Wednesday...

After the long break yesterday, the females in the group left for women's bible stufy at the local church. The men (8 of us) were heading to a nearby field to play soccer (about a 10 minute walk). As soon as we got to the soccer field, the largest storm we have seen had begun. There were about 30 Haitian kids practicing on the field with their coach couching them along the way. They were gracious enough to halt their practice and allow us to play. Where we were challenged is that it became us, Americans (you know....the one's who don't even play soccer) against their all-star team of an average age of maybe 13. The storm came down very hard, at one point going completely horizontal blowing trash and debris across the field and our faces, as if a hurricane. We played through and had a blast! The field was one big mud pit mixed with miniature lakes all over. Needless to say, there was a ton of wipe outs and we all go wet and dirty. At one point we were getting beat so badly that the coach and some others joined our team - that seemed to level the playing field a bit. We played for over 1 1/2 hours and concluded with showering the mud from our bodies/clothes in the stream of rain water falling from a corner of the roof of a nearby building. The Haitian players were so generous and welcoming. We nick named some: Ranaldinho, Maradona & Pele. These kids were GOOD. I ended up having several assists, but mainly played defense where I was able to rack up some good steals (well, when Ronaldinho, Maradona & Pele weren't trying to break my hip! lol)

On our way back, we encountered 3 men aggressively asking for money. Our group leader, Megan, through our Haitian translator, D, told them that we could not give them money but could give prayer. In the process, I saw that several of them wore the black bracelets that was a representation of their voodoo practice apparently. They snickered at Megan as she was talking to them but she continued on and

then we had left & they snickered as we walked away. Not really sure what the 'commotion' was all about or where it stemmed from, but it was an interesting thing to whiteness.

Found out this morning that it wasn't just some heavy storm yesterday during our epic futball match...it was in fact a tropical depression! Nice. Anyway, this morning we went back to the local church and spent recreational time with the neighborhood kids. Put on a couple skits, sang a bunch of songs, played games and handed out crayons/coloring books for them to color. The rest of the time was just interacting personally with

the children. It was great as it should be...these were definitely more well-off children than at the orphanage. I enjoyed my time with them but definitely felt an urge to get back to the orphanage. We go back tomorrow and I will certainly be requesting to stay longer. After the time with the kids today we walked about 20 minutes to a woman's house who had requested we come by to pray in her home, which was still standing after the earthquake, but uninhabitable. She slept in a nearby tent because it wasn't safe for her in the house. She was about 60 years old and lost her husband about 4 years ago. So she said she had a vision that we came to her house and prayed with her. So we did. It was fulfilling to have such a simple and immaterial request & to fulfill it without quid-pro-quo. We prayed and got a tour of her house and walked the 20 minutes back. Sat the last 40 minutes with a local boy who lives downstairs with him teaching me creole words and numbers and me quizzing him on his math. It was a great time. His name is Defronzy & her is 10 years old.

As you could see, Defronzy only knew how to tell me to SAY the numbers in creole...the spelling was completely up to me..and i just tried to spell it how it sounds. lol