The Sheppard Family~Living and Loving Haiti

Oh Haiti, My Heart.... 

     County of Extremes

I don't even know what to say at this point. Just when we think it cannot get ANY worse, Haiti just goes downhill even further. I have been traveling to Haiti for nearly 20 years. I began working in Haiti way before our five Haitian kids joined our family. In fact, I remember families that I was working with would ask if we would be adopting from Haiti and I would say nope. I think our house is full. At the time, we had seven kids. We were living in North Carolina, and we really thought our family was complete. 

But God. There were many "but God" moments that seemed to happen. We did not know that some of the children we met in the orphanage would one day join other families in the USA, but eventually make it to our family for their forever home. It's been quite a journey. Haiti really grabbed onto our hearts and held on. We love the Lord and we love children and also have children from all over the world, but we have more children from Haiti than anywhere else. All of our children from Haiti also joined our family long before we jumped in with both feet and moved the whole family there 10 years ago. Haiti has a special place in our hearts. Although it seems impossible and hopeless, we are not giving up!! God has not forgotten or abandoned Haiti and we cannot forget Haiti either. 

We have to be honest though and say this past year has been one of the hardest we have experienced so far. Our family has been spread apart not only with kids aging out and moving on with their lives (growing up), but also with evacuating the kids to North Carolina last year and Ron and I trading off back and forth to Haiti. The various ministry projects we have going on simply have not been equipped to continue independently without at least one of us in Haiti. It was a lot to manage when our entire family was basically volunteering all of their time and now we are missing many hands to help. 

We are regrouping and we are excited to see what the Lord is doing. We have hired some new people to fill various roles, but the money and also the time it takes to train new people, is no small thing. Please pray that the funds will come and the right people will be able to fill those roles. Many people need work and so this is not entirely a bad thing.  We are not purely just hiring someone to do a job though. Pray that people with a love for the Lord and a vision for the future will be placed in those roles. 

Essentially we are condensing what we do into two main projects in Haiti. These two main projects are our Sports Program and our Canine Program. 

Sports Program 

The first one is our gym and sports program. We have been back in the schools and this time at Union School. We have some AMAZING students!! We are so blessed to be involved in bringing gymnastics to these amazing kids. Please pray that the country will stabilize enough that the schools can open again. 

As of the past few weeks, the schools have been closed due to the current political unrest which has blocked off roads and made it impossible to travel within the city. There is also no fuel to be had or very limited fuel on the black market if you can even get it. 

Country Instability

Canine Program

So, what do we do when we are locked down for 7 days or 15 days or 25 days? Well, we continue to work on our other main program which is training dogs. We are in process of training dogs for Search and Rescue.  We are making strides in developing our first Search and Rescue dog team for Haiti. We also train protection dogs, therapy dogs, and service dogs.  We are working hard to develop standards of care to promote ethical breeding practices and assure high quality care in the treatment of animals. 

Historically, many people are scared of dogs in Haiti. Dogs are often mistreated in the streets and rocks are thrown at them. That history of fear also contributes to dogs even within the home compound, not really cared for as a pet, but more like an object or something to be able to control. We aim to change that step by step. Although we also train protection dogs that can be dangerous, we LOVE our dogs and these protection dogs are being trained to help people.  Especially during these difficult times, guards and other employees can be paid off, but you cannot pay off a loyal pet/dog. We do poison proofing with dogs and train dogs to not take food from anyone. These dogs are truly amazing!!

Akari - GSD in Training for SAR

I am blessed to be one of the founders of the Haitian Canine Society. Although I have stepped down from my involvement in the main organization, I have focused on founding the German Shepherd dog club (a specialty club within the main club) and have been honored to be named the president of that club. This club allows us to focus on more details of training we are doing more specifically with German Shepherds in particular. 

As always, we appreciate your continued prayers for our family and for the country of Haiti. Please prayerfully consider supporting our projects in Haiti. No amount is too small! We need YOU to keep our projects going with a one time gift as well as monthly contributions to World Outreach at https://www.worldoutreach.org/cc/donations.html?fCode=546