Good to Know: It Means Love

By Desiree Parker Sunday, July 18, 2010

Zach Carlson, a recent graduate of Summit Christian Academy, likes soccer. He also has a big heart. So it made total sense for him to decide to pack up this week and (along with a group of other volunteers) head down to Haiti to help teach Haitian kids soccer.

Zach is no stranger to humanitarian trips. After his first year of high school, the York County teen traveled to China for the summer with his church. Last year he traveled to Haiti with his high school soccer coach and some friends to do the same thing, before the quake hit in Port-au-Prince and decimated the already-struggling country.

On that trip, Zach found that even though there was a language and cultural barrier, the kids (all various ages) had a total blast. “I think it was a distraction from their tough lives,” he says. He did his best to teach them the sport by using hand gestures and teaching by example, which worked out better than he expected.

On that first trip to Haiti (and on the current one, too), the group brought cleats, jerseys and socks so the kids would have gear to play in – what they didn’t know, though, was that “Haitian children have massive feet,” he says, laughing good-naturedly. “The cleats didn’t fit a lot of them, and also we had some older players.” This year when they collected the gear, they kept in mind the last lesson learned.

Last visit, each volunteer got a group to teach. This trip, they’ll also be working in pairs to coach, so they can better demonstrate techniques, he says.

Aside from soccer skills, Zach and other group members will be trying to teach the essence of teamwork, something Haitians have a little trouble picking up at first – they all want to grab the ball and go for the goal all alone. “There, the mentality is every man for himself, so we’re gonna work on playing as a team.”

As though it were a weekend spent camping, Zach talks about the missionary compound bunkhouse they’ll be staying in again in a small village North of Port-au-Prince. “It’s not too comfy,” he says, “but there’s running water, some electricity, beds and mosquito netting. It’s good enough.”

I asked Zach if he was concerned or wondering what to expect in the area post-quake, after hundreds of thousands lost their lives and more were left homeless. “I’m anticipating seeing a sad difference,” he says. “It will be a completely different place, and there are many refugees who have gone to the north. It will be interesting to see if the village has grown.”

He’s excited about seeing the kids again, too. “I just had an awesome time [last time],” Zach recalls. The experience touched him so much, he and his sister Mackenzie decided to start a T-shirt company to raise money for humanitarian work in the country.

On the website called Amou, which means love in the Haitian language, Creole, Zach writes: “This trip truly changed my life and the way I view the world and my own possessions. I saw poverty beyond my imagination, and saw first-hand the suffering they endure every day. Every day is a struggle for survival. Food is scarce, and children often eat once a day.

“The things that I had always taken for granted were things that these people had never seen before. They are desperate for salvation from the situations they are in.”

He goes on to explain why he called the line Amou. “Our mission is to love. We want to demonstrate God's love to the people of Haiti by serving their needs and showing them the love that God has given us. We are dedicated to loving the hurting, giving hope to the hopeless, and being friends to the lonely.

“We can start a movement. We can set a standard of taking action instead of simply feeling bad for people. We can practice Love. We can touch the lives of 9,000,000 hurting people and give them a hope that they have never had before.”

It sounds like he was a year ahead of many of us in caring for the people in this country so full of need. I told Zach I only wish I had been as empathetic when I was his age.

Not just is he ahead of me in early-onset empathy, he’s also clearly got a bent for business. His goal is to start his own business one day, and what better way to practice than starting a T-shirt fundraiser!

I hope his last overseas trip before he starts college at James Madison University is a good one. He’s certainly not sitting around doing nothing, that’s for sure.