The show is from 9 - 10 tomorrow morning. This of course adds a new element of excitement and stress! Pray for him, he's got so much on his mind.

Prayer

Here are some of our latest prayer requests:

• Pray that people will find hope through the presentation at halftime this Sunday
• Pray for safety for the Cleveland City Stars team arriving Thursday.
• Pray that the CCS team will be able to visit the orphanage they had planned to visit and Athletique d'Haiti which are in areas considered off-limits...for wisdom...these kids could really use a visit, but there are complications
• Pray for Richard dealing with the last minute changes that keep popping up -- like not being able to use the stadium on Saturday for a clinic, etc.

Thank you for your prayers