LACES Children's Appreciation Day

On January 27th LACES ended its inaugural league in Liberia. Our inaugural league involved mentoring the children over a period of 9 weeks while they enjoyed playing the world’s most popular sport. Since our children worked very hard in these last 9 weeks, playing in the hot sun all the while rejoicing in Christ’s name, the LACES staff thought an appreciation day for the children would be a great way to end the season and to recognize the 14-year-old children who would be graduating.

The agenda of our day included:

9:00 am
Three of our female coaches got together and began preparing for the day by cooking. They sweat as they prepared some good old fashioned Liberian palm butter and rice for 130 children over hot coals in the tropical sun. I can affirm that while the food may not look so appealing to the eye, it does taste good--a little spicy, but good. No food in Liberia is true Liberian food until some serious hot pepper is added.

3:30 pm
The children were coming home from school and congregating at the field. The graduating class played a game against our coaches, and the whole community came to watch.

4:30 pm
The awards ceremony was under way. James Moore (LACES program coordinator) and Pastor Roberts (LACES mentoring coordinator) kept the children in suspense as they announced the award recipients.

Our awards criteria included recognizing teams that displayed the LACES values. We did NOT give an award to the team that won the overall league (in fact I am not even sure which team did win the league), because we want to encourage teams to work toward displaying good morals and values.

Here are the award categories:
1. Certificate of Discipline
In recognition of the team that was faithful to time and obedient to the rules and regulations that govern the LACES league.
2. Certificate of Courage
In recognition of the team that experienced defeats yet had the courage to keep playing.
3. Most Improved
In recognition of the team that had difficulties in the beginning but later was able to beat the challenges and did well.
4. Certificate of Fair Play
In recognition of the team with the least amount of red/yellow cards.
5. Most Successful
In recognition of the team who understood that success was NOT all about winning but applied effort to be the best they could be as a team and as individuals.
6. Certificate of Participation
To all the 14-year-olds who participated in the program.


5:30 pm
The children ended the day with feasting on palm butter and rice.

What’s Next You Ask?

We have expanded our league to add an additional 4 teams (we currently have 10 teams), which will mean a grand total of 182 children will be participating in the LACES soccer league. Currently we are registering more children and will reopen our leagues on February 23rd 2008.

In the meantime Vernon Croft, head women’s soccer coach for Indiana State, will be arriving on February 17th to conduct a one-week coaching workshop.

Looking forward to LACES future in Liberia.