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!