Both sides of the pond

“Living in grace bridges the chasm between our longings and our inability to satisfy those longings.  We have a yearning that ultimately only God can satisfy, yet God extended grace to humanity by creating us with a desire for relationship that extends to others.” Lisa McKinn

Two weeks into my short visit to the States, I'm amazed at the gifts God has given me of friends and family who know me and love me on both sides of the Atlantic. At times I wish those two very different worlds could collide more frequently and more thoroughly, but I'm so encouraged and blessed by community in varied places as I travel and transition between continents. That truly is the grace of God to us - reminding us through the longing for more that we ultimately long for Him and yet simultaneously extending us grace through those around us reflecting His image. 

 One relationship I'm especially thankful for is that of being auntie to nieces and nephews almost everywhere I go. Samuel and Emma (below) are my sister's kids who I love - and Baby #3 is coming in September! - but God has grafted in quite a few other "nieces"and "nephews" to my little family. I love getting to hear their little stories and receive their hugs and speak into their lives, too, as their adopted aunt. God, my Heavenly Father, demonstrates to me His goodness and love and faithfulness through the privilege of being an aunt and loving His children around the world.  

"For you did not receive a spirit that makes you a slave again to fear, but you received the Spirit of sonship. And by him we cry, "Abba, Father." The Spirit himself testifies with our spirit that we are God's children." Romans 8:15-16

Day by day

"And as your days, so shall your strength be. There is none like God...who rides through the heavens to your help, through the skies in his majesty. The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms." Deuteronomy 33:25-27

A friend in Birmingham shared this verse with me yesterday, and it really resonated with me in the light of the challenges of this past year. Previously I viewed difficulties and sufferings as hurdles to jump over - just get over it as quickly as possible and then look back at how God has used it for good. But the hurdles have been too big to simply jump over this year, and there have been no quick resolutions to challenges. We are promised that our "light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory" (2 Cor 4:17), but we are not promised that we won't wander in the wilderness for 40 years in this life. Instead God promises that He will give strength for each day as He walks with us on this journey. We don't see the strength that will be provided for the entire journey at this time; we just experience the strength for today. And we are held in His everlasting arms through it all.  

I had the opportunity at the end of my time in France to go paragliding and I've thought a lot about that experience as an example of how God carries His children. Just like Peter getting out of the boat to walk on water to Jesus, in paragliding one leaves a place of relative safety (the ground) and actually runs off the edge of the mountain. And there are risks involved just as Peter could have drowned. One is at the mercy of the wind and the parachute and the pilot's skills and training, and one feels out of control being blown and tossed by the wind. Like Peter, it's easy to look at the wind and the waves and doubt the sovereign care, love, and goodness of our Savior. Through this past year, I've slid that direction several times - responding in doubt and fear to the feeling of being out of control and helpless. But occasionally, through the mercy and grace of God, like during paragliding, I've looked up and leaned back on the everlasting arms, grabbing Jesus' hand and looking at the majestic views around me. Those views didn't always look like I'd expected and were sometimes partially obscured by clouds, but they demonstrated unmistakably the strength and care of God for that day for me and for my teammates, friends, and family. And the feelings of helplessness, weakness, and being out of control were transformed into joy and thankfulness for the grace of my Savior for each moment and for eyes to see His Presence with me. 

"Safe"on the ground

 "They who wait for the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings like eagles."Isaiah 40:31

Chez moi

Well, I'm not exactly sure where "chez moi"(my home) is these days, but I know that being in Nashville with my family comes pretty close! What a joyous welcome home - especially appreciated as I arrived home a day later than planned due to a flight cancellation in Newark! Enjoying home cooked meals, favorite restaurants, and, most of all, quality time with my family. Just missing my sister and brother-in-law Lauren and Wei Chi, but excited to see them soon, too.

As my teammate Rachel beautifully expressed in her blog post this week - I highly recommend it to you (click here) - our year in France was significantly harder than we dreamed, though also full of grace and the Presence of God. But that makes these four weeks of visiting with family and friends (and communicating much more effectively in English!) that much more longed for and crucial to providing recovery and rest before beginning the new challenges ahead in Burundi. We appreciate your prayers that all of us will be encouraged and restored during this last month of preparation before finally landing in Burundi.

La Fin de L'École Française

Ten months of French language school. Check. Final exams. Done (and thankfully passed). Graduation ceremony. Tonight. (6th time to "graduate" - maybe I'll finally finish school one of these days!) Packing and goodbyes. Do I have to? :) 

One week remains of my time in France - squeezing in lots of bread, cheese, and pastries in addition to hikes, runs, and bike rides (good combination, right?). Looking back, looking ahead. Entering the chaos of transition again even as I attempt to savor the moments and make the most of these last opportunities in France. These pics from the last couple weeks illustrate this process: 

While I wasn't particularly excited to be living in a dorm room again at the beginning of the year, the art work from my many small friends have made room 14 feel like home. 

 We celebrated the end of exams on Friday with a pizza party. French pizza is actually quite good - especially when you remember that pizza in Burundi will require making it completely from scratch! The interesting thing about French pizza is that it usually has olives on top with pits and they often add egg as a pizza topping. 

 We were all recruited for the choir for the graduation tonight (which Rachel graciously directed). Here we are at our final practice. While singing is not my strong point, it actually does help with French pronunciation. 

 We enjoyed a beautiful day Sunday for a last Ultimate Frisbee and soccer game. 

Several of us participated in a parapenting adventure over Lake Annecy - gorgeous!

 Our church in Albertville participated in the city's annual "Fête de la Musique". The kids enjoyed the music, too! Below are some folk dancers from "autrefois"in the region (the olden days). 

 Rachel and I enjoyed a hike to the waterfall above Conflans (nearby medieval village)

Church tower in Conflans

I will definitely miss this scenery! 

So thankful for the opportunities God has provided this year - for personal growth in addition to significant language learning. Looking forward to the adventures ahead in our first year in Burundi! 

Saturday

 Last week our team returned from a fabulous week at the World Harvest every-three years mission wide conference. The above picture was taken after the specific prayer time for our Burundi team. What an encouragement to connect with and be prayed for by people who totally understand the specific struggles and joys we face! Read more about our week in Spain here.

Getting caught up on a week's worth of missed French classwork and also email, laundry, sleep, etc. led to a pretty packed week last week, so yesterday Sarah, Carlan, and I headed out on an adventure away from the to-do lists. And what a gift of a day it was exploring the region on one of our last weekends in France!

 Started off the bike ride with a breakdown a few kilometers from Albertville - thankfully it was easily fixed with just some greasy hands as a consequence. 

 Nice paved bike path for most of the ride - with gorgeous views! 

  Advantages to being the three singles on the McCropder team - we truly love spending time with the team kids and being their missionary aunts and uncle, but we also enjoy the freedom to spend 8 hours biking to Annecy and back without the responsibilities of family life - best of both worlds!

 I can now say I've climbed a bale of hay! 

 We made it to Lake Annecy! (approx 40 kilometers each way)

 How cool is it to ride a bike through a tunnel carved into a mountain! 

 And of course no adventure would be complete without ice cream which we enjoyed just as the rain began! Thankfully the rain didn't last long and we had an uneventful ride back to Albertville. 

After dinner, the McCropder doctors had another meeting to discuss the long term hospital development plan for Kibuye. The engineering team who visited Burundi twice this spring is finalizing their master plan for developing Kibuye into a 300 bed hospital (currently ~100 beds). It's been fascinating to consider how many variables go into such a plan - where to put the bathrooms, how traffic flow will look in the outpatient department, making hospital wards wide enough to wheel a stretcher between the beds, strategically placing windows to let in natural light when the power is out but to not compromise privacy in exam rooms, etc. 

 The Master Plan (below) will likely take 15+ years to be realized completely, but our hope is that considering many variables on the front end will result in more efficient and effective placement of hospital wards and other facilities as the development occurs. We're so thankful for the intense work the EMI team has put into this over the last several months. We're also realizing more and more what a gift our two years at Tenwek Hospital in Kenya were as we have a picture in our mind of what a 300 bed African hospital can look like and have some ideas on how to troubleshoot placement of buildings, traffic flow, etc. through that experience as well. Read more about masterplanning at Kibuye here. 

 Below is the first diagram of the nursery for Kibuye. I'm super excited about this and enjoyed being part of the planning of it. Currently no nursery exists at the hospital, so I look forward to seeing this ward come to fruition to benefit the babies and families in the region. 

Well, yesterday was definitely not a "typical" Saturday here in French language school, but it was certainly a blessing - friendship, exercise, & beauty in the present and hope for the future. "Further in and further up!" (C.S. Lewis - in "The Last Battle")

Cultural observations

Manarola, Italy

Best cinnamon gelato ever! 

My friend Sarah from Alabama joined me for another adventure last week. We climbed Mt Kenya together a couple years ago and, though maybe not as physically strenuous, driving a manual car (new to both of us) on narrow, hilly European roads was definitely an adventure! We spent 2 nights in Italy and, as I speak only three Italian words, communication was an expected challenge. It truly is amazing how God has enabled us to learn French - certainly we have a long way to go before being able to speak fluently or even fluidly, but in seeing how helpless I am in Italian, I realized how far I've come in French.

And yet, as I observed the Italians, I recognized anew how much of communication is nonverbal and how much one can learn and interpret from just watching. And the blessing of that is that observing culture and interactions between people is actually fascinating to me. Our team moves to Burundi in August and two teammates have visited Burundi in the last month. They confirmed that medical students, university faculty, nurses, government officials, etc. all speak French fluently and daily, so our efforts in learning French are definitely necessary and much appreciated. But, as we noted on previous visits, the less educated Burundians (including almost all of our patients and many community members who we'll worship with and interact with on a daily basis) speak only Kirundi, the tribal language. And even the medical students and others regularly combine French, Kirundi, Swahili, and some English in their everyday language. I currently speak even less Kirundi (1 word) than Italian. It's overwhelming to consider beginning another new language, and one without the words similar to English that are so common in French. And I worry that it will be hard to continue progressing in French when I throw another confusing foreign language into the language center in my brain. I know motivation to continue in language learning will quickly be overwhelmed by the challenges of practicing and teaching medicine and just living in a setting with limited resources.

However, I was encouraged as I sat at a table and watched the Italian hotel owner instruct and joke around with her employees. I look forward to observing the Burundians - how they greet one another and inquire after each other's families, their hand motions and body language, their facial expressions and tone of voice and how they care for their children. Please pray with us that God would guide us how and where to best begin Kirundi study and that He would unite us to care for one another well in our various approaches to language learning as another aspect of community/team life in Burundi.