DAY 2 IN HAITI - Meeting the Committee - Tent Cities X 2

Praying for a young American who'd been sick w/ Malaria for over a week

Rice & beans w/ a touch of coconut, our staple food in Haiti

Public transportation in Port-au-prince

Arriving in the back of a truck at to the largest tent city in Port-au-prince

Some of the 1st boys we met at the enormous 'Soupeis' tent city

Permission granted from the Tent City Commitee

Saturday night we bedded down on the floor, each w/ our own foam mattress. It was mighty hot, but after awhile we managed to find spots where there was some ventilation & fall asleep.

There were no plans for church on Sunday, which was kind of wierd, but we went with it & got some extra rest in the a.m. after the long trip. Patty & I went to Peterson's house to meet Lucy his wife (who's from the States), pay our team fees, & discuss how we were going to do the sports ministry events we had come to do. Peterson explained to us that we'd be doing the sports ministry activities in tent cities, where they had been working & establishing a ministry presence. We then agreed with Peterson it'd be good to go scope out the space we were going to have, confirm we had the right permission from the appropriate authorities and define how the best way to do the event would be.

So off we went to the 1st and biggest tent-city in all of Port-au-prince, 'Soupeis.' It was 'home,' to 45,000 Haitians and was an urban park that had been converted into a make-shift tent village. We hopped in the back of Peterson's truck w/ Anasias, who'd be working with us during the week. Excited, curious & a bit nervous, after a ride through the city we pulled into the large 'compound.' At 1st glance it wasn't hardly as chaotic as I'd imagined. There were paved streets for the truck to drive on, the tent placement seemed pretty organized & UN soldiers greeted us in the entrance. Peterson drove us directly to the basketball courts, where we were to have space to run the event. There were 4 basketball courts together in what seemed like the middle of the park. When we arrived they weren't really being used as it was the heat of the day. Right beside the courts, however, was where the people who lived in the tent city bathed. There was a constant flow of water coming down from a large rubber water tank. Kids were having a blast underneath the water, but adults, men & women were also bathing in the same space, some w/o underwear. The water drained off into tiny drain-off canals that smaller kids were splashing in, again w/ no clothes (definitely not your poster image of hygiene). The truck stopped off to the side, presumably to wait for the committee people, and that's when some of the kids, mostly young boys started coming up to see & talk to us in the back of the truck. Patty & I got to use our Creole for the 1st time & enjoyed talking to the young guys who were very curious about why we'd arrived, but also very respectful. About, 20 minutes later, the truck cranked up again, & we were off to the committee's 'office,' to talk to them. They talked w/ Peterson at length (over an hour), as we all baked inside a small room w/ 8 or 9 grown men who were the authorities of the tent city. We encouraged them & congratulated them at the order & apparent calm we saw in the tent city. They were happy to have us come & wanted the sports ministry event to really be AN EVENT! - insisting that the teams have uniforms, that there be proper registrations w/ photo id's so the teams would be fair, that we bring a PA system, & that for the finals there should be a DJ & music to pump the crowd up. That was certainly Fine w/ us! Peterson had some donated uniforms & the YWAM base had a sound system they were willing to borrow. We made it clear that we did have some teaching at the beginning of each day we wanted to share w/ the kids & a drama w/ a message as well, which they were fine w/ that so . . . woo-hoo we were in business! The plan was to do the registration the following day, & they would take care of rounding up the kids.

From there we went to another, smaller tent city - where YWAM had a stronger presence & had even helped build a little school for the children living there. The smaller tent city was located in the infamous City Soleil slum area of Port-au-prince. Peterson explained to us that there was a lot of gangs, violence & crime in City Soleil, but the tent city itself seemed really calm. We went down a side road to get to it, and there was a river of raw sewage that ran alongside the road that curled your nose hairs, but once inside the tent city itself, you couldn't smell it. The kids at City Soleil were adorable & really warm to us. Many of them were stark naked or had t-shirts but no pants (which was odd), but we met the leaders there as well, & worked out to come there during the mornings to do more informal ministry & maybe minister in the little school. It was evening by the time we left City Soleil & we'd been gone a lot longer, than our 'be right back,' farewell to the team had suggested hours earlier. We got back to the base, & they were fine & anxious to hear about where we'd been. We talked about the plan for the week, had dinner, cleaned up & after hanging out, singing worship songs & practicing our Creole w/ the other team for a while - called it a night.