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.