Free Alpine Music From Eric

(from Eric)

Once again, I've completed a compilation of songs from a certain period of our journey, with the hope that it will serve as a way to further articulate the lives in which we find ourselves.  These eight songs are mostly from our time in France (with a couple from our vagrancies in the US beforehand, but that was a hard time to write songs).  Thematically, they have a lot to do with the passing of time, and how that makes us who we are, as well as a good bit about leaving places and a few nods to the Sonship course.  Unsurprisingly, the imagery is often full of mountain cliffs and valley towns.  Once we finally got moved into our house here at Kibuye, I unpacked my instruments and recording gear, and went to work.

It is here for free download.  Unlike before, I've chosen to host this album on another site (Noisetrade), where perhaps interest might be piqued by some new people, previously unconnected with our story.  Please feel free to share this with anyone you think might be interested.  I would write these songs, even if they were never heard by anyone.  They just sort of feel like they need to be written.  However, it's my delight to share them with willing listeners.

A Song For Albertville

As perhaps a final salute to our time in France, I made a rough recording of a song I wrote to try and capture something of our little alpine town.  There are obvious images which, for those of us who lived there, recall various everyday sights and sounds, and for those who haven't, hopefully share something of the world around us, like a little musical scrapbook.

Beyond that, the song is trying to describe something of the ambiguity of "post-Christian" Europe.  Beautiful scenery, walking to the bakeries, narrow streets.  On the other hand, things that are just a bit off, maybe more than a bit tragic:  Empty churches, war memorials that bespeak of not-too-distant loss. And yet, even there, where perhaps the masses have decided to abandon God, his grace falls like the rain, and his goodness abounds.  It's a mixed goodness, like all that we would experience on this Earth, but, in the words of Buechner: "What's lost is nothing to what's found.  And all the death that ever was, if you set it next to life, would barely fill a cup."  

It's a fact to be learned anywhere in this wide world.

(sorry, the web music player I was using is not working currently.  So, the only way to listen is to follow the link and download.  I swear it's a clean file, having placed it there myself.  Web gurus: feel free to suggest a solution to this problem.)

Albertville

(download)

In the autumn, we'll go walking

all through this valley town

Across the railroads, and down to the river

where the alpine peaks look down

And when we turn into a narrow passage

where the wind is brisker

and it scatters all the leaves and all the halves of chestnut shells

up above, under the eaves, where the sun in shining

all the ivy's afire with the red and bronze

that's ringing like a bell

And the bell's ringing on the hillside

at the church of Conflan's tower

though there's never anyone on the inside

and it always rings eight minutes past the hour

though there's much in what's been lost

it's as yet nothing to what's found

there's beauty and there's tragedy

like there is sky and ground

and this is where we live

where the alpine peaks look down

When the fall passes to winter

the snow will hike the downward trail

from the rocky peak of Belle Etoile

to every hollow of the vale

and our boots will trudge the unplowed walk

four times a day to the school

to take our kids across the street into the warmth of the bakery

coming home, they're running in the snow

as we pass by a pillar

topped with a stone eagle with its eyes full of bravery

it's the monument with all the names there

of all the sons of the town

felled amidst the two world wars all those years ago

that their memories would go on

----

When the peaks are green again

then it won't be very long

until it's our turn at the station

for the train to take us on

We'll have glanced up against the story

the mark is small, but indelibly made

and that's fine, for the story's held by ancient hands

they work mysteries, but never have they strayed

Our French Church

With the eve of our departure from France less than two weeks away, I start thinking about the various parts of our life here that we have never taken the time to share with everyone.  Alas, we won't get to all of them, but it's worth letting you know a bit about our church here.

Background:  France, like much of Western Europe is often described as "post-Christian" or certainly "not as Christian as they used to be".  Operation World describes the French population (of more than 60 million people) as less than 1% "evangelical".  Unless you utterly discount the faith of all French catholics, it's a bit difficult to interpret that number, so I'll give you a few basic observations.

There are several old Catholic churches in our town of 18,000.  Because of low attendance, they do not all hold weekly services.  Instead, a priest will circulate between them, one each week, to hold a service for the few practicing Catholics.  My brother-in-law, who grew up outside Paris, has told me that the most common way the French have described their faith in demographic surveys is as "non-believing Catholics", which is, of course, not exactly beating around the bush.  France has a strong history of ardent secularism, which sets it apart from the US quite dramatically.

OK, in the midst of all this, on a small store front about a 10-minute walk from where we live, is the Evangelical Protestant Church.  You go through a gate, and across a little courtyard, you find the tiny church building, between the actual row-buildings of the street.  Every week, about 70 people worship together, of which about 1/3 are language students and their families.  We have all been involved in different ways.  I have often played on their worship team, and even found myself leading French singing a few times.  Many of us have helped out in the sunday schools, and John and Jason found themselves praying in French and giving communion one (slightly awkward) Sunday.

From what I gather, this is an impressively large evangelical church community for a French town of our size.  And they have welcomed us.  Despite their small size, they are eager to reach out to their community around them.  The Music Fest which Heather just mentioned had a slot where a group from the church boldly played worship songs, after strict instructions from city hall not to do anything approaching evangelism.  And they extend their mission to us, eager to serve as part of our training to go out into the rest of the Francophone world.

No one in this church is there because "that's just what you do."  They have all made a purposeful choice to go seriously against the grain of their society, and then to turn around and love and reach out to the same society that thinks they are a bit nuts from trusting in Jesus.  

They are small in number.  They are often overlooked, and yet they are faithful.  There is much to learn from them, and we are thankful to have been able to join with them this past year.

Last Day of Class

The last day of class for the adults yesterday was met with a variety of responses from the McCropder crew:  “Happy and sad at the same time” or “So ready to be done” or “I didn't really think about it” or “(sniff sniff cry) I will really miss this class.”  It is so good that God gives different perspectives, experiences, and interests to different team members.  And thankfully we can all look back and realize that, while we do not yet speak fluent French, we have all learned to communicate in French a whole lot better than we could a year ago.  We aim to keep that perspective, regardless of the results of the exams we will take next week.

Several of the classes held a party to commemorate the year.

The end of classes happened to coincide with the annual national Fête de la musique.  The town was bustling all evening with bands and dancing.   Several McCropder kids jumped in for the dancing.   

After the fête, a basketball game in the school parking lot rounded out the evening.  Meanwhile Sarah was saying goodbyes here, and this morning she flew to New York for a teachers’ conference.   

Please pray for us in the next few weeks:

- June 23 – July 5:  Sarah’s teachers’ conference in New York

- June 24 – 28:  Final exams for the other McCropder adults

- July 2:  Commencement ceremony at the language school

- July 5:  Last day of school for the children

- 2^nd week of July:  The remaining McCropders leave France

- 1^st week of August:  McCropders reunite in Burundi

Case of the Week: L'Evanouissement at the Maternelle

from Eric

Last Monday, it was business as usual.  At 11:20, our classes got out in time for me to dart over to l'école maternelle (public preschool) to pick up Maggie, Elise and Micah.  It's about a 5 minute walk without the kids, and the time for opening the doors for lunch is a bit variable, so despite having hurried over, I was waiting with everyone else for the doors to open.  We had been told that morning that a local ER doctor was coming to talk to all the doctors this afternoon about medical vocabulary in French.  We were instructed to bring our questions for him, so I was pondering that.

The back of the maternelle school for our kids

All of a sudden, there was a bit of commotion up near the doors, and the crowd shuffled a bit like someone was falling down.  Somewhere inside me, some well-honed reflexes were quickly dusted off, and I darted toward the front.  A man was holding the arms of a woman in her 30's who had evidently passed out.  

She looked like she was breathing OK, so I reached for her wrist to check her pulse.  The other man shouted at me to clear off and give her some room.  Je suis médecin!  (I'm a doctor!) I called back, and he instantly beckoned me to do whatever I needed to do.

Je suis médecin was the first and last properly formed French sentence to come out of my mouth for the next several minutes.  In caring for a patient who has passed out (had an evanouissement), there are not really a lot of questions one needs to ask.  However, she had a friend nearby and I wanted to know if this happened often to her, and if she had been in good health lately.  Despite being capable of asking those things, I found the words spilling out in a jumbled mass, and it took a good bit of repetition to get that simple information.

Her pulse was regular and she wasn't seizing, and a short while later, when I rubbed her sternum a bit, her eyes opened right up, and she began to talk in a more-or-less normal fashion.  I learned that she had these episodes souvent (often), but that, though the doctors had done some analyses, nothing yet had been found.

"The other guy" had called the firemen (who interestingly play the role of EMS here), and they showed up impressively quickly to put her on the stretcher and take her to the hospital.  The head-teacher eagerly accepted my offer to stay until she was taken away, and I told the fireman those things that I would have wanted to know from a reliable witness on the scene, if I was the doctor who was going to receive this lady at the ER.

And so I learned a valuable language lesson:

Urgent medical care calls for all of your brain power at once.  At this stage, so does conversational French.  Given that I don't have two brains, one of these two is going to win out.  So, later that day, when we had our medical French talk, I was searching for a cadre of stock phrases that I can memorize and will therefore flow out as easily as Je suis médecin in the midst of an emergency.

The talk turned out great, as we all probed him with our thoughts, and he encouraged us with how much the technical medical vocab of French is similar to the technical vocab in English.  We listened eagerly and had a chance to practice interview questions on each other.  Rachel asked about birth control, Carlan asked about spinal injury, and Jason talked about passing gas (in the setting of bowel obstruction, of course.)  All in all, I'm thankful that my one French patient didn't seem to be in any great danger, and the day was certainly one to whet the appetite for what is to come.

Awkward French Children's Books

by Eric

    

I have read a lot of French children's books this year.  Early on, we paid a few euros to get a library card downtown, which is about a 20 minute walk away from the school, and we go there every couple weeks.  It's a good outing for the kids, they love to read, and it's good language practice for me.

The language is pretty simple, and I've got pictures to help me!  (Though interestingly, French has a unique verb tense reserved for written narratives, so the verbs are always a bit different from what we learn in class.)  

Every society has a culture to its children's literature (if it produces any), and it's one thing to recognize that, but it's another to not feel weirded-out when you experience the kid's books of another culture.  I mean, I was weaned on the stories of my culture, and so those values are pretty deeply ingrained.

Some French kid's books are awesome, and some are down right beautiful (Le Petit Prince, for example).  However, some are rather strange, and I thought I'd share a few of the categories of "strange".

1.  Animal "Violence".  If there is an animal in a story, then someone is going to die.  American books are largely influenced by Disney and company, where such things are considered too "harsh" for kids, so the chicken in the pasta dish needs to be mentally separated from the chicken in "The Little Red Hen".  For the French, if the protagonist is a chicken, he may end the story by being a yummy dinner.  Even more frequently, the animals eat each other.  In Et pourquoi? Little Red Riding Hood tortures the wolf by repeatedly asking "Pourquoi?" ("why?") until he eats her whole, and then she continues her terrible interrogations from inside his belly.  The story ends by the wolf having had enough, and so he takes a knife and slices his belly open.  He dies, and Red Riding Hood walks out smug and unharmed.  This example is a bit mild, since I never checked out the more violent ones, so I can't remember the titles.

2.  Nudity.  It may in fact be true that, as an American, I'm a bit prudish.  Yet there you have it, so it's a bit weird for me to see kid's cartoons with full frontal nudity.  I quite like the Emile series of  books as seen below.  However, this one is a bit weird.  Emile decides that he has become invisible, and so he can't figure out how his mom can still see him.  Then, epiphany!  It's his clothes!  So, he takes them off, so he can be truly invisible.  The book ends with him walking into the living room to be surprised by a female friend that has come to pay a visit.  Naked Emile, feeling no need to cross his legs, sits down on the couch next to her, relieved that he's invisible, because otherwise this would have been a really awkward moment...

3.  Just Plain Bizarre.  It's difficult for me to know whether some American stories come off as equally strange to a French reader.  However, there are some weird ones out there.  Les Poissons Savent-ils Nager? (Do Fish Know How To Swim?) unfortunately became a favorite of our kids, even finding its way into a prior blog post.  The story, in brief, goes like this:  

One day, the fish will decide to walk out of the ocean and join society.  They will make their fortune hunting shrimp.  The will buy clothes, eat flowers, and otherwise integrate into human society.  The shrimp will get wise and head into the forest to get away.  While hunting for mushrooms, the fish rediscover the shrimp's hiding place.  Shrimp hide in the treetops.  While attending a fish/human wedding on tight-ropes in the forest (not kidding), the shrimp are rediscovered, and subsequently hunted by fish with rifles (see #1).  The fish grow wings, and the flying fish hunt them.  Finally, the shrimp escape underground.  In despair, the humans build a rocket to seek the shrimp in outer space, and the fish build a boat to look on other continents.  Boat sinks, and the fish discover they like living underground.  Meanwhile, the shrimp come out of hiding and take up fishing to feed themselves.  Shrimp and earthworms live in a utopia-like ever-after.

You can probably guess that the language-learner has a lot of "is this really saying what I think it's saying?" moments.

4. Docteur Dog.  This gets a category all its own.  I picked up this book, about a dog who cares for all the maladies of his hygenically-impaired family, thinking that it might be amusing, and I could pick up some medically-relevant vocabulary.  Well, it started off OK, with someone who has a cold and then indigestion.  It explains the popular origin of these diseases (not washing hands, for instance), and then Docteur Dog prescribes a treatment.  

Then, it goes south.  Well, first it goes north, to headlice (with some colorful illustrations), then south, to pinworms.  It proceeds to go from bad to worse, and the finale is grandpa, who has bad gas (from too much beer and beans), having such a forceful episode on the toilet, that he and his porcelain bust out through the ceiling of the house, and go flying through the neighborhood.

Well, Maggie was absolutely terrified, and we never finished it (which is just as well).  I took the book back early, at her request to never see it again.  It's several weeks later, and she still freaks out, with repetitive phrases like "I don't ever want to get worms!" and "I don't want bugs in my hair!"

Not sure how to categorize that, but it's an experience we are not soon to forget.

(Si un de nos amis français lisait cela, j'aimerais beaucoup savoir vos pensées...)

Living in a Post-War World

Most of the people in Burundi grew up in a war.  Civil war ravaged the country for years and years, shutting down development, education, everything.  Peace came about 8 years ago, and we are thankful for it's stability up to the present.

Now we live in a little town of about 18,000 in an alpine valley of France.  It is well developed and education is readily available.  However, if you keep your eyes open, there are little reminders.  All three of these pictures were taken within a 8-minute walk of our school.

In honor of 3 citizens of Albertville, victims of the Nazi repression

In honor of a man tortured by the Nazis who died at the Dachau concentration camp

Monument for the victims of WWI and WWII, not from just our small town of Albertville, but  just the single parish of St. Sigismond, where we live.  (Sorry for being unable to rotate this picture.)

There is a distinct difference here between Europe and the US, where we grew up.  Both our countries fought in the world wars, but France was far more in the thick of it.  Their country was occupied by Nazi forces.  Their sons died far more frequently.  There is not a village, however small (and they get quite small around here), where there is not a monument for the men of that village who died in the world wars.

And so the post-war reminders in Albertville remind me of Burundi.  The two countries couldn't be less alike in a lot of ways, but the common thread is that it's hard to remember that you're in a post-war country.  Here, it's hard to imagine.  Our tranquil little town being occupied by foreign forces, being the site of a resistance whose members were sometimes killed for their dissent.

In Burundi, it is also hard to imagine.  There are few memorials and a shocking lack of rubble and bullet-marked buildings.

A recent picture around Kibuye Hospital, Burundi

That is about where the commonality ends.  In France, there are memorials, but the current generation has grown up in peace and relative prosperity.  In Burundi, the wounds are much fresher.  Every med student that we work with, and nearly every patient (unless they grew up outside the country), grew up in a war.  And yet, interestingly, the impoverished people of Burundi may be overall more optimistic about life than the French.

The fact that we will be working with individuals and a society that is so impacted by recent war is a fact for which we do not yet know the implications.  How will this affect us?  Will it be just under the surface all the time and pop out at unexpected moments?  Will it be talked about openly?  Will it be talked about at all?  We don't know yet.  However, for all their differences, I'm glad for the small reminders here in France of what will undoubtedly be an important issue later on in Burundi.

Beyond France

(from Eric:  Today's post comes from our special guest blogger Kathryn Wong.  She is a friend of ours from Michigan, and a blessing to our families, as she visits and studies with us for a few months.  She is also a great writer, and so we thought you might enjoy hearing from her as a different perspective on our lives here.  Read her own blog here.)

Here they are. Three families, three singles, and seven – soon to be eight – kids living in the Alps of Southeast France. Living in this land of baguettes, cheese, and wine, of majestic mountains and rich history. Living in a land that displays culture and cultivation at its finest.

But it doesn't take long to figure out that this year of living in France is really not at all about France. You walk down Le Chemin des Galibouds, what seems to be a very normal, peaceful, residential little French street until you arrive at the blue and green sign that reads: Centre Chrétien d'Enseignement du Français. Turn into this driveway, and you'll find a collection of connected, faded white, somewhat weathered buildings with dark brown roofs surrounding a small parking lot. And here in this place, people live with a purpose, for the most part with a purpose decidedly beyond France. People going to Mali, to Togo, to Chad, to Burundi.

Living with the focus beyond France manifests itself in a multitude of different ways. Hardly a day goes by when I don't observe something – different actions, words, gatherings – directed towards what is yet to come.

Aunt Sarah practices the alphabet with Abi each week. I watch them hard at work – jumping from letter to letter, Abi receiving stickers as a reward for her endeavors. A preparation for and a mere foreshadowing of what's to come. She is now learning who each of these little people are, and her role in the lives will be enormous.

Pastor Bob flies across the ocean to visit the McCropders. Why? To discuss Christianity in the context of French culture? No. To look forward. Ahead and into the future of life in Burundi. To wrestle with issues of how to present the gospel in a transformative way to the Burundians. Not a word of France is mentioned. Eleven adults, crammed into the Cropsey's apartment, focused on what is yet to come.

Not all McCropders are natural language learners. Some enjoy it, but not all. For many it's a struggle synonymous to scaling Mount Blanc (and indeed some may prefer that more physical challenge!) Yet they persist in le discours indirect, in mastering les pronoms compléments, in the mind-bending game of communicating correctly with the subjonctif, conditionnel, imparfait, passé composé... Why do they willingly subject themselves to the seemingly insurmountable difficulties of learning an entirely new language with all that it entails? To studying extensive, imaginary dialogues in their textbooks between rather petty, shallow French women celebrating their thirtieth birthdays. To essentially putting themselves back in the shoes of a child, just learning how to speak. Why? Because of what's to come.

On Sunday nights they gather as a team. This time crammed in the Fader's apartment, they enjoy the Galette des Rois – a French epiphany cake – whilst they listen to sermons and work on the aspects of their team covenant, articulating in words their mission statement for beyond France. They pray for and with each other. They're preparing themselves for life in Burundi by learning the language, but underneath the constant verb conjugations and new vocabulary, they're preparing themselves in many more ways than by simply learning the language.

A common refrain is, “It's on the container.” Yes, there is a piano that the McLaughlins packed...I don't have that book with me here, but I do think we put it on the container...Yes, yes that's on the container...No, we don't have that with us here, but it's on the container... They are even materially focused ahead. They will never use this furniture again. They will never use many of these bulky winter clothes again. They will not use these dishes, or these French coffee presses, or this silverware once the year is up. The future of their material lifestyles is packed up, sitting somewhere in Ann Arbor in a big metal container. Eyes are focused on what is yet to come.

The marketplace in Burundi burns to the ground. Attentions are riveted on this event. Something has happened hundreds of miles away, and according to google maps 6,000+ miles, that has powerfully impacted their future. There is a detachment from the place that they now live, from the current events of the locals; there is a deep connection with a place some of them have never been to before.

Lest you get the wrong impression, however, let me assure you it is by no means all detachment from France. Each Saturday many a McCropder hits the ski slopes, fully aware that this may very well be the last opportunity for winter sports that will present itself in decades. On Friday, the célibataire McCropders enjoyed a delicious, French raclette dinner at the McLaughlins. Crêpes and cheese and French bread abound in great quantities. McCropders help out with French Sunday school, they attend Friday night Old Testament Bible Studies with the French church, they're involved in the French youth group. As time and children allow, they travel, exploring the vast amounts of history and culture and legacy that surround them. And so they do embrace France and the great opportunity that a year in Europe presents.

And yet something brews within these walls that is much more than just learning a new language and living in a spectacular country.

Toujours, the McCropders look ahead.

French Culture: A Study of Comparisons

(by Eric)

I asked a question on facebook:  If I say "Swiss", you could follow with "cheese, chocolate, army knives, banks..."  If I say "French", what comes to mind?

The responses were interesting and varied.  The most frequent answer was probably "kiss", and I won't endeavor to provide a cultural exposition of that at this time.  Other notables included Braid, Onion Soup, Silk Pie, Fries, Revolution, Tips, Cuisine, Horn and Dip.

A few such answers make for a good comparison, or can use some background information.

pain perdu

1.  French Toast:  This was a very popular answer.  From what I have thus far seen, the American version of this is not so very different from the reality in France.  One might ask the question:  "They obviously don't call it 'French Toast', so what do they call it?  They don't call it 'le toast', right?"  Good question.  The French term for this is pain perdu or literally "lost bread", referring to how it is used for bread that have gone stale.  It's a fairly nice redemptive picture, actually.  Which brings us to...

2.  French Bread:  We picture a long, crusty white roll, thicker than a baguette, with a nice fluffy inside.  And though there are many varieties available, this is indeed the classic.  And indeed, one just calls it pain or "bread".  Just like that.  You walk into the store and ask for "two breads", and you can get two such delicious batons.  

La Mie Caline, a popular bakery

The French are quite hardcore on their bread.  There are labor laws restricting which businesses are allowed to be open on Sundays, and bakeries are one of the exceptions (along with pharmacies and hospitals, but not usually grocery stores).  It is remarkable how delicious French Bread is on day 1, and how quickly it goes stale, so I guess I can't argue with them.

3.  French Mustard:  I enjoy mustard, and I like dijon in particular.  Some of you may know that Dijon is actually a city in France.  Thus we look here for the authentic.  And what we find is very good, and amazingly strong (!) dijon.  And it is used for many things.  It is a bit of a challenge to find mayonnaise that does not have dijon added to it.  And it seems to be a frequent favorite for a salad dressing ingredient.

the real deal

4.  French Press or French Roast:  I haven't yet figured out all the coffee lingo.  Generally speaking, you "take" a coffee at the end of a meal, and that is referring to a small cup of espresso without milk, +/- sugar.  Cafe au lait (coffee with milk) seems to be treated as an utterly different beverage, rather than a variation of the above, and is usually taken with breakfast, in a bowl (bol) not a cup (tasse).

5.  French Dressing:  Cards on the table, I have never much liked this stuff.  And I'm not sure what it is, and I'm pretty certain the French don't recognize it either.  Salad dressing here is nothing like American "French" dressing, but usually an extremely tasty vinaigrette, often with a hint of dijon, as mentioned above.  In my experience, salads are simpler, often just lettuce with dressing, but somehow amazingly good.

Whiter Snow

(from Eric)

It was a very pleasant November, with just a hint of snow, and we were starting to wonder whether winter in the Alps meant clear valleys and snow-capped mountains surrounding us.

No.

It has been snowing all week, and then yesterday we heard that "the snow is coming".  Which I guess means the 6 inches up until then didn't count.  And lo and behold, it didn't.  It dumped about 10 more inches in the last 24 hours, and a crazy weather report predicted up to 1 meter (seriously?!) over the weekend.

They don't really plow the sidewalks here, and you can see below how socked in the cars are.  So, I'm kind of wishing we weren't on our last roll of toilet paper.  But my goodness, it is beautiful.  It's been the steady wet snow that sticks to everything with almost no wind, so every last little tree branch is white.  The parking lot in the picture has been the site of many snowball fights and the making of many a bonhomme de neige (snow man).  You wouldn't guess it by how white it still is.

In honor of the Christmas-y scenery and the fact that this may be the last white winter for our families for quite some time, I thought I'd post this song.  A winter song for Christmas time that's not really about Christmas (just like "Let it Snow", "Frosty" and others).  I wrote this song almost 13 years ago, amazingly.  When I met Rachel, she heard it and decided to marry me, so it will always be a favorite of mine.

Whiter Snow

(free album download here)

The dusting of this frail world begins upon these trees

It stumbles down again

And blankets all the soil that hides

beneath its coat of freeze

So I slip under its covers, I hide under his wings

Opening my eyes to find a plane of newer things

Things that I had brushed aside or powdered into grains

My fragile hands have broken

All of the times I thought that I had come to dance

Above the weaker strains

So I fall into a pile, and I hide under his wings

As brokenness cries out to brokenness, as I begin to sing

Whiter snow, come and go, down underneath my feet

Let your purer grace show all of your win in my defeat

Whiter call, come and fall and fill in all of my tracks

For your end, it still remains

To spring out of the pouring rain, and

Make us new again

Lately it seems you've been finding me lost under

all this blizzard of the swirling deep

Soon it will melt as it soaks me on through

and then covers me again in its sleep

But what you have done is much thicker

It's much higher and wider than words

Covering not that which you could make new and now,

We are unfrozen, you're making us new

And so we run with you in the night

We are lifting our voicing to sing

Just for this moment to be here with you

Held in so tightly under your wings

For more snow pictures from this past week, click here. 

The Nut Mill

(By Jason) 
An important and enjoyable part of learning language is learning culture.  This includes taking periodic field trips with our school to see various aspects of French culture while also affording us an opportunity to practice our French with "real French people."  So last week we took a trip to a small mill in the hills nearby which makes flour, paste, and oil out of walnuts and hazelnuts.  Pictured above is part of our class waiting outside the "Moulin."

 The 144 year-old moulin was originally powered by the waterwheel pictured here.  Now days, they have an electric motor as a back-up for when there is not enough water flow.  The intricate set up of gears and such was incredible.

 The process begins by dumping a load of locally picked walnuts or hazelnuts into the stone surface after which a heavy mill stone rolls over the nuts for 15-30 minutes.

 The paste that is created can either be eaten as is, or it can be compressed in a hydraulic press under 200 tons of pressure!  Compressing it creates 2 products - walnut oil and a dry brick of the residual fiber which can be used as a flour additive (4 of these bricks are leaning on the wall below).

 We enjoyed to opportunity to taste both the walnut paste and oil, such that the following day, many of the kids collected walnuts from a walnut tree at our school and proceeded to replicate the process as best they could.  Their walnut butter ended up tasting pretty good in a walnut-butter-and-jelly sandwich.  I wonder how well walnut trees grow in Burundi...

A Little Taste of Home

by Jessica Cropsey

Yes, I'm embarrassed to admit that even though I live in the land of great dairy, cheese, and bread, I stooped to taking my family to McDonald's for lunch.  During our year back in the States, our children came to love McDonald's.  It become our go-to place to eat while traveling on the road since I knew my kids would actually eat the food.  (Plus, the new Happy Meal toy kept them entertained for quite a while in the car!)

The kids were pretty excited when I broke the news to them about our adventure for the day.  As you can see from the video below, Elise doesn't have very much confidence in our French skills yet.  (Can you also tell that someone has had the traumatic experience of not being able to play in the PlayPlace because she didn't have socks?)

Since we don't have a car, it took a little more effort to actually get there.  Once we acquired some bus tickets (still owe you 3€, Eric!) and found our target destination on the map, we headed out.

Upon arrival, we were shocked at the number of people there.  It was jam-packed!  We actually had to wait for somebody to leave to find a seat.  A few observations from our visit to the Golden Arches...

• High-tech!  You can place your order on 1 of 6 different computer kiosks and stand in line to pick up your order.  We hit quite a few McDonald's last year in the U.S. and this was new to me.  
• Their drinks are significantly smaller than the drinks that come with your meals in the U.S. and I'm pretty sure you don't get free refills.  
• One item on the menu that is probably unique to McDonald's France:  the McBaguette
• You can order beer with your Big Mac! 
• Chicken nuggets are definitely crispier than the ones in the U.S.
• A sweet young lady (smartly dressed in her McDonald's uniform) came around offering additional little gifts for the kids in the restaurant.  I saw another lady going around refilling hot beverages for people.  Wow!  Was this really a fast-food establishment?  

All in all, it was a fun little outing and something familiar for the kids to enjoy.  Little Sammy loved his first chicken nugget and downed an impressive amount of fries.    

The Happy Meal boxes have since been transformed into a pony stable and car garage.  They've received more attention than the toy itself.  

We love you, McD's!

Off to School Tomorrow

(by Heather)

Tomorrow is the first day of school for the McCropder kids who will be students in the local French schools.  What an adventure this will be for Elise, Micah, Maggie, Abigail, and Anna.  Among several emotions, the kids are feeling a mixture of fear and utter excitement.

Today we toured the schools and confirmed our registrations.  Preschool begins at age 3 here in France, so Micah, Maggie, and Abi (all 3-years-old) start school for the first time.  The preschool is just a few blocks away from our apartments.  I anticipate that even after we walk the kids to school for several months, we will continue to be in awe of the picturesque views.

Upon arrival, we were startled to be greeted by a giant papier mâché rabbit welcoming us to school.

After checking in, we took a largely self-guided tour of the building, since the teachers at the schools speak little English.  The classrooms look magnifiques.

Maggie and Abi were more fascinated by the bathrooms.

As was Elise.

Tomorrow we meet the teachers and begin with a shortened school day.

Anna's school is in a brand new elementary school building.  She will have one hour each day of French for English-Speakers class, and then she spends the rest of the day in a regular French-speaking classroom (in the building to the right in the picture below).  

Anna is feeling nervous about not speaking much French, so she has practiced "je ne comprends pas" so that she can at least communicate her lack of understanding.  Yesterday she wanted to learn to say, "Do you want to be my friend?"  Hopefully those two phrases and a smile will get her through until she picks up more French.  As her (possibly biased) mother, I do believe that with her friendly and eager-to-learn personality, she'll be quite happy at school very soon. Inside her classroom, she loves the desk chairs.  It's the little things. 

Please pray with us that Anna, Abi, Maggie, Micah, and Elise will all feel safe, unafraid, and welcomed in their schools.  Also please pray that they will make new friends and learn to communicate in French.  We are thankful that we can be certain that God will be with them in their new schools.