Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to all of our supporters and friends! I pray that this update finds each of you healthy and doing well.  As fall turned into winter, not much has changed for our family.  We are still staying at the cabin up north (no cell service is starting to get to me! If you’ve called it is likely that we never even got a missed call, my apologies for lags in responding).  Adam’s foot has completely healed, praise God.  The surgery was successful and the recovery was speedy (compared to the 6+ months he battled with the open wound).  Mid December he was discharged from the podiatry follow up appointments with a completely healed foot!  This was joyful news!  Though his shoulder is still in pain, things feel much lighter without having to bandage and care meticulously for an open ulcer.  Adam continues going to PT for the shoulder pain.  Imaging on the area doesn’t show any damage or problems which is confusing for the physicians (and us!) given the amount of pain and the loud clicking anytime he moves the shoulder joint.  After the holidays they are going to look more into the collar bone/sternum areas  to see if the problem originates further down the line, so to speak.  Despite these setbacks, Adam has been picking up hours as a contractor for a company that he worked with previously.  This extra support has been helpful with our prolonged stay in Michigan…the difference in the cost of living from the Dominican to the USA is a form of cultural shock all its own.​Despite all of the inconveniences construction continues to move forward on the Clinic of Hope in Rosa La Piedra.   Just before Christmas the roof went up on the house side of the project – a true Christmas miracle!

The Public Health office in the DR continues to have the mobile clinic sector closed.  We are praying for a re-opening soon so that we can send a medical team to see our many patients that have gone without care for 9+ months. ​

We have continued to work for the mission as best we can remotely.  BBOH Board Meetings have moved to zoom allowing us to keep up with the admin side of running the organization.  2021 will be the start of new things behind the scenes: a new board member and updating our quickbooks skills.  If anyone with experience in quickbooks is able to help us wrap our minds around a few things, please do let me know! The kids are doing well and have completely adjusted to being in Michigan.  Snow began falling here a long time ago and they have enjoyed playing outside, building snow men and snow angels.  Ben especially enjoys looking for animal prints in the snow and looking up which animals have been in the area.  We continue to homeschool and soak in all of this family time together.  Some days we soak it all up by playing games, doing activities and baking… other days we all sink into our own corners of the house and beg for personal space.  I think many of us can relate to the ups and downs of living through a time such as 2020.  We try our best to take the good with the bad and focus on our many blessings.As the year comes to a close, we want to thank you for all of your prayers and support during this time. The community that God has provided for our family and for the mission continues to blow us away with spiritual support and generous giving. Thank you for being part of our team! We wouldn’t be able to do this without you. <3