He will not crush the weakest reed
    or put out a flickering candle.
    He will bring justice to all who have been wronged.
He will not falter or lose heart
    until justice prevails throughout the earth.
Isaiah 42:3-4 

2020 was a challenging year for many of us. As Christmas approaches and a new year is on the horizon, we can only imagine what is in store for the future. Among the things we can find comfort in during the Christmas season is knowing that Jesus came into our world as a chosen and gentle servant to bring justice to the nations. He cares for the weak reeds and flickering candles. He will not lose heart until His Kingdom of justice prevails.

When we compare our year to that experienced by others, we have to say it has been a relatively good year, even if we have had to adjust to different ways of doing things and not seeing our family as much. Though we have prayed with many friends who have endured serious cases of COVID-19 and grieved with friends who have lost dear loved ones, we have remained in relatively good health. Katiana pointed out that, considering some of the jobs we have, it is surprising that no one in the house has caught COVID.

The girls have been navigating the changing learning environment brought on by school closures and Leon has been doing more work from the home office this year to be around when needed. Since Katiana was attending an all-virtual school already for her senior year, the change to e-learning last spring was not dramatic. The bigger change involved her job doing after-school care with the YMCA at local elementary schools. After graduating from high school in May, she is taking a gap year to explore what interests she wants to pursue in the future. She continued her job with the YMCA when school started again in the Fall but had to pause that again when the school buildings were closed in mid-November. She was blessed to find a two-week job helping a local family tutor a 3rd grader who was struggling through e-learning. She enjoyed the experience for those two weeks and felt it had a positive impact on the girl. The school she works at is scheduled to reopen on January 5.

Elaina is in her third year of high school and really enjoys the program she is in. Her school was on a hybrid schedule from the beginning of the year, so she had two days in building with half her classmates pretty much from the beginning of the year until schools went all-virtual in mid-November. She enjoys the combination of traditional academic work and the experience of real-world project-based learning. She has distinguished herself as a leader on campus and been involved in many clubs. She is in the process of considering where she will be going for college and has made it clear that it will most likely be a school in Minnesota or Wisconsin.

Natalia started high school this fall. Her start has been a little more challenging since her school waited until the second quarter to start their hybrid schedule. So, she started the year in an all-virtual environment. They were only in-person two days a week for four weeks before the school was closed again with the second wave of COVID infections. In spite of virtual classes, she has been making friends. During her four weeks with in-person classes, she started to really connect with her orchestra classmates. She has also been involved in virtual clubs she has enjoyed, particularly theater. Natalia has been using her free time for painting and is demonstrating quite a gifting in this area of life.

Working on the administrative side of a network of medical clinics, work has been extra challenging for Tina this year. Like most people in the medical field, their clinics needed to make adjustments because of COVID. They have had to rotate staff as different staff members either become ill or have close contact with a patient who tested positive for COVID. Even though she is not a front-line worker, Tina has had to deal with many of the logistic issues involved with adjusting to new ways of seeing patients during this time. She has also had to adjust training schedules for new staff members, depending on who is available at the time. On top of this is always the concern for the front-line medical workers, many of whom she has gotten to know as they go through the hiring process at their clinics.

The highlight of the year was spending an extended amount of time with cousins mid-year to make up for the other times together we had to cancel. Leon’s brother came to Indiana with his two daughters for nearly two weeks in July, followed by sending our daughters to Minnesota for a week. Tina was also able to get a week with her family the week after the girls spent time with their cousins. In spite of not doing a longer full-family trip this year, we did enjoy several shorter excursions to local hiking locations, including day trips to Clifty Falls State Park and the DePauw Nature Park. We also enjoyed a weekend retreat at McCormick’s Creek State Park with our faith community.

Any summary of 2020 in our house would not be complete without an introduction to the new addition to the cat family. On a cold, wet night in mid-March, we had an all black kitten show up at our back door, pleading to get in. At first, we tried to find a way to keep him comfortable outside since we know Smores and Brody are pretty territorial. When it became obvious this cat was not a feral cat, Katiana took him into her room for the night. We decided to keep him inside while we tried to find his owner (he had no microchip). After all efforts to find an owner failed and he seemed to get along with the other cats, we officially welcomed Kuroneko (black cat in Japanese) into our home. He has been like a little brother to Brody and finds himself in some precarious adventures.

We continue to be amazed at how God is using us during this season and the ways He challenges us to be creative in reaching out in an era when few things are being done the same old way. We are excited to see what next year holds for us, including the prospect of finally getting zoning approval for our tiny house village and taking a major step toward seeing that vision become a reality. Thank you for your ongoing prayers and support.