Random Happenings in Haiti....

Melissa, Naomi, and Christopher's brother

Our good friends the Williamsons were our neighbors in Oregon. We have so many good memories of Bible study at our house and all the fun things we did together. We met when we were with the kids at the high school on a weekend running around the track. We saw what appeared to be a family that looked very similar to ours (which is an odd thing to see just about anywhere, but especially in Oregon). We became fast friends. We were very sad when their family moved to Texas, but we have managed to keep in touch over the years. Their family also has five children adopted from Haiti. We had the great pleasure of meeting one of their children's siblings who is in the adoption process.

Caretaker with Darwin, Billy, and Billy's brother-in-law

Billy's little nephew Darwin came back at the last clinic and Dr. O was able to remove his second finger. They came to the clinic a couple of weeks ago and the first finger removed. It healed very well. Then they came to the next clinic and had the extra finger on the other hand removed. This one is doing good as well. We are so thankful to be able to assist in connecting our children's family to medical care that is otherwise not easily accessible to the general population.

Sweets at the Sheppard Winter Quarterly Party

Our quarterly parties are quite different in Haiti, but still a lot of fun. Sometimes there are team members and sometimes it's mostly just us, but the kids LOVE any excuse to eat sugar. This party was for the winter birthdays: Ron (umm....older), Billy (12), and Melissa (10). We had this party at the end of the Daniel fast, so David went all out making donuts, cookies, cupcakes, and various interesting treats. Thank you everyone who has sent in chocolate chips and baking supplies. We have access to flour and sugar, but some of the other ingredients are either a challenge to find or very expensive to buy here.

Melissa watching Billy open presents

The Charles family has been a blessing to our family.  Naomi is continually asking to go see "Miss Beth" at the guesthouse. She absolutely LOVES miss Beth.  It is comforting to have a family that we have known for so many years living right next door to us.

Naomi and Joseph

Thank you Cook family for all the chocolate from the states! Joseph came in with I believe 17 pounds of chocolate in his carry on. This is especially funny because Joseph (our oldest son who I cannot even believe is 22 years old now) does not even like chocolate, but we are thankful he brought in the chocolate for the kids to eat and for us to squirrel away for later cooking. Plus, we've been able to give out to some of our friends in the village that work in the clinic or work for Mountain Top Ministries.

If any of you know Willem Charles (the founder of Mountain Top Ministries), you'll know that the sight above is incredibly rare. I cannot believe that we saw Willem sitting outside the clinic for a significant period of time trying to stack nails on this little block so that they would balance. Willem is the type of person that is continually on the move, so to see him sitting down doing just about anything is quite amazing. Just when he almost had it balanced, he would put one more nail on and then the whole thing would fall over.  We'll have to ask him if he ever got it balanced. Apparently it is a popular game here in Haiti, but he wanted to balance it in a different way then what he could already do. It is interesting to see the different things that people do for fun here such as rolling lids with a stick or wire, tying string to each other to make a jump rope, or using plastic bottles to play soccer. We spend far too much time and energy creating "toys" in the States when there are so many things around us that can entertain us for free!