The Big Bike Hike

Since everything closes down here for a few days for Mardi Gras, Richard and Ricky went on a bike hike with some friends from school. A driver took them and their bikes out to the country and they rode toward the border with the Dominican Republic. They crossed over and rode around a lake that is near the border. It was a pretty challenging trip--one day they rode 65 kilometers. They battled hills, heat and hellish mosquitos (had to get in another "h" there :)).

They saw crocodiles, 3-foot long "lizards", lots of egrets (in Haiti we only see them rarely) and more. They took a boat out to an uninhabited island and saw some cave drawings.

It seems it was one of those macho guy adventures (this is the "MamaMea" report of the story, of course) on which Ricky made a significant step in manhood ;). On the first day when they had biked a long way in the blazing hot sun and kept hearing "yeah I think we're really close to the hotel now," Ricky took a spill trying to adjust something on his bike. Thankfully, there weren't many cars on the road and he was far enough to the right not to be hit. He got scraped up pretty badly and ended up with a big bruise on his hip, but nothing worse. Richard then offered that they hitch a ride with a truck that could take them and their bikes to the town, but Ricky brushed himself off, and got back on the bike and rode to the town.

They really enjoyed the trip and we're grateful to Ad and Ardjan DeBlaeij who loaned them a bike and lots of other stuff and led the hike after scoping it out last year.

Richard in Manchester

Here's Richard in front of the Conference Center where they had the AIS International Leaders' Conference near Manchester, England.


They had great worship times and he got to connect with AIS people from all over.

At the conference Topics covered in the meetings were:a. Crisis contingency planning
b. How to finance emerging offices in Haiti, Kenya, Nigeria, etc.
c. What does an indigenous ministry look like?
d. How can the International Office help emerging offices

A plan was made for the next year for AIS Haiti. The plans include a visit by AIS's director in February, a semi-professional soccer team visiting Haiti in May and the first "TREC " (Training Resourcing and Equipping) in Haiti- training of Haitian nationals in soccer ministry.

After that he spent a few days in the Bolton office of AIS UK observing how soccer ministry is done in England.


On his way there and back he flew through Newark, NJ. On the way there he got to spend a day with Steve and Margaret Bohall (friends from Grace Church New York who have been supportive of our mission effort over all these years). On the way back he got to stay in the Crossing Community Church missionary apartment and visited with some of our friends and family in that area. Unfortunately his time was short, so he couldn't see all the people he would have liked to.