Au Revoir!

At last this middle section of the year is coming to a close, and with it the monotony of life in Saline! In retrospect, perhaps it was not nearly as monotonous as I made it out to be whilst living through it, but I am thankful to be taking off once again, this time to St. Louis to participate in the Urbana Student Missions Conference!

These past few months certainly have had many things for which to be thankful for...

My very first time ever voting...

A trip to Chicago avec mon frère.

Many many walks through the deadened Michigan woods

Time with this lovely lady and many other wonderful friends

A birthday...

A disguised Kathryn in the mall

Wednesday afternoons (and more time than that too!) spent with my best friend!

A great many excellent trips to the movie theatre (a rare happening in my life) to view the Hobbit, Lincoln, and Les Mis. All highly recommended and most fantastically done.

Visits from a number of super duper awesome friends

A trip to Grand Rapids

But these were the people who I spent the most time with these past few weeks...lots and lots of time. Top secret sibling meetings, sibling squabbles, sibling pranks, sibling pow-wows, etc.

And they are probably the people who I will miss the most upon departure.

Throughout it all, though, eight little beings who are very dear to me were constantly in my mind and on my heart. They were always there. Always. They will come with me to Urbana, and to France, and beyond.

The next time I write, it will likely be from across the seas in the Alps of France. And so for now, au revoir!

Gearing up to GO!

Lord...we pray that Urbana 12 would be a vessel for your glory. We pray that hundreds of thousands will enter your kingdom in the next 50 years because of what you accomplish at Urbana 12. As you invite us to give our whole lives to your global mission, we pray that you would show us how our gifts and talents collide with your kingdom purposes. Wherever you lead us Lord, we will follow.
A prayer for the Urbana Student Missions Conference 2012.

Well, folks, much has happened since we last conversed. I apologize for my recent lack of communication via this blog. I continue to miss my children, and all the children of GLA, deeply. As the distance in time increases, my longing to see them and hold them and play with them also increases... This week, news of a death of a sweet boy at GLA increased the weightiness of this Christmas Season.

In less than one week, I'll be off again! This time, to St. Louis to participate in The Urbana Student Missions Conference, then (very) shortly thereafter, France is up next on the agenda! My passport with a nice, official French student visa stamped inside of it has been returned to me, I've been reviewing French verb conjugations, the plane tickets have been purchased (with a week-long detour on the way home to Scotland to visit cousins!) and the packing has begun!

But before France comes Urbana...There are many wonderful aspects of this conference. I get to travel and room with my two lifelong friends, Abby Paternoster and Grace Chen. There's a huge bookstore with a plethora of books all about this world that we are living in and how to change it. There will be thousands and thousands of people with a passion for spreading the Kingdom of God all gathered in the same place. I am fully expecting awesomeness.

Evil is infuriating. It permeates and penetrates this beautiful world in so many ways each and every day. I am thankful for all the people who have been working countless hours to make Urbana a place where students, organizations, speakers, and missionaries can unite and gird their belts to go out and fight that evil in the name of Jesus.

Wadagans - the little boy at GLA who went home on Tuesday.

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me will save it. Luke 9:23-24

November

I rode my bike with my siblings up and down these country roads on Thanksgiving day (You'll note from the picture that I got the awfully puny bike until Ben chivalrously swapped with me). The sun had begun its descent in the West, and the breeze, even colder than showers in Haiti, stung my skin and burned my throat.

Slowly, slowly and very slowly, I am realizing the beauty of the Michigan landscape once more. In November, the color brown dominates. When this brown welcomed me home, it at first seemed to me to make everything so terribly and awfully deadened. Lifeless and devoid of blessing. Contrasting so sharply with the lush tropical blossoms and deep green mountainsides and stunning nightly sunsets that I miss each day.

Yet once again, my eyes are becoming attuned to the softer and more mellow beauty in Michigan. Southeast Michigan in November. The trees, bared completely now of leaves, silhouette themselves in patterns – intricate yet austere, impossible to duplicate. The sun sinks lower, a mellow and hazy orb that casts a fuzzy glow over the chilled scenery. The colors of the sky during this twilight hour are not rich, unspeakably vibrant and majestic, but these skies do also declare God's glory.

November is national adoption month. A time set aside to advocate for these precious children, a time to find them homes, a time to remember them and pray for them. Each month of each year should be adoption month. For religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress...

What does that mean for you today?

I went on a walk this afternoon, trying again to see the beauty in this corner of the world. Bundled in three layers and still cold, I walked briskly in a vain attempt to ward off the chills. I remembered that there is goodness in seeing the sun intensified as it reflects off of the ice of our backyard pond. I remembered that while there is goodness in charging up mountainsides alongside waterfalls with lush greenery, there is also goodness in leaping over burbling brooks and shimmying over fallen logs in the forest. 

And while there is much goodness and blessing in holding sweet babies tightly against your chest and singing to them of the love of the Lord, there is also much goodness in hearing the silence of this afternoon in the country broken by the shouts of two boys, both very special to you, who are running around the barn and across the yard, engaged in an airsoft war. Most of the time you forget that they were adopted, carried safely home from that far land of Vietnam, for so seamlessly are they woven into the tapestry of your family, but in moments like these, you remember, and you rejoice.

Tomorrow I have a play date with one of my best friends, a five year-old, adopted from China. He is like my brother, indeed I cannot imagine life without him, and I praise God for the redemptive work evidenced so profoundly in his life. In the lives of all who are restored to a family. Whose status changes from orphan to son. From forgotten by all but the Father to beloved by many. God doesn't call everyone to adopt, but consider seriously if He would have you step out in faith and open your homes and your hearts to just one of the millions of children waiting and ready to be loved. The massive disparity of wealth here in relation to the need of the world is like a heavy weight. The scales do not measure up. Especially because there is awareness to the disparity. November is national adoption month. What would God have you do today, me do today, the church do today, to answer His imperative to care for the orphan? It's a question that's been asked time and time again, but we must continue to ask it and answer the call until the end when all things are made new.

I will not leave you as orphans; I will come to you. 
John 14:18

Zoey is almost six years old, weighs less than ten pounds, and is waiting for a family. Read more about her here. Take just a few minutes of your day to pray for her and pray that someone answers the call to bring her home soon.

Long Time No Blog!

It's been a whole week since something happened on this blog! Each time I've attempted another blog post, I've ended up poring over pictures of my babies and getting no where on the writing end of things. A few items to discuss - 

1. Reading

This week I enjoyed some extra time to read. I read a bit in Haiti, and since getting home, I've started chipping away at my reading list at a faster rate. For those who are interested, below is a list of the books that I have read this school year or am in the middle of reading right now:

The Help

By Kathryn Stockett

Passion and Purity

By Elisabeth Elliot

Washed and Waiting: Reflections on Christian Faithfulness and Homosexuality

By Wesley Hill

Cross-Cultural Connections: Stepping Out and Fitting in Around the World

By Duane Elmer

Peace Like a River

By Leif Enger

Enjoy the Silence

By Maggie and Duffy Robbins

Carried Safely Home: The Spiritual Legacy of an Adoptive Family

By My Mother (Kristin Swick Wong)

Mere Christianity

By C.S. Lewis

City of Bells

By Elizabeth Goudge

Life Together

By Dietrich Bonhoeffer

Finding Calcutta

By Mary Poplin

Mark: The Gospel of Passion

By Michael Card

Letters to Children

By C.S. Lewis

I've found all of these books to be most excellent! More extensive reviews available upon request. 

2. Chicago

Thursday and Friday we (myself, my mother, my brother) were in Chicago. The main purpose of this trip was to apply for a long term student visa at the French Consulate. The appointment went quickly and smoothly - so much so that it seems slightly ridiculous that we were required to make a trip all the way out to Chicago just so I could hand someone a stack of papers. 

Being in the city definitely had its overwhelming moments of, "America is big and rich and awful", but America also has it's elements of need and poverty, and we were blessed to use our resources, that really belong to God, to buy potstickers for a homeless man, and then a chicken pesto cheesy panini along with a big chocolate cupcake for a homeless mom and her two sons. Besides the French Consulate appointment and talking with the homeless in Chicago, we enjoyed seeing some wonderful friends, purchasing shoes to alleviate the pain induced by walking extensively in high heels, and going to the Lego Store.

Getting the visa may not have been too thrilling, but the build-up to it certainly had elements of intrigue. You go into the big shiny building, up the escalator, show your ID to the formidable security, receive a special pass which you use on the fancy metal gates that block access to the elevator (at that glorious moment in time where I swiped my special pass to open the gate, I definitely felt like a special agent), go up the elevators to the 37th floor, and follow the signs to a rather anticlimactically drab little room where all people desiring to get a visa in France must visit. You sit down and imagine the McCropders and their many children waiting in this exceedingly unexciting room, get up when your name is called, hand your papers to the lady behind the desk, and that's about the extent of what it took to get the visa.

The big shiny building with the French Consulate on floor 37...

Two siblings, reflected in a massive metal bean!

Lego Store madness!

3. Six Months

My baby turns six months old today. I think about this child constantly. I can't believe he's already half a year!!! When I met him, he was three months old and in my mind he's stayed that old. I wonder how big he is by now. If he has a volunteer or not. Who is forever family is and what they are doing today.

More Pictures, More Stories, More from Haiti!

I may not be in Haiti anymore, but I have no plans to stop blogging about the children who have become so dear to me. And by the children, I mean all the children, not just my seven. Each child at the Main House became so dear to me, and there are so many unshared stories and little personalities and photographs of stunning faces that I'm dying to share to the world. Hopefully none of the stories, photos, or sentiments will be redundant from previous posts!

Fort Jacques, about a twenty minute drive further up the mountain, is where GLA will eventually relocate. This piece of land is gorgeous. A plethora of tall coniferous trees reach high up into the sky, creating dappled shadows on the forest floor. The air is cooler, and the breeze is refreshing. There is often mist that blocks the view, but when the mist clears, a spectacular landscape is revealed before your eyes. You can see Port-au-Prince and the Ocean and the Mountains beyond. This picture (taken by one of the Barnum girls, other volunteers whose time at GLA coincided with mine) sort of captures the beauty of Fort Jacques. It will probably still be years before they are finished with the construction here, but I am so excited for the day when they move to this lovely haven.

I have to say a word about these two:

They both came from the other orphanage that was shut down at the beginning of the summer. (In case you hadn't already heard, there was an orphanage shut down for having very bad conditions...kids came malnourished and with rat bites and with lots of horrible neglect. About twenty of these kids ended up at GLA.) Because of their lack of paperwork and because it is extremely difficult to track down the biological parents of these new children, none of them currently have families. These two beautiful girls are best of friends. They hold hands. They love to be in the same crib. Once a volunteer asked one of them where the other was. She disappeared and came back a few minutes later holding her friend's hand. Each night I went into the big nursery, they were always in the same crib, laughing and laughing and laughing together. The one in the back still becomes very fearful often, screaming and thrashing at the sight of dogs or sometimes a stranger or anything unfamiliar. But their joy, and that picture of them, and the way that they both knew and loved me and hugged me and laughed at the sight of my face was an indescribable blessing.

Lilly's favorites of my children were my two youngest - Monday's girl (T) and Friday's boy (C). I think this was mostly because she could actually hold them and play with them like they were babies. She just doted on the two of them, and I love this picture of her with my Monday girl. The love and the radiant joy of Miss Lilly was so evident in her interactions with the babies, and I miss her dearly. I tried to save my babies for the end of the day since she got back from school around 3:30 each day and always her first question to me was inevitably, "Have you taken out C and T yet????" If I hadn't, elation ensued. If I had, disappointment and a follow-up question was inevitable, "Well can you take C and T out again???"

I spend too much of my days looking through photos and photos and photos of the kids. Last night I was up past midnight reminiscing and swapping GLA stories with another volunteer while I looked through pictures. I just LOVE this one of my little guy in his post-pool outfit. A new pool arrived on the shipping container which I am very excited about; the pool currently on the balcony is full of holes and leaking!

Check out that sweet, shy smile on that tiny, precious face! (My apologies about how overused certain adjectives are on this blog such as sweet and precious...But try as I do and much as I loathe redundancy in vocabulary, I really can't do much about it!)

These two siblings are GLA staples. Everyone falls in love with them. Everyone. The staff, the volunteers, everyone. They have a beautiful family with lots of siblings waiting to bring them home. Both of them are very serious in this picture, but both of them are full of laughter and energy and so much good fun! The little girl loves hats. She's perpetually putting on hats.

Marguerite feeding the kids her $7.50 USD box of cheez-its (food at Haitian grocery stores tends to be quite pricey...) to the kids of the big nursery - a weekly routine for her.

These two boys capture my heart. There is something about little boys that I just cannot resist. Something that tugs on my heartstrings in a different way than little girls do. Something about their faces, their sense of playfulness, just EVERYTHING about them absolutely MELTS me.

These two boys especially (although I will likely say that about all the kids!) got to me. Their laughs, the way they blew kisses, their heartbreaking smiles... Both of them were outgoing, interactive, talkative, active, and general speaking super duper amazing kids.

I wonder if these children will realize the country of beauty that they were born in. There is something wildly and deeply and radically beautiful about this country that these photos don't even come close to capturing, but at leasts it's better than me repeatedly saying "beautiful" in a vain attempt to depict the unique landscape of Haiti. Somehow it's a beauty that is intensified by the depth of poverty and the weightiness of what these people have endured for generations.

Happenings at Home & the Last Letter

Well it's been a week now. It's been good to be back and see everybody again. At the same time, it's certainly been hard to be back and I miss my babies every moment of every day. Life here in Michigan has been busy!

On Friday, mom and I started talking about Donaldina Cameron again. We were thrilled to have Sue Leong attend our talk - she lives in Ann Arbor, but spent part of her childhood in San Francisco at one of the orphanages started by Donaldina Cameron for the younger girls! She had met Donaldina on a few occasions, and we were privileged to have her present.

After a lovely euphonium concert, I stood there while at least half a dozen friends took out braids round two.

Marginally painful experience, as is evidenced by this particular grimace.

Final product!!!

Went back to church this past week in three different rounds! This was the first time back on Wednesday night. Definitely wonderful.

And, perhaps best of all, I had a surprise visit from one of my many collegiate friends who came home for the weekend and surprised me on Friday night!

Little boy –

Only you would laugh so hard at the sight of my face that you'd tumble right on over, banging your head on the ground. And only you would sit right back up again after banging your head and continue to laugh.

Only you would toddle deliberately away from, turn your head, and give me that evil grin, daring me to chase you across the balcony until you couldn't run anymore from the laughter.

Only you would remember to grab that same blue ball the minute you walked onto the balcony.

You were the perfect mix of playful joy and sweetest cuddles. You could run and run and laugh and laugh and play and play and play so hard, but you knew when it was time to be held. You'd stop your play, drop your toys, sit down, and stare at me with those beautiful eyes of yours and then I'd know that it was time to pick you up, and I'd hold you, sometimes for only five minutes, sometimes for half an hour, until you were recharged and ready to go back at it again.

At first you weren't too sure about me. You just toddled around the balcony, holding your blue ball, watching me with a suspicious stare. But that only lasted about a day. Every subsequent day, you became more full of joy and freedom. You toddled with reckless abandon. As you learned to trust and love me more, you needed your blue balls of comfort less and wanted just me to play with more.

Sometimes you were just so so so so so so so incredibly cute that I didn't know if I could stand it. I'm not usually at a lack for words, but as I'm sitting here, staring at the blinking cursor, I actually am at a lack for words to describe how just how darn cute you are. It hurt inside because you were so beautiful and so wonderful and so zesty and so fantastic. Walking in the big nursery and standing there while you bolted (in a wobbly toddley sort of a way) across the room, laughing and burbling the whole way, was priceless. Opening my arms while you tottered into my embrace never got old. On the contrary, each time I saw you, it became exponentially more wonderful. 

You gave me such an abundance of joy. My cup overflowed when I was with you. One day, I tried to see if I could suppress smiling at the sight of your giggling face, but it didn't work. I actually tried. Really hard. But it was a sheer impossibility.  

You have an insatiable sense of curiosity; don't ever let that change. You know how to have the best kind of fun; don't let your joy dissipate. You are charged full of life. There is never a dull moment with you – indeed each minute I was able to spend with you was like a golden nugget of sheer happiness. I see heaps and mountains of vast potential in you, and I am convinced that God is going to a great work through your life and that He has already prepared good works for you to do in His name.

You have the sweetest sensitive side to you as well. GLA is a fantastic place, and you've been there your entire life, and I can see what a good job they've done in helping you grow, but you need to be home. You need love to thrive. You need tender attention, someone to read you bedtime stories, sing you lullabies, and tuck you in at night. You need love, and I cannot wait for you to go home, carried by the loving arms of your mommy and daddy to your new life with them forever.

For God did not give you a spirit of timidity, but He gave you a spirit of power, of love and of self-discipline. May you use this resilient, sparkling spirit God has given you to change the world.

I love you so so so SO much!

Kathryn