Still No Water, but We Have Food!

We still do not have running water, but overall things are going really well. The kids are getting used to hauling water to the house and washing clothes by hand. Below, Talitha has a bowl of water to help Melissa clean the sink. Melissa went to spit in the sink and ended up spitting out one of her molars. Jordan and Melissa have both lost baby teeth since we arrived in Haiti. They grow up so quick! 

We are still praying for running water. Apparently we have two issues. One, we do not have consistent enough electricity to run our pump (it will not run on the battery system we have). Two, our holding tank on the roof is somehow defective. The water is not storing in the tank. If it were (and we were able to pump it up there), we would have a gravity feed system into our home that would provide some water even when the power is off. Our ladder is not tall enough to get up to the roof, but the owner of the house is supposed to send someone out again to investigate the problem. This is apparently on Haitian time though because we've been here over a month and still no water. But, we have high hopes for running water someday! 

We have some exciting news though: We were able to purchase 220 pounds of flour, 220 pounds of sugar, and 25 pounds of lard. We are able to make bread, pancake mix, and various other things to help reduce our overall food budget. There's a missionary here that helps women earn a living by helping them establish a business. One of the ways they do this is by helping people establish bread baking businesses. We were able to get in on their bulk order of ingredients for making bread. Unfortunately they were out of yeast, but we have a small amount to tide us over until we can purchase a larger amount. We may also be able to get oats at some point. Just regular oatmeal is incredibly expensive here.

David immediately made some amazing donuts from all the flour and sugar. They were a big hit. He made some later that even had frosting and sprinkles. He ended up making over 50 donuts and giving some to our neighbors. We're trying out various recipes for various things. Last night we made pizza. I had brought some pepperoni and cheese from the states and hamburger is actually relatively inexpensive here. We continue to try to cut our overall expenses and figure out new ways to save money.

We appreciate all the prayers for our family and for Haiti! David was really sick last night and this morning. Some of the kids have struggled off and on with various intestinal issues. Our kids from Haiti seem to have a really strong immune system and haven't really been sick as much as some of the other kids. It's never fun though to see any of them sick. We pray that David recovers completely and will be back up at the school tomorrow teaching. David has committed to teaching computers and English in Gramothe for the school year. He also continues to teach English online to his students in China.

New Hair, Up and Down the Mountain, Pill Bottles, and Schedule System

Hair Braiding

Talitha got her hair done yesterday. It looks amazing! Julia and Talitha walked up to the school/clinic to have it done. It was pretty much a whole day process. I have braided the kids' hair for years. I remember when Talitha was a tiny baby, I was really excited about doing the hair. I learned the process and have since braided other people's hair as well. BUT....I think the novelty has worn off after 13 years. I don't think I ever got to where I could do the hair as well as what you see in the picture above. We would really like to consistently employ a couple of women to do all four of the girls' hair. It's only about $20 a month, which is incredibly inexpensive compared to in the states. Most things here in Haiti are astronomically expensive, but there are other things that are relatively inexpensive.

Down the Mountain

We walked back up to Gramothe again today. Ron continues to organize the depot which is basically the workshop that is full of various items. He's trying to categorize and see what exactly is there. David continues to organize his classroom. He still needs to get some paint, but hopefully he will be able to paint the classroom next week. Christelle and Billy helped me in the clinic. Above, Billy is packing some of the supplies back from the clinic.

Up the Mountain

Basically, you have to walk uphill both ways to and from the clinic. From the clinic towards our home, you walk down to the riverbed and then up the goat trail and then finally up the road to the house. Billy packed the bag down toward the riverbed and I packed it the rest of the way up. As I was getting tired, I said to the kids, "I feel good. I feel great"....and the kids said, "I feel wonderful". This is from that movie What About Bob where Bob is afraid to go out and keeps talking himself into thinking he's ok. The kids love to joke about that movie since I'm a mental health professional and it'a about a patient that follows his psychiatrist to his vacation home.

For the rest of the hike, everyone kept saying, "I feel good. I feel great. I feel wonderful" as we were walking. We also were able to practice our creole with people passing us by. Mostly I think people were laughing at how difficult it was for us to pack a simple bag when the villagers are accustomed to packing all kinds of heavy items throughout the day. But we made it through and kept telling ourselves that we were doing good. I didn't actually feel so wonderful, but I did feel relieved to make it back home. 

Pill Bottles

We did bring back a TON of empty bill bottles from the clinic. The kids are peeling the labels off the bottles now as we sit inside listening to the thunder and rain. So far, they have peeled about 80 bottles. Basically, the teams bring in the medications and then some of the medications are divided into little baggies to distribute individually to patients. Then the empty bottles can be used to fill other types of prescriptions in the clinic. So, basically it is a good recycling process. The kids can easily assist when counting out tums, tylenol, vitamins, and the also peeling labels on bottles. They are also going to help packing school supplies for different classrooms later this week.

Rotation Schedule

We've created a new rotation system in the house. We have an amazing lady LeeAnn who is helping us in the house and also going to the market for us on Tuesdays and Fridays for fruits, vegetables, and eggs. She is not able to read much and even if she could, we do not know creole yet, so we have put pictures of the kids to show which kids have which roles in the house. We have them on various doors such as: Kitchen Helper #1, Kitchen Helper #2, Dish Helper #1 & #2, Laundry Helper #1 & #2, Garbage, Entryway, Balconies, etc. We then have a picture of the person in each room that is responsible for keeping up that room. Each person has one job and one area for the week and then other things such as their room that they are simply always responsible for.

We put each picture in a zip lock bag and tacked them around the house. Some had to be on the door near their section of the house because we couldn't put pictures outside or on the balconies. We had a similar system in Oregon, but had it on clipboards. I think this will work better. Basically each person is responsible for a certain section of the house and if at anytime that area was a mess, they are docked 1/2 hour at bedtime. The areas they are responsible rotate each week, so we'll just move the pictures around. Yes, I am a therapist and I know that we should focus on positive rewards if at all possible, but there are some things in our family where a demerit system seems to work well. We will also randomly reward for positive behavior and especially for those that are seen helping others and being considerate.

We'll see how this system works. So far it's going good. We're able to just look in the room and literally see who is responsible for that room. This way LeeAnn can also "help" hold the kids accountable and even help the kids with certain aspects, but she is not there to do their job. We've only had one person docked today, so that's a success.

Overall, it's been an amazing week so far!

Building Team, Tarantula, Guinea Pigs, and Tap Taps

Building Team

This week was busy, but amazing. I feel like we have made progress in moving in and have also been able to assist with the ministry in various ways. Still no running water at our house, but we're praying! Always in God's timing, not our own. We do have a washing machine now, but without water and consistent electricity, we aren't able to use it yet. Tomorrow we hope to pick up some used furniture that we were able to buy.

There was an amazing mission team from Arizona at Mountain Top Ministries completing various building projects this past week. They just left this morning. Over the week, they worked on the trade school, almost completed an entire home for a family, and also assisted at an orphanage. We were blessed to spend time with the team. Ron was able to help them part of the time while he was up at the school doing some plumbing. A few of the team members were also a big help counting pills in the pharmacy. They had some down time in between projects and since I was there doing inventory, they were gracious enough to jump in and help.

Billy, Steevenson, Linda, Naomi, and Christelle

We took a few of the kids down towards the river bed to see a house that the team was building. When we arrived, some of the team members commented about me walking down in flip flops with Naomi on my shoulders. I guess I'm trying to be Haitian. It is always amazing to me how people can carry so many things on top of their head and walk in these mountains. Something about the elevation and the heat makes it really tough for most of us. Billy on the other hand has been running along singing, "I was born in these mountains! I was made for this mountain!" Whew...I know God has called us to this mountain beyond a doubt, but by body is not yet convinced of that fact, especially with a 40 pound princess on my shoulders.

Tarantuala

We had another visitor over the weekend. Our friend the tarantula was hanging out in our entryway. The kids were all excited to see the HUGE fuzzy creature, but the adults were thankful that the spider was actually OUTSIDE of our house instead of crawling across our bed!

Guinea Pigs

We had the great pleasure of going to the Baptist Mission on Saturday with our creole teacher Rosias and visiting the zoo which consisted of guinea pigs, rabbits, chickens, ducks, birds, a snake and a goat. There used to be an alligator and a monkey, but apparently they died. 

Jordan- age 8

Steevenson- age 8

Naomi- age 3

We also visited the museum in Kenscoff. Below Julia and Steevenson are looking at a map at the museum and pointing out where we now live. It's a very small museum, but has many interesting artifacts and historical details about Haiti and the mission. 

Tap Taps

We traveled in two separate groups and hopped a couple of tap taps for the trip. Tap Taps are basically the bus system in Haiti. They are generally little trucks that are very colorful and full of people. We are blessed to currently have access to a ministry vehicle, but due to our family size, we do not all fit in the vehicle (not surprising since in Oregon we drove a bus). 

So, the younger ones traveled in the car and Ron and I traded off going on tap taps with the older kids (he went up the mountain and I came back down). It was a lot of fun. As soon as I got in the tap tap with some of the kids, it started just pouring down rain. We were thankful to be in a tap tap that actually had a cover. Overall it was a wonderful weekend! 

David and Roseminique in the back of a tap tap

Small Blessings

We are so thankful to wake up each morning to an amazing view of Mountain Top Ministries. We are blessed beyond measure. Granted, apparently I spoke too soon on the last post. We don't actually have water like we originally thought. There are brief periods of time when we have water, but I didn't realize the logistics of the water system.

Apparently we will not have water or basically the pump will not work unless we have city power. The water pump is not set up to pull electricity from our inverter/battery system because it will burn up our batteries? Hmm....we don't want to do that since they were close to $200 a piece and I believe there are 16 of them. So, there was a moment where we turned on the faucet and water came out, but that experience was short lived.

This is why we are being advised to eventually invest in a generator, but that is a long term goal since it is thousands of dollars for a generator. So, for now we are still hauling water with a bucket from the cistern. At least we do have water on the property and do not need to walk to the river to fetch it. We are learning to be thankful for the small blessings. We do have a table now that Ron build for the family. The wood is somewhat warped, but we're thankful to be able to sit down with each other for meals. We hope to have some sort of couch or something to sit on in the near future.

Above is a picture of the kids helping Amanda prepackage tylenol for the medical teams at each station. It's an incredible blessing to have so many helpers to assist in the needs of the ministry and community!

Hopefully tomorrow some of the kids will come to the clinic with me to help with inventory. We're hoping to assist with organization and eventually with ordering for the teams.

On Sunday, we walked up the mountain to church. The roads were slick and muddy from so much rain, but we all made it in one piece. A couple of the kids slipped and fell a few times. We're not quite as competent as the locals who seem to be able to navigate the terrain with no problem with a bucket of water on their heads or 40 pounds of vegetables. It is simply amazing! We can hardly walk just on our own without carrying anything else.

Thankfully David was able to pack Naomi part of the way. She walked most of the way up, but on the way back she was getting tired. We saw quite a few goats along the "goat trail" and Naomi had to stop and talk to each goat along the way.

Our creole teacher "mouse" was able to help us part of the way as we were slipping down the mountain. I have high hopes of actually being able to run up the mountain someday!

Bugs, Water, and Creole Lessons

We have water! Praise the Lord. It seems like a small thing, but to us it is simply amazing to turn on the faucet and for water to come out. I think one or two have even dropped to their knees and praised the Lord, especially Amanda who has had to share a bathroom and "try" to keep it clean with 8 girls.

Granted, it's not exactly clean water (we have found a worm or two), but it's running out of the faucet nonetheless. We have since added clorox to the cistern and hope that will help with the creepy crawlies. We have also gone around the house and caulked all the holes that we could find trying to prevent the invasion of cockroaches, ants, and various other unidentified guests.

Thank you everyone for all the amazing advice about the bug issue! We took a trip into Port au Prince yesterday and stood in the bug isle trying to figure out what would help. Many of the things that were advised are nowhere to be found, but we've found various items that will hopefully help. We are already seeing improvement!

Amanda, Christelle, Naomi, Ron, and myself all drove into "town" and stopped along the way to look at a couch in a little shop along side the road. Seems many people are developing sore behinds (mostly the adults) from sitting on the tile floor. Please pray that we find something to sit on that is reasonably priced. We were trying to figure out how much the furniture was, but we realized that even if we could ask how much it was, we had no way of knowing what the answer was. We tried to get them to write down the price or type out the price on a calculator with hand motions and they looked us at and laughed. Yes, the white people with hand motions are very funny I'm sure. I would laugh if I were them as well!

We have creole lessons again today. We have someone helping us learn creole three days a week. We're trying to practice our creole, but it is not easy. For Naomi on the other hand, she seems to be picking it up rather quickly. It's funny to watch her in the car. She waves like a princess out the window and then also randomly speaks creole to people as we drive by.

We stopped for gas yesterday and the guard with the shotgun was smiling at Naomi as she "practiced" her creole. It's funny to watch. I wonder what do they think about this little blonde girl in the car? I wonder what is going through Naomi's mind as well? It all seems so normal to her to walk up the mountain, wave at people with shotguns, smash bugs on the floor, oh and even pee on the mountain. We left church the other day and the bathrooms were locked, so I told Naomi that she'd need to go outside and she looked at me like I had lost my mind and said the cows pees in the grass. Naomi tends to be a bit of a princess. I said, yes, and now you need to pee in the grass or we'll have to wait until the others get out of church and we can get a key. She simply said, "Ok" and squatted down behind the building.

What an interesting life: By the time she was three, she had already traveled all over the continental USA, flown to Hawaii, been out of the country numerous times, had been frozen in a straw, shipped across the country to be implanted, been hospitalized for two months, had heart surgery, and now lives in another country and is learning multiple languages.....Wow! What a story to be told someday!

Thank you for your continued prayers!! We greatly appreciate the love and support we have received and continued to receive.

Happy Birthday Joseph!!

Twenty-two years ago today I was blessed to become a parent. After numerous hours of labor, things became interesting and Joseph was delivered via emergency c-section. He did very well. Me on the other hand, ended up needing two blood transfusions and other interventions to stabilize me. Everyone was able to hold Joseph and visit with him before I was even able to see him. He was loved immediately! I remember very little about the whole event other then it was stressful and traumatic, but I believe it prepared us for where we are now. We had no idea what was ahead in our lives.

Me and Joseph Easter 2013

Amanda made a comment the other day that the days are long as a parent, but the years are short. That is so very true. Day in and day out it can be challenging to be a parent, but one day you wake up and they're all grown up!

Our amazing Hawaii experience!! 

Would you believe that way back then I had no intention of having more then one child? God had a different plan obviously! Looking back, the birth was pretty minor in comparison to other life events we have since been through, but it certainly forever changed our lives and for that we are thankful.

Most of our family
(just before Jordan joined our home)

For those of you that do not know our family very well, Joseph is the one that most people pick out of the pictures and ask about. He has long curly hair and sometimes is referred to as the one that looks like Kenny G.

Roseminique and Joseph on our trip to Hawaii

To me, he is Bean. To Naomi, he is Jo-Jo. To others.....hmm....he has a range of names. Joseph is an artist. You'll likely see him at the Farmer's Market or other events wearing a suit, cool shades, and helping others.

Joseph with Naomi at cousin Jamie's wedding

He is unique and we love that about him. He does web design and is finishing up his last year of college. Anything that I've produced such as my website or ministry cards, Joseph has actually done those for us.

Joseph is an amazing young man who has actually never really been young. He is an old soul of sorts and is more like a third parent in our home. He cares full time for my mom and has basically been her primary caretaker since he was 15 years old. She was diagnosed with cancer and has not been able to care for herself for many years.

Joseph with Naomi visiting grandma in the hospital

I was looking through various pictures and I notice many things about Joseph. He is always seen in pictures helping one of the younger kids. Joseph may roll his eyes a bit about the number of siblings has and has been known to joke that if we buy a bus, mom will fill it up (which may be true). BUT he is one of the largest supporters of our family.

Joseph in the front with Talitha in Indiana-
(on one of our many cross country road trips)

 If we need help, all we have to do is call him and he will be there to help with the kids or fill in the gaps with whatever is needed. He has now moved into our house with grandma and continues to care for her full time. He is dealing with various business details for us back home and is a tremendous blessing to our family. Thank you Joseph!! We know it is a heavy burden at times!

On one of our trips to Washington DC

Monticello- the Home of Thomas Jefferson

I've added a few pictures from memory lane. I don't have that many on my computer, but for some reason I was able to locate these photos from when we lived in North Carolina and used to travel around the east coast and the mid-west frequently. For our friends in North Carolina and those that we have visited across the country on our road trips- we MISS YOU!! Thank you so much for the continued support and prayers! 

Notice the Haitian Jewelry? This was right after he came
back from his first trip to Haiti

Cockroach Invasion

I LOVE Haiti, but the cockroaches are something I could probably live without. We're going to need to figure out some sort of plan to combat these nasty bugs. I had some of the kids sitting with me watching a movie on my laptop in the dark. We turned on the lights when the movie was over and a gigantic cockroach went flying by. I didn't even realize that cockroaches could fly. Then it was on the floor, so we moved a shoe and next thing you know there were two of them. I smashed both of them. I went into the kitchen and another one was sitting on the counter. Yuck!

I went back into the living room to clean up the smashed cockroaches and found a mess. Check out the picture below. A million little ants or some sort of bugs had swarmed the dead cockroaches.

Earlier in the day I had gone to do some inventory at the guest house and a cockroach crawled out of my bag. Apparently Amanda had an interesting day as well. We're hauling buckets of water into the bathrooms in the morning so people can wash up and we have water to flush the toilet when necessary. There was a partial bucket of water under the sink and Amanda glanced into it and saw a silvery worm swimming around. She proceeded to ask, how long are you boiling this water before we drink it? hmm...no wonder parasites are such an issue throughout much of the world.

On a good note, Naomi sat down at dinner tonight and proceeded to speak Creole. She also proceeded to tell everyone it was Spanish, but at least she knew it was another language she was speaking. She's going to have to give us lessons since her and David will probably pick up the language the quickest.

The First Week in Haiti

The first week has been incredible. We have an amazing view of Mountain Top Ministries from our house. Yes, it is quite a walk basically straight up, but when you are up there, it is breathtaking. We are incredibly blessed to be here! Tomorrow Ron, David, and I will begin some form of a semi regular work week. David will begin getting his classroom ready for the school year. Ron will begin organizing the workshop and taking stock of what tools they have and what is missing. I will begin working on inventory so that we can get an order ready for the next medical team that is coming in.

We've made good progress on the house this week. We actually have mattresses now and we've bought some wood to make a table and bunk beds. Unfortunately some of the tools that would be helpful are back in Oregon and are incredibly expensive here in Haiti (if they're even available). Below is a picture of the parameter of our home. Notice the barbed wire across the top. It's something the kids remember and have commented on from their days in the orphanage. But...it is a very safe and secure location.  We feel incredibly blessed to have such an amazing home.

We've also had some downtime and been able to get out the parachute and have some fun. Some of you may remember this parachute from our days when we had Forest Grove Gymnastics. I'm glad we thought to bring it along. It just barely fits in our compound.

We're still waiting on our pump to be fixed in order to have running water. We do have our inverter system going and internet though. Regular power seems to be very inconsistent. Some evenings we will have power for an hour or two, but that's about it. We're learning to conserve energy in many ways. We do have bathrooms and feet though, so we walk a bucket of water upstairs in order to wash clothes, do dishes, and flush toilets. We're also boiling our water so that we have clean drinking water.

Our kitchen is amazing! We still cannot believe that we've come all the way to Haiti and now have a huge kitchen. We've seen some awfully big cockroaches though. I went in the kitchen in the evening and opened a drawer and saw quite a few of them scurry away. I think they mostly just come out in the dark, but they are creepy. Naomi does not care for them at all. Every once in a while we have seen one run across the floor. We have pretty much gotten a handle on the tiny little ants that were all over the place. We're being very careful with food. We did get some spray as well that seems to be helping.

Willem and Beth gave us this amazing welcome basket of food from the market. You would have thought it was Christmas at the Sheppard home. Everyone was dancing around in excitement about the food. For future reference: food is a very big deal in our home. If you want to get on anyone's good side in the family, just buy them some food and they will love you for life!

Thank you everyone for your continued prayers and support! We love you! Above is a view at sunset from our home. Please consider coming to visit us in Haiti. We're seeking team members for a mission team this November (hint, hint). No specific skills are needed, just a willingness to serve. You can email me: haitimissionaries@gmail.com or you can even call us on our US Haiti phone for free: 503-648-5260.