“Every generation has the obligation to free men’s minds for a look at new worlds… to look out from a higher plateau than the last generation.” –Ellison S. Onizuka
We left Atlanta at around 6:30pm and arrived in Ft. Lauderdale at 9:00pm for our 10-hour layover.
We stayed in a hotel until we had to leave for the airport at 4:30am. Our team of 25 made it through security with no problems and we were soon on our way to Haiti. We arrived in Port-au-Prince just before 9:00am and were able to make it through immigration and customs without an issue. The pastor we do ministry with in Haiti, Pastor Lionel, met us and our luggage at the airport. He brought along a group of guys to carry our luggage and a bus to carry us to our home away from home for the week: New Life Children’s Home.
As soon as we stepped outside of the airport the somewhat familiar– but all together unwelcome– smell of diesel and burning trash hit us like a ton of bricks.
We walked to the bus as fast as we could and loaded our luggage on so we could leave the airport and make our way to the orphanage.
After a short, dusty, bumpy car-ride– we arrived at New Life.
Our first priority was to get the bags off the bus and into the church for storage. After we finished with the bags we had a team meeting to go over the rules and to organize everything we would be doing that week. After lunch and a short nap the boring stuff was over. It was time to do something that matters.
Since we are staying at an orphanage we have no shortage of opportunities to love on people.
New Life has a wide variety of kids.
There are babies, physically and mentally disabled, teenagers, toddlers, and what ever else you call the kids who are too old to be toddlers, but not yet teenagers.
All come from different places, different situations– different stories– but all of them share two things in common: they all don’t have their parents and they all have an appetite for love that cannot be satisfied. Luckily for them, everyone has plenty of love to go around.
After we played at the playground with them for a little while I decided it was time to start a game of soccer.
Soccer has played a huge part in who I am.
It was the first thing I ever felt good at– it was my security. Before my identity was found in Christ it was found in a pair of soccer boots on hot summer evenings. I think one of the things I love most about soccer– and any team sport for that matter– is in order to play you have to share the experience with other people. There just isn’t a good way to play soccer all by yourself. It’s an amazing thing to be able to share a game with a group of kids who don’t have much– to be able to relate to them with something has played a big part in our lives. I’m also amazed by the walls that are brought down by playing on a team with people you can barely communicate with. They didn’t know what it meant when I told them to switch fields or that they had a drop, but that didn’t stop us from playing our hearts (and feet) out.
After a few hours of playing hard, barely losing (11-10)– and my right foot not working anymore– we decided that we were finished with soccer for the day.
We had curry chicken and rice for dinner, did devotion, and then went to bed– ready for a fully day of ministry in the morning.