We are back in Cavango with the DeSouza family and living together with them (nine of us) in our small house while our apartment is completed, perhaps in a month or so.  It is quite crowded, but they are delightful and take us back to when we left for Brazil sixteen years ago with our four small kids. 

The clinic is hopping because of my two-month absence and many arriving now after waiting for our return.  Eduardo is joining me in the clinic as he completes his Angolan “residency” over the next six months and then perhaps stay on and partner with us.  Jocelyn will also join us in the clinic part time and apply her NP skills after she learns some of the unique aspects of “bush medicine”, which is essentially learning to practice among the severely impoverished in a very low-resource setting.

We had a very nice visit with our kids and family in the US over the Holidays and saw many of you respond generously and sacrificially to the needs of the people here needing urgent surgeries.  On behalf of those who will never know you and who you will never know, “Thank You!”

We have several beautiful people and a construction team hoping to visit us and contribute to the work this year, so we hope to see the CoVid numbers decrease and travel restrictions and mandatory quarantines in Angola lessen.

Our daughter, Ellie is expecting her first child and Betsy is traveling back to the US in a week to stay with Ellie and David for a month to get in the way as much as possible.  Ellie has done well throughout the pregnancy and we look forward to meeting Eden.  She’ll be almost one when I meet her at the end of this year!

The DeSouza kids are giving us an idea of the soon-to-be-realized pleasures of grandparenting – enjoying their beauty without the responsibility!

I’m home from church this morning, exhausted from the week and enjoying some rest and solitude and, with tremendous gratitude, thinking so fondly of you, our beautiful supporting family and friends, our partners in this work of service to those forgotten by all but Jesus and His family.

I would normally write more of the interesting people we have met, the crazy illnesses and successful remedies, and the many touches by our Father’s hands that we have witnessed (several hundred this week), but I just don’t have it in me.  Please know how valued and appreciated are your unseen, unrecognized (by all but our Father and us) and sacrificial contributions which are benefitting, every day in our simple rural setting, those prioritized and loved dearly by our Father in Cavango!

Some pics and descriptions follow…