Medical and Building Teams

Last week we had another amazing medical team here at Mountain Top Ministries. Hundreds of patients were seen and a great deal of organization was done in the clinic. Things are really coming together with the inventory. We've been able to donate many of our surplus supplies to a hospital in Port au Prince that does surgeries on some of our patients. It is good to be able to work together to serve the needs of the people!

The medical team left on Wednesday morning and then a building team came in Wednesday afternoon. They are putting together grain silos that are being used in the village for a store and community center. Currently, people from the village have to walk down the mountain for supplies that they need. This way, villagers will be able to purchase many of their supplies without walking down the mountain.

IV's, Frogs on the Wall, and the Lookout

It has been an interesting week! I was actually quite surprised that Ron did not get sick when we first moved to Haiti. I remember clearly adopting our daughter Maliya from China 18 years ago and how Ron was laying on the bathroom floor of the US Embassy waiting for our appointment. The other dads that were also adopting had to go pick him up off the bathroom floor when they called our name because he was so deathly ill.

Well, I suppose I spoke too soon when I commented on how well Ron was doing in Haiti. Next thing you know, Ron was sick. And not just a little sick, but sick for a few days on antibiotics. Then that sickness progressed into throwing up for 19 hours and eventually needing 4 bags of fluid from an IV. Thankfully we had an amazing medical team here that could assist. We had a mini hospital room set up in our bathroom for a few days. He is doing much better, but it was a rough week to say the least. He is now up and about and feeling much better. Praise God! We don't know what he was sick with, but thankfully the rest of us haven't come down with it.

In other news, we seem to have many frogs. They sit on the window, come in the door, and crawl up the wall. We catch them in a little dish and put them back outside. The next day, another one comes back.

They are quick little guys and can walk right up the wall. Tonight, there was a really big frog sitting on the windowsill.

The kids absolutely love these amazing creatures. I'll have to say that I prefer them over the tarantulas and cockroaches!

It seems our other bug problems have improved drastically. We still see a cockroach now and then and the ants will come around if we are not careful with the food, but for the most part they are under control.

We also were able to go up to the lookout on Tuesday. Ron and I started our weekly date night or actually date day a couple of weeks ago. In Oregon, every Tuesday night we would go for $1.25 tacos and then to $5 movie night. Since there is no movie theatre in Haiti, we had to develop a different plan. Week before last, we went to the Baptist mission. It was good, but we had to go early because they close by 5pm. Getting away in the day is really challenging with various projects we are assisting with at the ministry. We decided we would need to find somewhere we could go in the evening.

This past week, Ron was sick when Tuesday came along. Since we had just started the tradition, Julia and Amanda and I were persuaded to go anyway. We went up to the lookout for a coke and french fries. It was amazing up there. This is basically up the mountain where the cell phone towers are. Relatively recently they put a small restaurant at the lookout. It's not that far from where we live. It was just beginning to get dark. The sky turned pink as the sun went down. Very impressive! Haiti is truly a beautiful country!

Quarterly Sheppard Parties in Haiti

Today was Jordan and Phuong's birthday! Happy Birthday! It was also the beginning of our quarterly birthday parties in Haiti. As many of you know, years ago in Oregon we began having quarterly birthday parties. Basically, we would have a fall, winter, spring, and summer party that incorporated all the birthdays for that season. These were always HUGE events where we would basically eat and visit for hours upon hours. One year I think we counted over 50 kids inside our house. 

When we moved to Haiti, we really never thought we would have the opportunity to have these birthday parties again, but the Lord is good and brought forward some amazing people to fellowship with. For this party, we celebrated Christelle's 14th, Jordan's 9th, Steevenson's 9th, and also Willem's birthday. We were able to call Phuong (she turned 19 today) on Skype back in the states. Everyone sang happy birthday to her. 

We were blessed to find a weber bbq here in Haiti for a reasonable price. We were able to buy the charcoal on the street for next to nothing. Chicken dogs are not incredibly expensive and even hamburger meat is reasonable for a special occasion. We actually had hamburgers and hot dogs in Haiti. We also had some amazing fruit, macaroni, rice, and a range of other incredible dishes that people brought for the party.

Although it was rainy and stormy and we really do not have any yard for the kids to play in, the kids had a good time playing music and dancing in the living room. A good time was had by all! We are so blessed to be here in Haiti. We miss everyone back in the states, but we're thankful we are exactly where the Lord has called us to be. 

Teaching at the School in Gramothe

I'm David Sheppard and I will be telling you about teaching English in Haiti.

Right now, it is in the middle of the second week of classes for the students in Gramothe. Most of my schedule has been figured out. I am teaching English in the high school everyday of the week. Today, I taught 7th grade; this is the grade where they start learning English. 

David teaching a few students on the walk back
home.

I walked into the classroom to the front of the class and started scratching a simple conversation on the blackboard with a piece of chalk I dug out of my backpack. The roomful of students-probably about 40 students total-which had previously been teasing, taunting, joking, and laughing among themselves immediately quieted as everyone attempted to decipher the meaning of my writing. I tried to help by writing some Creole words up on the board also and seemed to get the meaning across.

As I was going around the room listening to how they each say the word "the" (most students were pronouncing it as, "duh"), I realized 7th grade in Haiti doesn't correlate to a specific age. I must have had students aging between 14 and 21. I'm only 19 and if some of my students in 7th grade are older than me, image what the 12th or 13th grade is like-yes, there are 13 grades here. The 13th grade, known as Philo, is also sometimes called the terminal grade. I guess it's a killer. 

View of from outside the Computer lab class
of the church steeple

I finished the class about five minutes late but everyone had been having fun, so I don't think they minded. Their next teacher hadn't shown up yet either, so it all worked out great. I gave one of the students the little bit of chalk I had left. I don't know what they do with it, but I was told that if it is too small to write with anymore just give it to one of the students. Finally, I left the room amidst a chorus of goodbyes then heard the taunting and joking commence once more as soon as I was out the door. 

After I finished teaching, I hiked down the mountain and made my way home. Tomorrow, I will hike back up again. Pray for me. 

God Bless,

-DW

Thunder, Rain, and Birthdays on the Mountain

Today was a great day! It was Christelle's 14th Birthday. Tonight we walked over to the guest house and had cake, donuts, and cookies with the medical team. I was able to make a cake with all the flour and lard that we were able to purchase. David had made donuts earlier, so we frosted those. The kids and I made cookies last night as well. Tomorrow the team heads back to the USA. We will miss them!

Earlier today, we started to walk up the mountain to church. Thankfully the truck came by on our way up and we were able to hop a ride. This was an incredible blessing. The road is STEEP!  It is something like a mile and a half, but it feels like 20 miles straight up.

After church, our family walked back down the mountain. It looked like it was going to rain, so we started back home right after church. There were many people at church today. We were blessed to hear a sermon on forgiveness from the pastor on the mission team. A music pastor was also a part of the team and he sang an amazing song in both English and Creole. God is good! What a blessing to be here in Haiti!

On the way down the mountain, we took the short cut on the goat trail. I LOVE the goat trail because it is much shorter then the other walk, but there are sections on the goat trail where you are practically crawling up. It is really hard to capture this in the picture. Please come to Haiti and see for yourself!

It was a good walk back. Bets were being made on who was going to fall down first on the slick rock and mud, but actually nobody fell down at all.

We made it back home just in time before the rain came. And when it rains in Haiti, it rains hard. All of a sudden the sky opens up and the thunder rolls and everyone gets soaked.

The rest of the team left quite a bit later then us. We had already made it home when the team was coming back down in the truck. They were not quite as fortunate and were caught in the downpour. We stood on our balcony and took pictures of the rain and the team in the truck while we were nice and dry indoors. Overall, it was an amazing day at Mountain Top Ministries!

Running Water....All Over the Place!!

I must confess that I have been a big whiner about the lack of running water. Everything has been going really good here in Haiti with one small exception. We have to pull water out of the cistern in order to get water most of the time. Occasionally the pump will turn on (usually late at night) if the city power turns on. Sometimes this will last 20 minutes or maybe if we're lucky an hour or two. There doesn't seem to be any rhyme or reason to "when" we will get this sporadic electricity. BUT...this has worked out ok (even though I whine a little bit). When we hear the pump turn on, we then go around the house and flush toilets. We also fill up some buckets of water for the next day.

Last night, we heard the pump turn on. Yeah!! We knew that meant we would have water for a brief period of time. Then we heard water running. Sometimes it is difficult to tell though what sounds are coming from inside the house and what is from outside. We thought it must be raining. Then one of the kids started calling us from upstairs saying there's water. hmmm.....yep...we had water.

There was water all over the place! It was running out of the sink and onto the floor. One of the girls slid across the tile floor in a big puddle of water. At that point, she grabbed the sink to keep from falling and pulled the whole sink out of the wall. Water was spraying everywhere. It was down the hallway and into the girls' bedrooms before we knew what was happening. David was able to get the pump shut off without turning off the rest of the power. Praise God!


But....we now have a problem. We no longer even have sporadic running water because our water now has to be shut off entirely. There is no way to stop the water from running if it does turn on due to the way the sink pulled off the wall and broke the pipe. There doesn't seem to be a shut off valve at all for the house.

I have learned one small thing in Haiti. EVERYTHING is a process. Something where in the states we would simply run up to The Home Depot and buy an inexpensive part is a big ordeal in Haiti. Access to just about anything is challenging and incredibly expensive. Logistics of going to get a part (if you can even find it) can be a day long process if you are lucky. But...thankfully no one was hurt and we were able to sweep out all of the water. I wondered when we moved in here why there was a door upstairs that goes out to literally nothing. It's just a door without a balcony or anything. I now realize what that door is for. It must be to sweep various things outside of the house. Generally I think this must be either a some sort of a flood or possibly an infestation of various kinds of bugs!

Blessings on the Mountain

Another amazing day at Mountain Top Ministries! The medical team is doing an incredible job serving the people that come to the clinic each day. It is wonderful to see how the team works together to help those in need. Above is a picture of a little girl waiting to be seen. It is such a blessing to be a part of this amazing ministry! 

I spent much of the day trying to organize inventory. It is somewhat of an overwhelming task! Just going through the various donations and trying to categorize items can take a significant amount of time.  It will be helpful to be on ground here in Haiti in order to help manage the inventory and be more deliberate in seeking specific supplies and donations that are needed. There is certainly no lack of work to do each day. 

Above is a pile of glucometers. We are trying to standardize this system. Much has been donated, but unfortunately we often do not have the matching strips OR we have the strips, but no matching glucometer. It is a continual challenge, but we are receiving some good feedback on ways to solve this problem.

We have this amazing inventory system that another team provided. It is a great program, but things have not always been scanned in and out simply due to the learning curve of adapting to a new system. Batteries go down on the laptop or scanner (there's no electricity at the clinic) and then it is written down, but possibly not entered later. This is understandable with a different team each week and some team members coming their first trip. 

Sometimes the items are not being re-shelved properly and then they are pulled off in an area where there isn't a bar code to scan it out. We can see up to 1000 patients in the week, so things get busy and hectic quickly. We can show a large amount of certain medications in our inventory system that we may not have at all if the medications have not been logged out properly. This is something we are working on and feel like we are making great progress. 

I spent much of the day moving things to one location in the clinic. There are things that we have in 4 or 5 different locations (upstairs and downstairs). There should only be one official location, but somehow things get moved around. We are discussing that possibly we need a couple of different locations for certain items that are frequently used, but then we will restock that area at the end of the day in order to prevent the problem of multiple locations for various things. It's hard to control inventory when we do not even know where everything is or where it should be. One of the most challenging things is when we search and search for something that we absolutely KNOW that we have a ton of, but we cannot find it. Inevitably we find it on the last day of the clinic, but by then the patient is long gone.

It feels good to walk down the mountain at the end of the day and come home to happy and healthy family. Some of our kids go up to the clinic with me each day to help out. Julia helped today in the pharmacy passing out medications and also in inventory. Christelle, David, and Talitha helped yesterday. Billy, Julia, and Roseminique helped the day before. 

We rotate who goes up with me (mostly the older kids). The rest stay with Amanda who is doing an amazing job homeschooling and showing the kids the love of the Lord. It is not always an easy task! We are so thankful to have her with us for another 6 weeks. She will return to the states November 13th. Please pray for the Lord's leading as we seek homeschooling help during the day for when Ron and I (and our older kids) are serving at the ministry. 

Leaving Daughter and Mother to Serve

Me and Phuong: Easter 2013

Last Saturday was one of the hardest days of my life. This is odd I know because as many of you know, we've been through some tough stuff in this life on earth. But Saturday was tough. We have been on the mission field for over a month now. All is going well and we truly feel like we are "home" in Haiti. We are confident that we are exactly where the Lord has called us, but we are coming face to face with the fact that there will be challenges when we are walking with the Lord. 

Phuong in Vietnam

I returned to Oregon last week with our daughter Phuong. She is almost 19 years old and is going to live in the states with her grandma (my mother) and her oldest brother Joseph. Originally Phuong was going to stay with us in Haiti, but we found out at the last minute that Phuong will lose her social security if she is out of the country for more then 30 days. It took us many, many months to apply and finally receive the first social security check the first part of September only to find out that she cannot live out of the USA.

Maliya and Phuong in China

Phuong was adopted from Vietnam and joined our family over 10 years ago. She is not able to live independently, but can function very well with assistance. I remember years ago David (one of our older children) was asked by someone at church "What is wrong with your sister?" He mentioned this in the van on the way home and I looked at him and asked him what his response was? He said, "I said nothing is wrong with her. She's just Phuong. She's just the way God made her". Our children really never thought there was something "wrong" with her. I will agree completely with David that there is nothing "wrong" with Phuong, but she has been diagnosed with cerebral palsy, autism, and global developmental delay (along with various other conditions). 

Phuong last Christmas

We discussed the situation with Phuong and she decided to "try" to return to the states and live with grandma and Joseph. Returning to Haiti without her was one of the hardest things I have ever done. We have three other adult children in the states in college and that is hard, but leaving them is nothing compared to this. They are all independent and able to care for themselves. With Phuong, it was like leaving a 7 or 8 year old due to her developmental delays. 

I rarely ever cry. In fact, it is a big topic in our family that mom rarely ever sheds a tear. But....leaving Phuong was HARD. We know we can go back and get her at anytime if the Lord calls her to live here in Haiti with us. We also know that the Lord will work out the financial details if she needs to forfeit her services, but for now, she's in the states. 

When I got on the plane, I immediately opened the Bible and the Lord showed me a verse: And everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or wife or children or fields for my sake will receive a hundred times as much and will inherit eternal life. Matthew 19:29

I know we are all called to serve and some of us are called to leave children and other family members to serve in a foreign land. It is not always easy though. I think about what my mother went through and what my grandparents went through and have a whole new appreciation for their lives and what they sacrificed to serve the Lord in China.

This is in front of a church that my mom went to in China

My mother grew up on the mission field in China. My grandparents were missionaries in China for over 30 years and then served in other parts of Asia for pretty much the remainder of their lives. At that point in time, there was no internet, international calling, or even international flights for that matter. They had to take literally a slow boat China that took them over two months during war time. They were gone for many years of a time. 

My mom with our daughters Maliya
and Phuong in China 

I've asked my mom about her grandparents and she really didn't know much about them. She guesses they passed away while they were on the mission field. Her parents left everything to serve the Lord in China. I think about leaving my mother now and the challenges that come with still providing her care when we are here in Haiti and she is in Oregon. She is in her 80's and has been on and off of hospice for years, but our oldest son has been caring for her for years and we have an amazing care taker that bathes her each week and takes her to the senior center.  I realize how easy we have it in comparison to what my grandparents went through. We have Skype much of the time, we have online banking to order things for her and pay for what she needs, we usually can call on the phone, and we really could hop a plane and return to the states in a reasonably short amount of time if we needed to. Maybe we couldn't all return, but some of us could at least.

We continue to appreciate everyone's prayers for our family in Haiti as well as our family that is still in the States. We know this would not be possible without the love, prayers, and support of so many people that have been called to spread the word and send others on the mission field. Thank you!!