Here we are, last day of 2020. So after years of hearing about and being involved in pandemic planning, we got a chance to say we were ready…. sort of. What I didn’t expect was how important toilet paper became in March of 2020. Nope, didn’t see that coming.

The sudden withdrawal of working at the office was also a bit of a surprise – and I was pleased when the systems that I am responsible for worked well and we were able to keep the workings of a large organization functional. Payroll, AP, AR, fianncial reporting all moved right along. Our property department actually became busier as did the offices connected with NRO as we navigated what it meant to hold commercial leases, buy and sell property, etc in the middle of a pandemic.

On the home front, the diningroom table became the office, though later I moved downstairs. We began storing more food on hand to keep ourselves to a once a week visit to the grocery store.

Our tickets to Celtic Women in NY state were refunded when their concert was cancelled. Our planned holiday down to Missouri and back was also cancelled. The mission trip to Mozambique was cancelled. We were very much just at home.

In the summer we did get to have Rachel, Beth and Ted here with us for two weeks as things improved. But then… things got steadily worse.

In August we determined that our planned trip to Edmonton for Christmas was likely in jeporady so we hopped in the van and drove across the country to spend about a week with them before turning around and driving back. The van gave us incredible fuel savings and I was again astounded how well built it is. Quiet, great gas mileage, wonderful performance on the highway. I could not recommend Toyota more highly.

The last quarter saw us hunker down in the bunker again. A planned face to face retreat was cancelled and once again we “retreated” from home on screen. Working by video conferences has become the new normal and as the vaccine rolls out we’ll need to determine what we do with a building that is larger than what we need.

We recently went for a drive to just get out of the house and I captured this shot, which is mirrored as you can tell. So Wendy is not driving… but it looks like it.

We’ll have a quiet new year’s eve – order in Chinese food – as is our tradition – and look forward to what 2021 will bring – we expect changes are coming to our world – so come back and read what’s a brewing.

We continue to believe that God is helper and strength, a very present help in times of trouble. We hope and pray you do too.