Thank You The Chance to Dream Portland Team & Welcome Little By Little Chicago Team!

It has been a busy few weeks at Mountain Top Ministries. We are so thankful to have so many amazing team members come to serve in Haiti. The Chance to Dream mostly from Oregon/Washington opened the medical clinic last week. The clinic was not as busy last week, but we were blessed to be able to actually spend additional time with each patient instead of rushing through hundreds of patients a day. 

It's hard to tell why some weeks are slower then others, but it may partially have to do with the fact that it was a limited school week due to testing. Many of the students were out early at the school. Maybe word just didn't spread to the community as quickly that week without the students there to spread the news. Or maybe people simply weren't sick, which was a blessing! Either way, we were thankful for what we were able to do for the people that did come for medical care.          

The team also went to Wahoo Bay beach at the end of the week. It was a relaxing and fun day that ended with pizza at Munchies. We were also able to bring our family to spend the day at the beach. Everyone had a great time! 

Other wonderful news for the Sheppard family is now running water. Yeah!! After 7 months, we finally have fixed the holding tank on the roof to where we have gravity fed water coming out of most of the faucets in the house. Ron built a ladder to try to get on top of the roof. Running water is still not in the kitchen and there are some other technical difficulties with being able to run the pump, but now at least much of the time we do have access to some water inside the house instead of hauling buckets from the cistern. For larger amounts of water, we'll still haul buckets of water since it seems our water pressure isn't good enough to try to fill a whole bucket in the house.

Little by Little Team (mostly from Chicago) arrived on Monday. They have had a very busy week in the medical clinic. We've seen hundreds of patients already and expect to see hundreds more each day. The team has been able to eat under the new covered picnic area by the playground.

While the Oregon team was here in Haiti, we had another Sheppard birthday party. This time it was for Julia's 16th and Naomi's 4th birthday. It was a princess party with cake, ice cream, and princess hats for the birthday girls. Joey (one of the Oregon team members that turned 17 during the week) was also able to join the fun! He didn't seem to mind being a part of the princess party.

The teenagers especially have missed their friends in the states, so it was especially nice to have Oregon team members here for their birthday party. Some of the team members were teenagers that the teens have known from youth group as well.

We have some amazing team members that have spent more time organizing the clothing closet this week. Ron went into Port au Prince and purchased many more clear bins for the clinic. This will be a big help in organizing. It seems we organize to a point and then run out of hangers or bins or other things in order to complete the process. We are finally at the point where we may actually have the bulk of what we need to entirely organize the inventory and clothing closet. We'll need to purchase some materials for more shelves, but we hope to have shelves made in the next couple of weeks. 

Overall, things are going really well. Please consider joining a team! I am still looking for a couple of team members for Haiti May 8th as well as quite a few team members for Guatemala June 4th. Contact me for more details!