Four Months of Development

I've written a post on our team blog highlighting the changes at Kibuye in my 4 month absence. Check out the link below to see lots of pictures of growth here in rural Burundi!

http://www.mccropders.blogspot.fr/2015/04/in-only-four-months.html

And I forgot to mention in the other blog that we also have new NICU protocols at Kibuye Hope Hospital! That was one thing I worked on while in the US - reviewing neonatology service protocols from other African hospitals, the World Health Organization, and the Burundi Ministry of Health and then writing protocols for Kibuye (with the help of a US neonatologist and with my colleague Eric McLaughlin). I'm very happy that they are approved by the medical director and that they were received positively by the hospital staff on Wednesday. Hopefully this standardized approach will lead to improved care for our smallest patients.

We still utilize kangaroo care for our patients. 

But we have four homemade incubators for the smallest babies. 

Back to presenting in French. Loved the break of presentations in English while in the US! 

But I'm happy to be back at work teaching and caring for patients. I really do love my job most days! 

Back to Burundi

And I’m back! Three weeks ago I said goodbye to my family at the Nashville airport and then Flat Stanley and I boarded the first of 7 planes culminating in our final arrival in Bujumbura last Tuesday. No, it doesn’t usually take 2 weeks (or 7 planes) to get to Burundi, but I made a few stops along the way. :) 

I’m realizing five years into this global nomad life that transitions always take longer and are more chaotic than I expect. Not that I wasn’t warned about that through missions training. Just like I was warned that HMA (Home Ministry Assignment) would be quite busy. But some things I just have to learn for myself. It may be stubbornness, independence, or denial, but regardless, now I understand more about myself and how I process these changes. And I’m learning to extend grace and patience to myself in the chaos. 

So now I understand the importance of the boat. Travel used to take a lot longer which gave people more transition time to process the goodbyes and anticipate the hellos. Now I have no desire to cross the Atlantic on a ship (though I wonder if the ship authorities are as strict about baggage allowance!), but I’ve discovered that it is helpful to build some extra time into the voyage to help with the adjustment between two very different worlds. So I stopped in Switzerland to visit friends on the way to the US in November. And coming back to Burundi it worked out perfectly to time my arrival with the Serge East Africa retreat in Kenya. 

The McLaughlin family and I attended the last Serge (World Harvest) East Africa retreat in August 2011 just before being officially appointed as Serge missionaries. We loved getting to know new friends with similar vision, passion, theology, and ministries serving in neighboring countries. And I was just as encouraged this time to reconnect with special friends and have time to rest and be renewed and pray for one another and have fun together as an East Africa field. This time our whole team was there which was a special time though too short as McLaughlins and Carlan left for the US from there. We miss them now back in Burundi! 

So Kenya was a good place to begin my transition back to Africa. The culture is familiar but not quite the same as Burundi and the setting of the retreat was such that I could engage with hotel staff and speak Swahili, etc., or withdraw to my American personal space without ramifications. And with 100+ friends and colleagues around, there were lots of opportunities for either deep conversation and processing or simply swimming and hanging out together. The sessions on surrender, suffering, loss, resurrection, and journey were encouraging, inspiring, and relevant to us all. And celebrating Easter week as a community was very meaningful. 

 Passover Seder above and below

Just before sunrise on Easter morning 

Now I’m settled back into my home in Burundi and I began hospital work again yesterday. My brain is spinning with French and Kirundi and medicine and teaching and new names and figuring out the appropriate return greetings, etc. But I’m happy to be here. And life is feeling familiar again. 

Nothing like a rainbow to inspire hope and peace in returning to Burundi!