Building, Medical Care, and Food/Water Distribution in Two Villages

Thank you for your patience. We are doing the best we can to get food/water, shelter, and medical care to the villagers in Belot and Nouvelle Terrain. Due to the urgency in this process, it has been challenging to provide detailed updates. Internet speed here is not like it is in the states and often we do not have internet at all. It has been raining pretty much nonstop since the hurricane. This has caused flooding and mudslides throughout many areas in Haiti. Our solar is not all that helpful in this kind of overcast weather, which means by midday we often do not have power unless we run the generator. We don't choose to run the generator most of the time due to the expense.

The village of Belot

We are incredibly overwhelmed by the support. It's humbling to see so many people step up in a time of need. Please know that we appreciate your support and we are working strategically to make sure your funds serve as many people possible in this time of need. If I have not thanked you personally, please forgive me. I am getting messages from our kids back home on the various donations and I also see various donations coming through paypal. The team helped create a spreadsheet in order for us to better calculate how many homes we could begin with the various funds. The originally calculations did not include labor, but God has been miraculously providing the funding needed to build these homes! It's not an easy process that maybe we can explain in the future, but please understand that we are working as fast as we can in a country where time is quite a bit different then in the USA.

Medical Care

Junior doing dental work

Jordan in clinic- was helping with dental care

Last week we were blessed to have an amazing medical team lead by our good friend and nurse practitioner Vanessa. We saw hundreds of patients in Belot. Some of these cases were life threatening conditions, so it was encouraging to be able to get the help to people in need. We also had a young 4 year old with severe malnutrion. We were able to transport him and his parents to a malnutrition center in Thomassin. Praise God! Thank you Rhyan and Espwa Berlancia for the work you are doing to help families! It's wonderful to see organizations coming together to help those in need.

Vanessa's last day in Haiti (with Linda and Naomi)

A grandma holding her little grandbaby

Love this picture with our niece Jamie (nurse) doing medical care and our son David translating

I have to mention this sweet little old man. We have a sustainability plan with the village of Belot, which means that the church body has come together and decided a price that people will pay to come to clinic. This way, they begin to develop a medical fund and in the future, they will be able to run their own clinic by paying local medical providers and purchasing medication. Currently, medical care and education and a range of things are subsidized by outside funding, but all that we do in the village has a contribution by the people. People generally pay 20 gourdes to come to clinic, which is equivalent to about 30 cents. BUT..there are some exceptions. This sweet little old many with a cane put his hand out with 7 gourdes and we let that slide.

David translating - sweet old man

Mr Excellent is also an exception. Mr Excellent is still farming his land at over 80 years old. He is an amazing person who comes to the truck and gives us potatoes and sometimes a live chicken. We don't make him walk to the clinic even though he would be happy to walk the long distance.

Mr Excellent by his home

Ann- He misses you and asks about you frequently!

Coming up to Ron in the truck

Building/Shelter

Rosemarie working with the crew on building her new home

The foundation is done on Rosemarie's house. They will begin putting the blocks in for the walls. We are making a new plan for windows and doors. Ron was going to weld them, but there's an issue with locating the right kind of wire. Anyway....always something, but we're working on a new plan. It's important to have plan A and B and C in your head when living in a country with very limited resources.

damage done to trees in Belot during the hurricane

We have five homes in process currently in Belot. We are hoping to start on the other nine soon.  There are many others in Noevelle Terrain that need to be rebuilt, but the mudslides has changed some of our plans. We will need to assess further damage and figure out a new plan on getting the help to that area. We are not able to access that village at this time. Please keep the village in prayer! The conditions are extreme and the needs are great.

Beginning stages of new home being built

Food/Water

With various general donations, we have been able to purchase rice/beans for families in need. We also had a donation of Aquatabs for immediate need with cleaning water. We were able to do various training on cholera and for the patients waiting in line for medical care. Operation Blessing has also donated various supplies to us. We are in process of getting water filters and chlorine production devices to both villages. The pastor from Nouvelle Terrain will be picking up some more food supplies tomorrow.

As always, thank you so much for the continued prayers and support! To donate any amount, please go to www.thechancetodream.com and designate for Haiti relief. Please follow the blog for pictures of the completed homes and homes in process. We appreciate your patience with information. We do not have any paid staff with The Chance to Dream. It is just our family here in Haiti. We're doing the best we can to get information to donors, but it is difficult when we are out in the villages serving. The speed of internet in order to post updates (and especially to upload pictures) is challenging. We could not do what we are doing without the support and prayers of so many people back in the States and Canada. We also want to say how thankful we are for a specific group of people: We have been contacted by many people that we went to high school with that we haven't spoken to in over 25 years. Thank you! Thank you! Your support is appreciated. (yes, that shows how old we really are)...

God Bless,

The Sheppard Family