Kicking off the new year 2021 with a bang????
What a way to start off the new year with all of our Hearts that Hope family having to stay in isolation because the VanderYacht’s got Covid 19!
Right before Christmas 3 of our neighbor’s children tested positive for covid and because we had been playing with them we had to go get tested. We felt that doing this was the right thing before we had any Christmas celebrations. We did not get the results we wanted! One of our girls tested positive. This now meant 10 days of lockdown through Christmas and New Year. It was quite a stressful time as well as you don’t know what it’s going to look like with each person that gets it. With 15 kids and 3 house moms, a large portion of which were high risk, we spent a lot of time hoping and praying.
We decided to lock down all 3 houses of our houses individually so that we wouldn’t spread it between us. This was definitely the right decision but it did make it very difficult for all of us, and the children were very bored. It goes without saying that Christmas looked very different. On Christmas morning the VanderYacht’s took it, in turn, to sit outside each house to watch the kids open their presents. A very generous member of the community had planned a big Christmas lunch with presents but they were only able to drive by and drop off the gifts and food. This was such a huge blessing to us. The great thing was that after that they all had their new toys and games to play so they weren’t super bored for the last week of our isolation.
New Years’ Eve was also not much of a celebration. It was our last day of isolation, but no one was in the mood to stay up to 12 am to start the day so most all of us were in bed by 9 pm.
The great thing is that God protected! No one really got that sick in any of the houses. Our son was probably the sickest as it did go to his chest for 2 days but he was back to normal within 3 days. The rest of us just got mild symptoms, if any symptoms at all, and are all ready to get back into the “normal” life again. If that will ever happen?!
Another blow to the start of the year is that most schools have delayed their reopening by over 2 weeks. The kids were so looking forward to being with friends, even if it meant wearing masks and social distancing, and were really disappointed at the news. This Christmas/summer holiday has gone on a long time and we were also excited to get our kids back into a routine of school again.
Please continue praying with us that our covid numbers keep coming down so that schools can reopen so that we can have beach visits again and other fun extra-curricular activities and so that we can all remain safe.