DAY 7 - Finals & Leading Folks to Christ

Patty w/ a beautiful Haitian princess!

Karen laughing her head off w/ some of the girls @ the City Soleil tent city

Presenting the Bolivian folk dance at the tent city City Soleil

The team presenting the gospel drama to residents of the tent city

Sharing personal testimony & the gospel of Jesus to Haitians in City Soleil

Many Haitians accepting an invitation to receive Christ as their Lord & Saviour

Larry w/ a young man who just gave his life to Christ in the tent city!

City applying flouride treatment to one of the little boys in the tent city to help prevent cavities

The dental team of Lilian, Cintha, Karen & Carla getting ready to attend to some more kids in the tent city!

The team started out today with a lot of expectation, but knowing we needed God's help in getting a lot done before the end of the day. The Lord was with us, and it was far & away our most fruitful day of ministry.

The day started out w/ a twist, we'd thought we'd be returning to the small tent city, within walking distance from the base, but as we were walking out the door we were informed that we'd be loading up in the truck & heading back to the well known City Soleil tent city (where we're forbidden to go the day before b/c there were reports of cholera cases there). We were excited, the girls were really happy, b/c they'd wanted to go back there, & were disappointed we hadn't gone the day before (in other words, not really worried about a few cases of Cholera).

We loaded up the truck w/ everything we had - native costumes for the folk dance, gear for the drama, little soccer goals to play some soccer w/ the lads there, Flouride gel to clean the kids' teeth w/ & other materials to minister to kids with. Once we got there, the guys immediately pitched in to help fill in a couple of large mud holes in the ground w/ some filler dirt, so there could be a flat place to play soccer. After making the rounds, shaking hands w/ the 'Prezidant' of the tent city commitee & playing w/ some kids - the team got ready to present the Bolivian dance for the 1st time in Haiti! There was no electricity or sound equipment, so we used the small, portable radio/cd player we'd brought from Bolivia. The sound was terrible, but we were giving the presentation to around 100 people, who're crammed underneath a black tarp, attempting to escape the brutal Haitian sun.

The group really liked the dance & our team immediately followed-up w/ the drama, which was an even bigger hit! After we gave a brief synopsis of the story, & Larry gave part of his testimony, the invitation was given for people to receive the Lord & give their lives over to him. About a dozen women & 1 young, brave man gave their lives over to the Lord this morning. We were all moved to see how the Lord moved in such a short time & how hungry the people were for the God.

Following a brief celebration for their decision to accept Christ, we started up a soccer match between Haitians & our S. America team (3 Bolivians & 1 Brazilian who'd accompanied us w/ his wife as well). Meanwhile the girls got to work, cleaning young kids' teeth w/ the flouride gel to help prevent cavities. We carried on until midday & the morning was declared a smashing success!

Team #5 & eventual, surprise champions of the tourney

Team #6 is ready to do battle on the court

The soccer action gets intense

3 Haitian girls sharing some of their songs & charisma for the camera

I beg your pardon sir

2 precious little ones

Another friend we made who's unique style stood out

Yovana doing some face painting in the back of the truck, as the other girls give Flouride, dental treatment

Cinthia cleaning teeth in the back of the truck

Lilian giving a flouride treatment to a young boy

Analia, maintaining order in the line to receive dental treatment

Presenting the gospel drama as night closes in at the tent city

We had lunch back at the base. Got cleaned up, and ready to head out w/ Christian & Marie (the Brazilian couple), Anasias (our faithful Haitian translator), Dani, part of the YWAM - Kona, Hawaii team, and a new guy who was helping w/ the interpreting called Jean-Wyclef! We packed into the back of the old Ford truck, ambitiously hoping to finish up 4 soccer matches, do our drama, give people an opportunity to accept Christ, clean teeth, hand out the medals & call it a day. We left on time, loaded up w/ the generator in back & set off for the largest tent city in Port-au-prince of 45,000 people. We pulled into the tent city a little after 3:15, the sun was still very strong, and thankfully the organizers from the commitee already had a jump on getting the teams (& goals) in place & ready to play.

Our plan was to play the 4 matches, clean the kids teeth and then present our drama & invite people to receive the Lord & finally hand out the medals. The team agreed the guys would focus on getting the matches played & not dispersing so much in other activities like we had the day before. Enrique officiated again, while Edwin & Jorge worked the lines. The games went on w/o any problems, save one heated argument between coaches during the 1st semi-final match, that one of the players played on a club team. We hadn't set any rules one way or another about that but, they eventually calmed down & played w/o a hitch. One of the semi-final matches & the final went down to penalty kicks. The finals saw an upset & overall the tournament was a success.

While the matches were played the girls lined up the little kids & one by one cleaned hundreds of kids' teeth, having to tend to them in the back of the truck so as to not get mobbed. Crowd control was ALWAYS an issue at the big tent city. The kids would just mob you, and it was nearly impossible to get any space. While Karen, Cinthia (our dentist in training), Lili & Carla treated the kids in the truck, Analia helped maintain some semblance of order with the kids in line & Yovana painted kids' faces. Abdel was constantly surrounded by kids or teens trying to practice their Spanish with him. Patty was overseeing, taking pictures & loving on some of the sweet little girls that had attached themselves to her.

It was a glorious afternoon. The team worked their tails off & showed a lot of love to all present. The games went on right until sunset & after the final penalty was made, we rushed in place to present the drama just before dusk. There was an enormous crowd, & again it was a battle to try & control the mass of people trying to get a closer look at the team while they're presenting the drama. It was without a doubt the most intense presentation the team had done. The crowd went through the whole spectrum of emotions laughing, confused, angry & then cheering the triumphant ending.

The door was wide open.

We gave a brief explanation & invitation to receive Jesus, translated by Anasias, & so many hands went up, we couldn't even count. They prayed to accept Christ in the now dark of the night. The truck made it's way over to the console where Larry & Anasias had been speaking & Patty gave the medals over to the head of the commitee to give to the kids. By this time, everyone was already up in the truck, but the crowds were really pressing against the vehicle. Many of the kids were demanding their trademark, 'Give me 1 dollar.' Anasias had stayed w/ the sound guys & we couldn't figure out why until some of the guys from the commitee started hoisting the large speakers up into the truck. All of the sound equipment belonged to the base, & had to be loaded up. It's pitch black now, the folks are really restless, not used to having visitors this late at night in the tent city, many of them trying to climb on or in the truck where the team was. About that time about 4 UN soldiers showed up, w/ flashlights & an authority that kept the guys at bay. We loaded up the sound equipment and were off.

What a day. Our last full day of ministry in Haiti!

We got back to the base, ate, had our team meeting. Everyone thanked God for His protection today & then had a beautiful time of worship. The perfect day. God is so faithful. Makes you feel unworthy to have been used & have been part of such a wonderful moment. Thanks for praying for us . . . we certainly felt covered in prayer today!

DAY 6 - A Full Day's Worth

Walking up to the entrance of a new tent city, close to the YWAM base

BOLIVIA TO THE NATIONS girls walking through the tent city

The girls holding sack races w/ the kids inside the tent city

Carla w/ 2 new friends

Lili bringing the sack racers to the starting line

Analia carrying on w/ one of Haiti's finest future leaders

Patty doing some jump rope w/ the Haitian girls inside the tent city

Teach me, teach me - Lilian, Carla & Yovana having fun w/ the kiddies

Edwin, taking one of the tent city residents for a ride

Enjoying a time of games w/ Enrique, the girls & the kids from the tent city

It's just hard to let go & say goodbye when we're having this much fun

Thursday - After breakfast & a time of worship w/ the YWAM - Kona outreach team, & the staff from the Haitian base, we were again informed we'd not be going back to the tent city in 'City Soleil,' where the girls had wanted to return, but would instead be going to another smaller tent city, w/i walking distance from the base. The girls were a little disappointed, but in general have been really good about taking everything in stride. After being wet & on the bus for a long ride yesterday afternoon, Cinthia especially & Karen a bit too were coughing & having a little trouble breathing so they stayed back. Most of the Kona team would be accompanying us & the base had told us that they hadn't developed a presence there much at all, & that was one of the goals of our visit. The plan was for half of the group to do ministry with kids & the other half to go tent to tent visiting, evangelizing & praying for different families. The atmosphere was pretty laid back & the people we approached received us well. Most of our guys went with Ricardo tent to tent, while the girls & Jorge stayed in one spot organizing sack races, jump rope games, face painting and singing songs with the kids. Larry also stayed back to kick the soccer ball around w/ some of the older boys. Emery & Igor, 2 of the guys from the Kona team, quickly found English speakers and had lengthy conversations w/ them. It was a great morning. The team got to bless a lot of people in prayer & the kids had a blast w/ the girls.

We had a nice rice & bean lunch back at the base, before returning to the 'Supeise,' tent city. Unfortunately just as we were getting ready to leave, more rain clouds popped up & our driver & interpretor were hesitant abut going back in the rain. We'd hoped to get an early start this afternoon, as there were games to make up from the rain yesterday & we were running out of time; but they wanted to wait & see if the rain was going to come.

It felt like it was always a fight to do ministry here. There was always some excuse, delay or perceived reason for not going out or doing what we felt God had us here to do. We tried to push but the response we got was, 'if God wants we will do ministry, but maybe he doesn't want.' I was seriously frustrated, Patty tried to remind me that we were here as their guests & needed to respect their decision, which I understood, but I also felt like we needed to honor God w/ our time & gifts, & the sky was cloudy but no rain was falling of yet. What to do? We prayed as a team for God to hold back the rain & for a more coordinated effort between our team & our Haitian hosts.

After we finished praying I looked to my right & there was Pastor George, Peterson (the base director's) father, who showed up from time to time. I asked him, desperately looking for hope in the situation, what did he think & let him know that we needed his wisdom in this situation - what should we do? The whole team was ready. It was know 3:30 p.m. And wise Pastor George came through in the clutch. He said, "I think we should go. We told them we were going to go. We should go, maybe they are waiting for us, we need to keep our word to the people there." Yes Hallelujah!  And what if it didn't rain & we left them waiting all afternoon. Then Pastor George offered to talk to the driver & interpretor, to which we responded yes 'please help.' About 5 minutes later, the horn to the bus honks. Pastor George to the gate like the hero of the moment he was & smiled! 'VAMOS,' we shouted & everyone grabbed their stuff & loaded up the bus. We took the small goals, Peterson had made, with the idea of lending out to some of the side matches of older kids that were too old to participate in the official tournament as more of an informal thing. As we left the base, I was still pretty stressed thinking about how tough it had been to get the teams & goals in place & get rolling. Calculating at least half an hour for that, it was already almost 4 p.m. By the time we got everything set up & ready to go, they were probably only going to have about an hour to play, as by 5:30 it was dark, & that didn't take into account the teaching we wanted to do before the game. At the same time I was just glad we were on our way.

To our wonderful surprise, upon arriving to the courts at the tent city - THE GOALS WERE IN PLACE, & THE 1ST 2 TEAMS WEREN'T ONLY THERE, THEY HAD A REFEREE & A BALL IN PLACE & AS WE DROVE UP WERE STARTING THE MATCH!

GAME ON!
We were all stunned & as we drove up applauded the effort & organization. God was with us. 2 excellent matches were played. Analia, who was supposed to give the teaching on the Value we inherently have as God prized Creation, didn't get to do her lesson unfortunately. As we disembarked the bus, everyone sort of spread out to reach out to different groups. Enrique stayed & made sure the matches were played faily. Analia, Yovana, Lilian & Carla, rounded up a big group of young kids & as best they could set up sack races & activites for them. The rest of the guys w/ the Brazilian Chrisitian, set up the smaller goals & had an intense game of S. America vs. Haiti. Larry had found some other guys playing basketball on another court & had jumped in to play w/ them. Patty was taking pictures, playing w/ kids & making sure everyone was alright. Karen & Cinthia also had a little group of kids they were ministering to. Things were running BETTER than what we had hoped or even planned for. The clouds cover made it nice & cool, & at some point we looked up into the sky & there was a GIANT Rainbow stretched out across Port-au-prince, which we took as God again reminding us that He was with us & that He was in control! It turned out to be a marvelous day & we saw God glorified in many ways!      

DAY 5 - The Heaven's Open Up

Arriving to a Warm Welcome at the tent city

Patty with new pal!

A Haitian gentleman inside the tent city

Analia & the girls teaching the kids a little song & dance

Wednesday a.m. greeted us w/ a nice Haitian breakfast & . . . a change of plans. The people at the base told us we wouldn't be going out in the morning, as they were fatigued from the weeks activities, although several of them left to take the YWAM DTS Kona, Hawaii team that'd arrived, on there prayer tour of the city. It seemed there wasn't enough available staff to take them to one place & take us & translate for us at another place of ministry. The girls especially were pretty disappointed, as they had planned several activities to do at City Soleil, but those were the facts. We wound up spending the morning instead, washing our clothes by hand & helping out around the base. 

In the afternoon we went back to Soupeis to teach some more & hopefully advance a bit more w/ the soccer tournament. The YWAM DTS outreach team from Kona, Hawaii accompanied us to Soupeis. We all prayed together & then prepped them for the afternoon event. Once again, as we arrived to the tent city, there had been no preparation & no one who had promised to help us organize & set up was anywhere to be found.

This time we got off of the bus & the girls immediately started organizing some fun activities to do w/ the kids who came en masse to greet us. They sang, danced & played games with the kids while we looked for & tried to get a response from the tent city leaders who were supposed to help us organize the event. 

Larry praying for Obenson, the slaps king

While we were waiting as well, several of the young men approached our guys & wanted to play 'hand slaps,' where one person places their hands on top of another's, & the object is for the person who's hands are below - to slap the person's hands who're on top, before they can pull them away. This apparently was great fun for these guys, (especially since they got to hit foreigners it seemed). Most of the guys were teens, but man there were some heavy hitters! Many of us left w/ sore, red, even swollen backs of hands as the Haitian youths had no mercy & really came w/ it. It did serve as a sort of macho-way to connect w/ the guys there & we were able to pray & encourage one of the most aggressive ones - encouraging him to use his strength to protect & defend those younger than he, rather than hurt & destroy. It was obvious he'd suffered a great deal, had A LOT of anger & didn't have much peace in his life. We took him aside, prayed for him through a translator & became friends for the rest of the time we were there.

Abdel 'Ticua' giving a teaching on Self-Control, translated by Larry & Anasias

Finally, the tent city committee guys showed up, & eventually 2 new teams who were going to play. Abdel 'Ticua,' shared his testimony & taught on the importance of being 'Self-controlled,' both on the field & in life. The large crowd of young people were stunned that he'd lived & suffered a lot of the same things they had & the Holy Spirit really used him to encourage & challenge the young & old who'd gathered to listed. We did have to translate from Spanish to English, & then from English to Creole this time, but the youths were touched & it was a great way to start the Teen Games' event that day . . . The only thing was, that as Abdel was speaking, there was some really dark, ominous clouds that began hovering overhead. Literally as he finished it started to sprinkle a bit.

Team #3

Team #4

Singing & Dancing in the Rain

Soaking wet & leaving the tent city during a down pour

From there, however, it never let up. The rain came down & came down harder & harder it seemed. We tried to start the match, but then one of the teams wisely said they didn't want to play for fear of injury. The surface was concrete after all, & now wet, slippery concrete. We planned to try & wait it out, to see if maybe it'd blow over, but no such luck. It kept coming & coming. 

The kids loved it, & simultaneously the kids & our guys from both Kona & Bolivia started jumping in unison & dancing together - singing a Sunday school song in Creole that was widely known. It was a beautiful scene. 

The Haitians had a blast & so did our guys. Finally, the driver & translator asked us to come on the bus, & drove us away in the driving rain. There was going to be no soccer today - which didn't bode well for our plans, but we knew God was still in control. We decided the tournament would now have to be single elimination & we'd need to rely on God for better organization & help from our Haitian counterparts & now the Weather to pull it off! It was a day to remember.

DAY 4 - Let the Haitian Games Begin

Getting the banner ready for 'Teen Game' sports ministry

A typical toilet inside one of the tent camps (never could figure out how it flushed?)  

A little song & dance inside the little school in the tent city of City Soleil

Singing w/ the kids of the school in the tent city

The plan for the week was for the team to minister in the mornings at the smaller tent city in City Soleil, come back to the YWAM base for lunch & then head out again in the afternoon to hold our sports ministry event in the larger 'Soupeis' tent city. So on Tuesday morning, we had breakfast at the base & went to the tent city in City Soleil to do more informal ministry at the little school & w/ the scores of kids just out & about at the tent city. After walking through the tent city a bit, and loving on some of the smaller kids we were asked to share with the kids in class at the little YWAM school. W/o any preconceived program or request for ministry we resolved to do some of the choreography the team had prepared & then sing some of the songs we had learned in Creole w/ them. It was fun & they we could tell they were awe struck that we knew some Christian songs in THEIR native tongue & many sang a-long and danced w/ us. After a bit, we also shared a message of hope just to encourage them & challenge them to look at their nation differently, be grateful for the opportunity God had given them to study, to do what they could to be a good influence in their families & communities, to know that God was w/ them & that He had not abandoned them and also challenge them that God wants to raise up a new generation of leaders & use many of them to TRANSFORM the history of their nation & REBUILD it in a way that is honoring to Him!

We wrapped at City Soleil, went to the base for lunch, did our work duties there helping to clean up and were off again to the larger tent city Soupeis.

Breakin' it down inside the tent cities

The team doing a choreography to draw a crowd before the before beginning Haitian Teen Games

The 1st team to play in the inaugural 1st match

Team #2 who wound up winning the 1st match

Giving the 1st lesson & explaining how the soccer tournament & teachings were going to go down

The 1st 2 teams getting ready to go at it

 Again, it took a while to get going. We hung the Teen Games banner & helped get the goals in place on the basketball court. To be able to speed up the tournament we'd wanted to use & were told we'd be able to run 2 soccer matches at a time, but we saw after a while there was only going to be one soccer court for us to use. It was going to be a push to get in matches for all 8 teams & we'd hoped to do double elimination, but Tuesday afternoon only 2 of the teams showed up, meaning there was only going to be 1 match, to our dismay.

Anyway, there was no time to whine or get upset or even ask a lot of questions about 'where are the rest of the teams.' GOD HAD BROUGHT US HERE TO DO MINISTRY. To share His Word, spread some hope, be a light to those who desperately needed it, love the people here & have fun w/ the kids & teens who hadn't had been able to enjoy much of anything since the earthquake. The only thing was we had to adapt & proceed at their pace. Our plans for how we're going to run the tournament did have to change, but God was in all of it.

After trying to get things rolling for what seemed like hours, the team decided to go ahead and start w/ some of their choreography to attract some of the onlookers & draw a bigger crowd. It worked beautifully and by the time both teams finally showed up, we had a nice crowd gathered to teach & share our purpose for being there.

As in each Kids' & Teens' Games event, the games were begun by singing the national anthem. All the Haitians got up & led us in a rendition of their national anthem. Larry then got up & shared the 1st message w/ Anasias' help in translated. Then together w/ Enrique's help & diagram, we explained how the tournament was going to be set up. We encouraged the participants to play clean, to shake hands before & after the match, to have fun & to play hard. Enrique was the referee for the match, while Edwin & Jorge were line judges. Both teams played their hearts out, but one was clearly superior to the other & won the 1st match decidedly. It was a nice start to the sports ministry event, & as the teams played the crowds grew.

Everyone declared it a success & tomorrow would be another day, hopefully w/ more teams showing up, and even more participation & interest from the residents of the tent city. We wrapped up the afternoon, as the sun was going down hopeful, but honestly a bit worried about how many teams would show & if we'd have enough time to get the matches in between now & Friday, which was when we're told we'd have to close. Everything, as always, was in God's hands & we trusted him to guide us & take care of the details.