19.8.11

Visitors' Footfalls are like Medicine

Visitors’ footfalls are like medicine; they heal the sick.
~ African Proverb

In Kenyan culture, it is seen as an honor and a blessing to host visitors. We have taken the same view. In the last month, various visitors have really blessed the McCropders. Here is the pictorial recap of our series of visitors:

Grace and Abby, two young friends from our home church in Michgan, spent the last month here, helping with a whole host of projects. Among their many contributions, they organized the surgical library; they fed babies in the nursery; they played with children at orphanages; they ran a VBS for all the neighborhood kids. Perhaps the greatest blessing to the McCropders was that they loved and watched all the McCropder children. Grace and Abby also kept a fantastic blog of their experiences. We all miss them now that they have returned to Michigan.



We also enjoyed a visit from Jason’s cousin, Katy, and her son (who fit in extremely well with the kids here). Katy worked at the hospital as an FP doctor, where she did an outstanding job of treating rare patient presentations in an unfamiliar hospital setting. Meanwhile Jack an Anna made an impressive bug collection. One highlight for me was that Katy was eager to go running with me, even at 6am and at 6500 ft elevation. Another memorable moment from their visit was going to Masai Mara together and seeing 10 lions eating a wildebeest.



The Ramaker family's visit was a fabulous time for us, the Fader family. The Ramakers helped out at the hospital, at an orphanage, in Heather’s Sunday School class, on a community health outreach, and with various other projects. Their two little girls are totally adorable, and Anna loved playing with them. Their two-week visit flew by. So much fun!



When the last of our American visitors flew back to the US this past weekend, it felt empty and lonely around here. For about 2 hours. And then Baby M came to stay for a while. Baby M is a beautiful 1-week-old baby who has a foster home with us until he enters an orphanage next week or the next. Isn’t he precious? We love having him.


We really thank God for the blessings of our visitors, and we look forward to the last of all the McCropder visitors: Heather’s dad comes to Kenya next week!

1 comment:

Uttz Family said...

Its precious that your family has taken in some of these little ones with love for a period of time. I am sure they left feeling blessed!
Mariah (Eric's sis)