Off to Guatamala !

Once again, Mom is leading another mission trip down to the country of Guatemala. Earlier this year, Mom wrote about the work that she does there with The Chance To Dream. A quick summary is that The Chance To Dream is a non-profit organization which was founded by a friend of ours with Mom as a co-founder primarily focusing on the improvement of education in Guatemala.

Bringing in teams with medical expertise and medication offered freely to the populace is already really good, but couple it with psychology trauma training for the firefighters, involving the community in recognizing and treating common maladies with sustainable methods, as well as supporting the teachers of the village schools with the team members trip expenses and you've got an efficient four-birds-one-stone scenario which everyone loves!

On this particular trip, the team is mostly nurses and nursing students who will be serving in Santa María de Jesus alongside the local Bomberos (firefighters) who've graciously assisted in the past by allowing the team to set up their clinic at the fire station with the Bomberos providing valuable assistance. The team is planning to spend five days seeing patients sharing love with the community in Santa María de Jesus. After the five days of clinic with the team, Mom is staying a few extra days in order to hold a seminar with the Bomberos regarding teaching about child trauma.

Trauma in Guatemala is a very serious and prevalent issue. Drugs and alcohol have long ago reared their ugly heads and they flagrantly disrupt the lives of many. Cartels have infused themselves within the society and scores of young children are recruited by them to carry the drugs, often times becoming the victims of gang violence which contributes to Guatemala having one of the highest child homicide rates in the world. This is night-and-day different from the trauma in Haiti--which is also everywhere you look--primarily because the poverty doesn't afford the chance for anyone to even
think about drugs and alcohol in order to make it a problem.

It is by no means a hopeless situation. Important, meaningful changes happen all the time and we are thankful each time we visit for the opportunities God has given us to be such positive influences on the lives of so many people both young and old. Thank you for all of your prayers and support!

God Bless!

Chasing After Crazy Life Decisions

Hello everyone! I'm David--one of the Sheppard kids--here to update you on some of the goings-ons with Mom, Dad, and the rest of the family in Haiti.

If I had a nickle for every time...
Every time I find myself talking about my incredible family, my eyes are met with incredulity from anyone who hasn't heard about them before. Fourteen children, homeschooled, and now living in Haiti as missionaries. Certainly not a typical family so it's easy to understand their surprise. And really, it's very exciting to share of God's faithfulness to us. Of course, it's then only natural to wonder at the circumstances which ignited the fire of courage to make these difficult decisions.The answer, of course, is complicated, convoluted, and confusing enough to fill the pages of a decent sized book. So as not to bore you--or bore myself and hurt my fingers typing--here's a reader's digest gander into our life decisions.

The simple answer is that God's called us to serve and we've done our best at responding to that call whenever we hear it. No matter the circumstances. An example I've heard my dad use many times is that we've never known where we'd get the money to complete an adoption upon commencing along any of our 12 adoption journeys. In spite of the perceived impossibilities, each time a figurative door shuts a window is opened (yeah, yeah...I know it's a cliché but sometimes clichés are true). Finding those windows has made for a host of exciting and, perhaps, unorthodox life decisions. Some have called it crazy. "How can you do that to your kids?!" they question, as if living a life contrary to American normality is borderline neglect.

Many other people seem very impressed and we've been blessed with enthusiastic friends who've consistently contributed their time, skills, prayers, and even their finances to support us and sometimes carry us through our more difficult times. Even still, I can't tell you how many times people have told me that they couldn't do what we do. A fantastic friend and former neighbor of ours even nicknamed our mom "Supermama". A more perfect nickname I know not. But it promotes the idea of being abnormally special when the reality is that we're not any more or less special than the barista serving coffee at a Starbucks in California or the CEO of a Fortune 500 company in New York. The most special thing about our lives is a gift which God has freely given to all who choose to accept it.

And really, that's the center of it all. The very core of our decision making process. That's also the reason we have a difficult time answering the question of what we do. From Guatemala, Ecuador, the USA, and Haiti, we've been doing our best to simply keep Jesus at the center and trust God to meet all of our needs. Is that crazy? If so, then we'll continue chasing after the next Crazy Life Decision and trust God will catch us every time we fall.

The Briefest of Updates

Hello everyone!

I'm David--one of the Sheppard kids--here to update you on some of the goings-ons with Mom, Dad, and the rest of the family in Haiti. 

Hello everyone! I'd just like to preface this by saying that much has happened in our tumultuous yet blessed lives since the last post. I would like to give an overview of all of it, but that'd take too much time. So for this post, I'll share with you Mom's speaking engagement at the Orphan Summit last month. Also, there's another mission team leaving for Guatemala in a couple of weeks so please keep them in your prayers! 

Mom was invited on behalf of Chosen International to speak at the Orphan Summit back in early May this year. For any of you that don't know, the Orphan Summit is an event hosted by the Christian Alliance for Orphans (CAFO) with the aim of equipping people to care for orphans with wisdom and love. To those of you who know my mom, it must be very shocking to learn that she often is asked to speak about adoption, orphans, and attachment.

This time was no different. Mom taught a workshop on adopted teens and--more specifically--how important adoption advocacy groups, ministries, and churches can collaboratively support families with teen adoptees. Sounds very interesting, don't you think? I said as much to Mom and asked how she thought the workshop went. 

"Well," she said, "one of the women attending apparently didn't like it. I got some negative feedback from one person afterwards." The thing is, sometimes people want answers that don't exist. There are a lot of people who would gladly take Morpheus' proffered blue pill and live in a false reality. It's impossible to please everyone and even to attempt that is completely impractical. Sometimes the overwhelming difficulties people face causes a show of bitterness to anyone who reminds them of their pain. It's a natural response.That being said, someone from the popular magazine Adoption Today seemed impressed and even contacted Mom wondering if she'd be interested in writing an article on the subject of Teens in Adoption.  

Anyhow, Mom's other workshop was a gigantic success and she tells me she had a good time at the Summit this year. Her next trip is going to be to Guatemala from June 21 to the 29. It's a fairly small team with only 8 members including my mom. They're planning on providing medical care and education in Santa María de Jesus.

Traveling can be very tiresome and even a little dangerous. Please remember them in your prayers this month as they seek to alleviate physical ailments while--more importantly--they trust God will use them to minister spiritually to those they come in contact with.

That's it for now. Thank you so much for your love, prayers, and just general support you've thrown our way!

~God Bless