Arrived!

 After four flights and 27 hours of travel, I finally arrived at my home for the next 10 months. I joined my team for the last two flights and amazingly everything went perfectly with the travels. All our bags arrived (even with so many connections for me), the kids did awesome with only a few hours of sleep, & we enjoyed being together again and embarking on this new adventure. Here are some pictures documenting our travel:

 Samuel Cropsey (age 10 months) guards the carry-ons in Detroit

 Micah (3), Elise (5), and Abi (3) check out our plane before boarding

 Anna (7) beats me at thumb wrestling

 Four adjacent rows of McCropders on the flight from Detroit to Frankfurt

 Entertaining the kids with stickers in the Frankfurt airport

 Arrival in Lyon, France - and this isn't even all the bags! But we are 16 people moving to France for almost a year!

 Giving Abi a ride to the bus that transported our team to Albertville (language school location). I love being back with these kids again!

 Maggie (3), Abi (3), and Ben (1) claim their seats on the bus before their parents assign them to their carseats. :) I'm completely in awe of their smiles after they each only slept a few hours on the plane and had been up for quite a while at this point. And no major meltdowns. And what's more, thanks to the prayers of many, all have been sleeping well in the new time zone. Miraculous!

 Our school - family building ahead in first pic and to right in second. Building on left in second pic is classrooms and non-family rooms.

 Back of the building - my window is the top one on the right. I'm so thankful to get to move in there tomorrow as the room I've been staying in for the last few days is about half the size of my freshman college dorm room. I'll post a picture of the inside of my new room soon.

 Singles share a kitchen. On the left with me is Sarah, our new MK teacher. So thankful to have her on the team and to get to know her this year.

 Singles also share a terrace - incredible views all around!

 Downtown Albertville - feels like a quintessential European city. And thankfully, I've discovered with the purchases I've made thus far, the shop clerks mostly don't speak English. So I'm forced to do my best with French from the beginning.

 After church yesterday, a few of us hiked to a nearby medieval city called Conflans - reminded me of our medieval unit and festival in 6th grade. :) So interesting! 

 View of Albertville from one of the nearby mountains

Towers and public garden/grapevines in Conflans

It truly is breathtaking to be here. Still quite overwhelming to imagine that we will be able to teach medical students in French in 10 months, but thankful for this opportunity and praying that we will continue our language learning journey in God's strength and not our own. I'm loving being back with my team again but am also seeking out ways to meet new French friends in the community, so I appreciate your prayers as I balance those two desires. Thanks again for praying for our travel - those prayers were answered abundantly beyond what we could ask or imagine!