The past few weeks have been hard for us. We have officially been home for 4 months. Since March, our kids have been doing e-learning, the whole country has been under varying degrees of a nationwide curfew, and most businesses are shut down. Becoming anxious and extremely disappointed is fairly easy at this point, but we know there is still good in the middle of this really hard time. We’re determined to remind ourselves of all the good things we still have. This is our quick list of quarantine blessings.

• Friends to play with Dulce

Because of her developmental delays, Dulce is homeschooled by our teachers. When all the kids went back to school in January, including our other little girls who started preschool, Dulce was pretty lonely during the day. Playing with Sebastian and Santiago isn’t the same for her.

Now that our schools are closed, Dulce has all of her friends at home with her. Plus, she gets to join in some of their school activities. For Dulce, the other kids doing e-learning is great. She has friends to play with during the day and she now has “classmates” too!

• Creative ways to learn from home with Miss Jenny

All the kids love Miss Jenny, our preschool and elementary school teacher. With so many young learners in our house, we needed good ways to help them continue learning during the quarantine. Using the work their school teachers send each week as a guide, Miss Jenny adds lots of hands-on activities to keep our little learners entertained, engaged, and learning.

We have color days in our home. The little kids have spent some time “cooking” during class. They even made homemade play dough during one lesson. They’re having a great time in Miss Jenny’s class. All of the other adults love the pictures Miss Jenny takes and the fact that she manages the messy activities!

• Zoom is for more than school

Postponing all of our summer mission teams has been hard on all of us. Our kids look forward to reconnecting with returning team members each year. They also look forward to the fun our teams bring with them—games, lots of friends to play with, trips to laser tag and bowling. Our home is much quieter this summer than normal.

Postponing trips is hard on team participants too. This summer, we’re doing Zumba, storytime, silly games, and other activities via Zoom. We’re using Zoom for school, our team leaders planned activities for our kids, why not get together virtually?! Although we’d much rather be together in-person, we’re making the best of our time and technology.

• Big birthday cakes

We love celebrating birthdays. At the end of every month, we have a party for all of that month’s birthday kids. Everybody gets together in the backyard, we sing, share blessings for the kids, and eat cake, a very large cake. Luckily, we’re still able to celebrate our birthday kids each month, albeit with fewer guests. Usually, many of our staff members stay to celebrate as well. With the current daily curfews in place, only those who are staying overnight join in the fun.

We can’t wait to have everyone back for our birthday parties, especially for Flor’s postponed quinceanera! You can sneak a peek at our birthday parties each month and get an update on the birthday kids in our blog updates.

• Baby Christopher snuggles

We get baby snuggles a little longer than expected! Baby Christopher came to us in December, needing a safe place to recover from some medical complications. After his initial court appearances, we expected a short stay. But, then the pandemic changed everything and delayed all of his proceedings. Although, we know his family is ready for him to come home, we love having him with us.

Until we’re able to reunite him with his mother, we’re enjoying all his baby snuggles and giggles. He’s a fun reminder of our early days with lots of babies in our home.

Counting our quarantine blessings

Friends, the last few months have been hard and good, all at the same time. We’re thankful you’ve supported us and prayed for our children. Mostly, we’re humbled by our responsibility to protect and guide these and thankful for the opportunity. They are our quarantine blessings.