Lesson Learned from African Roads

(from Eric)

Stephanie wrote a while back about their misadventure on Burundian roads, but after our past weekend, it seems that there is (perhaps unfortunately) more to share.

Our family is heading back to the US for a spell in about six weeks.  As Rachel and I thought about it, we weren't at all sure that our kids had even gotten in a car since early January.  Such realizations can give one a bit of cabin fever, so we thought we'd have a family weekend down on a beach resort on Lake Tanganyika.

The drive down was three hours, one of which was on Route Nationale 16.  Here is a picture:

Lesson 1:  Even though something carries a national highway designation (and there isn't a level above this, though many roads are nicer) you cannot make assumptions.  

And a GPS on your phone is invaluable, but there should be limits to the extent you trust a road that you have not yet seen.  But we arrived safe and sound, and were treated the following morning to one of the loveliest rainbows we have ever seen.  

Lesson 2:  African beauty is all around us.  Getting out can help us to see that, and we need to see it.

The kids wanted to do nothing else but swim.  We splashed and floated and played.  We applied sunscreen liberally and then reapplied in an hour.  And we promptly got burned.

Lesson 3:  White missionaries in equatorial Africa are among the pastiest white people you will meet.  

It's a little difficult to explain exactly why this is the case, but it is undoubtedly true.  Maybe it's that we take the perfect weather for granted too often, or the cultural norms that cover most of your body most of the time.  I don't know.  But the combination of pasty whiteness with the intense equatorial sun means that there is nothing that you can do to sufficiently protect yourself.

Two mornings later, and we're ready to head back to Kibuye.  Despite being in the full swing of rainy season, our time at the beach was rain-less.  Until we got in the car.  Right around the time we hit RN 16 in all of its unpaved, rutted glory, the rain starts falling.  We made a game of it.  Whenever a particularly hairy section was coming up, we would tell the kids that we could do this only by "grunt power".  Everyone in the car would then grunt loudly until we cleared the present obstacle.

About two miles from the end of the bad road (and about 1 hour from Kibuye), we came face to face with an obstacle that no amount of grunting was going to help.  A river was running across the road.  It was solid water for about 30m across, and we had no idea how deep.  The river was swift.  We stopped at the edge and studied it for a while.  A couple guys with bicycles waded through the downpour.  At least where they stepped, it came up to knee deep, and threatened to knock them over.

I forgot to take a picture.  Luckily, on returning to Kibuye, I found a picture of it on google images.  Here is RN 16 at the moment of our encounter:

Lesson 4:  Hold your travel plans loosely and prioritize safety.

After considering our options for about 20 minutes, we decided that this wasn't going to work, and proceeded to travel back on wet, bad (and increasingly dark) roads for the next 4 hours in order to get to the capital city, where our very gracious friends the Guillebauds put us all up for the night at the last minute's notice.  Yes, we wanted to get back, and yes, we needed to get into work the following morning.  But sometimes things happened.  

On the flip side, our trip back down the mountain did get us another stunning view (during a brief pause in the rains, see Lesson 2 above).  The hills of Burundi followed by the largest lake in Africa, followed by the Congolese mountains.

So, this morning, after more than doubling our trip the day prior, we drove another three hours back to Kibuye, where we were delighted to be home.  Six weeks until we get in a car again?  Definitely doesn't sound too long.

Lesson 5:  The quickest way to solve your African wanderlust/cabin fever problem is just to go somewhere.  Anywhere, really.

***

As a final aside, whenever Rachel and I travel, we are struck anew at the difficulties people undergo to seek care at Kibuye.  Burundi is a small country (about the size of Massachusetts), so to say that every week we get patients from every province in the country, that doesn't seem like too big of a deal.  But it is not a uniformly accessible country.  The areas that we were slogging through were the provinces and communes that usually elicit a "well, that is a bit far" response from me when I think about my patients.

Lesson 6:  Good roads are not just a matter of convenience.  They save lives.  Take a moment and thank God for the roads that you have.

African Road Trip

(It is my pleasure to introduce a new blogger.  Audrey Ward is our intern for ten months who has been here since August.  She is somewhere in limbo between graduate studies in comparative literature and medicine, and where better to pass such a limbo than in Burundi.  We're thankful for being willing to share her perspective.)

It sounds like an absurd story problem in math class: 14 sunburnt yet happy buzungu and 28 cans of Pringles are in a 15-passenger van whose fuel tank is only 1/8 full of diesel. They want to travel from Kigoma,Tanzania to Kibuye, Burundi after a camping trip with monkeys. 

If the visas are all in order, but it’s also New Year’s Eve, and 2 out of 3 filling stations will NOT have diesel fuel, then how many hours will it take for the buzungu to reach Kibuye? And how many cans of Pringles will be left over? (When calculating your answer, make sure to consider that Son Excellence the President of Burundi himself is alsocurrently on a road trip.)

I was blissfully unaware of the answer to this story problem as I popped a Dramamine for carsickness and crammed into the last row of the van. We stopped in the town of Kigoma to shop at the excitingly clean minimart with glorious products like cocoa mix and chips,stuffed ourselves back into the van with grocery bags on our laps, and headed towards the border.

We made it to the border pretty quickly, only a few hours, including the short stop by a Tanzanian policeman in an immaculately white suit who waved us on after a cheerful conversation.

To cross the Tanzanian/Burundian border by car, there is no one-stop international tollbooth gate or something, as I had imagined. Instead, the trip requires two separate stops, one on each side, to get visas checked twice and stamped for exiting and for (re-) entering. On theTanzanian side, we stopped at the office next to a Burundian refugee camp. The officials were fairly efficient, and we stepped across the road to buy a stalk of bananas and to exchange some money.

A little while later, we stopped at the Burundian border office. One guy passing by on foot peered in the windows of the van curiously while several of us cued up at the desk of the border official. A Tanzanian nun traveling on foot glanced at the long line and the stacks of passports obviously all in one group, and asked meekly if she could be allowed to go to the head of the line. We of course ushered her to the front. (It’s pretty bad form to be a missionary and snub a nun.)

After what felt like ages, there were just two people left in line: George Watts, with his family’s stack of passports, and me. The border office uses large hardbound books full of blank graphing paper to record information by hand. Just as the border official had finishedpainstakingly copying all of the information (country, name, passport number, occupation, visa number) from the second passport in his stack, she came to the end of the current page in her notebook.

Slowly, she turned the page.

She looked at the blank paper.


She took out a ruler from her desk.


She placed the ruler on the page and drew her pen down to create a column.


She removed the ruler and touched-up the line she drew with a few gentle strokes.

She continued this process until both of the open-faced pages had the correct number of columns.

She double-checked her work with the previous page.

For the sake of future efficiency (I suppose), she turned another page and drew all of those columns as well.

Finally, she reached out for the third passport as George and I breathed a sigh of relief. I have never felt more Western in my sense of time passing. Thankfully, she seemed to speed up a little bit as she took down the information for each passport, although she did look at my visa for several moments and then asked me if it was a visa, which was briefly concerning.

“What happened in there? Are you guys even legal or what??” John called when George and I finally made it back to the car with our passports.

We lurched back onto the road, and for the next hour everything went smoothly, despite another stop by a policeman who just wanted to chat (and hold Jess’s hand through the window for an awkward amount of time).

Then, we started looking for diesel, but the first few attempts yielded nothing but stares from pedestrians who stopped to watch us through the windows. We were only slightly concerned about the time we had left on the engine when the biggest delay in the road tripoccurred. Son Excellence.

In the middle of nowhere, with fields on either side, is an intersection with two main highways (they must have been main highways, because they were paved). All we had to do was turn left at the intersection and we would be only an hour and a half or so fromKibuye. But just as we approached the intersection, we noticed a police officer stopping all oncoming traffic from either direction.

“This can’t be a good sign,” someone muttered, and suspicions were confirmed when some official police and then military vehicles started to pass through the intersection on the road up ahead. We realized that it must be the entourage for some sort of important official.  After the kids got bored of counting the cars that passed after about 36 SUVs and military trucks with soldiers hanging out on the back, we realized that it must be the entourage for the MOST important official. The President had apparently been on a tour or doing a fieldcampaign in a province and was heading back to the capital. We spotted a black SUV with Burundian flags and thought it must be him, but ten minutes later after another barrage of military vehicles another identical SUV passed. When this had happened about five times, we had to hand it to the Burundian security force for not taking any chances. There were more than enough decoys.

Meanwhile, we had to turn off the AC in order to conserve fuel. It was a sunny day and we hadn’t climbed the mountains yet, so it was humid and HOT in that car. To make it worse, we couldn’t roll down all of the windows: word apparently spread to the neighborhood kids that a white van with a bunch of buzungu was stopped at the presidential parade. About a dozen kids and teenagers forgot all about the parade as they surrounded the windows, cupping their hands against the glass to peer in and occasionally tapping it or yelling at us to see if we would react. Sometimes we talked to them, to break up the boredom, but soon we felt too lethargic to say anything. Sweat trickled down our backs. Every time there was a pause in the passing military cars, our hopes would rise that the parade was over—only to be dashed again as yet another truck or SUV appeared.

I’m not entirely sure how long we stayed there, but it felt like at least 45 minutes. Finally, the policeman waved us on, and we escaped the crowd and rolled down the windows for the most refreshing breeze I’ve ever felt.

But we still had to find fuel. When we finally discovered a gas station with diesel, it was in a very crowded corner of the town and once more our van was surrounded with onlookers and even grown men who cupped their hands against the windows to stare at us. But the waitingpaid off, and finally we had a full fuel tank and set off on the final leg of the journey.

We arrived in Kibuye about 3 PM. In reality, the trip was only about an hour longer than we originally estimated—so as far as African travel goes, this was pretty successful.

In the end, the answers to the story problem are: five hours. And no Pringles remaining.

On the Eve of Returning to Burundi

(from Eric)

In two days, we will board the plane to return to Burundi.  This is when you normally don't hear from us.  Normally, there is at least a few weeks of radio silence, then we reappear saying that we're OK and that there is a lot to tell and that we'll tell it to you later and then we don't.

It's a busy time.  Busy with packing and prep.  Busy with cherishing some last days with family prior to another long absence.  We've done it before.  Several times.  Rachel has become an expert packer.  (I have become an expert at realizing that I'm just getting in the way.)  This is the first time that we're going back to a place we already know and have a home.  Maybe that's why I'm actually finding a moment to talk about it.

It has been a good nine months.  We have connected with our families, our friends, and our home church.  We have worked.  We have updated our licenses and spoken at conferences.  We saw two newborn nieces and one newborn nephew.  We celebrated my mom's 60th birthday.  We've had our hands in dozens of little Burundi projects that are a lot easier to effect stateside.

But nine months?  Really, it's been that long?  Nine months that we've been away from the main thing we do.  We're excited to go back, because being in the US means being in a kind of limbo, and that's a long time to be in limbo.

All of that aside, here on the eve of departure, I'm feeling an unexpected anxiety.  What will we find? Burundi has been through a lot since we left, and so has our team and the community at the hospital.  In addition to that, there are new teammates, new medical staff, new buildings that weren't even started when we left.  I'm sure there are new problems, and new nuances to the old problems.  I sort of had a bead on things when I left.  Now I feel rusty, but maybe it's changed so much it will be more like starting over.  

That's all the things we know about.  What do we NOT know?

***

I know what I'm forgetting, and it is precisely this:  God is with us and he is working.  He has ordered our steps here in the US, and he has ordered Kibuye in our absence.  He has prepared the way and called us to walk forward in it.

I resist trusting.  I want confidence and surety based on what I can see by myself.  So, I am anxious.    However, there is hope in repentance.

Pray for us.  For our travel and for our readjustments.  For the kids and the jet lag.  Pray for my ENT appointment tomorrow (Toby accidentally rammed the end of a pair of sunglasses through my now-ruptured eardrum on Monday, but that's another story...)  But our biggest need is the same as it always is, whether in the US, Burundi, or somewhere in between.  We need to turn our hearts to our loving God, hear his voice, and trust in him.

Once again, he has laid out a road for us.  Let us follow him and see what he has prepared.

What's in the bag?

By Jason

Heather and I have been in the States this past month.  We came back to be with family after my grandmother passed away.  We also used this opportunity to get a breather from the never-ending responsibilities at Kibuye, to attend a medical missions conference, and to stock up on some supplies.
After being at Kibuye Hope Hospital for a year there are some things that we found we needed/wanted at the hospital and at home, so being back in the States (with an Amazon Prime trial) gave us a great opportunity to acquire many of these things.  We are taking back quite a smorgasbord of items in our suitcases and it causes me to cringe thinking of trying to explain to the TSA agent the various items we have in our bags.  Here is a sampling of what we packed in our suitcases.

A huge monkey wrench to do maintenance on the water system

Contact paper to make the Operating Room windows opaque

A new biography about a Burundian runner

Various medical textbooks for me and for students

A nail gun air compressor to run the anesthesia machine

Air hose and other things to hook up the air compressor to the anesthesia machine

A flower box which will be used to soak long instruments in sterilizing solution.  I also got some catheters that aren't available in Burundi so that I can do prostatectomies.

Some spices not found in Burundi

Various homeschooling/ESL books

Pictures from a Burundian refugee family we met in Pittsburgh - to be delivered to her family in Bujumbura!

Some plumbing putty and goop for various persistent water leaks

Intramedullary nails to replace the ones we have used already

Skin graft meshing plates (it is amazing what you can find on e-bay!)

Spray bottles for prepping patients in the Operating room with Betadine

Wire clippers for various orthopedic procedures

And more...
Tums, Iron, Bowel prep pills (some medications aren't easily accessible)
Asbestos repair kit (leaky roof in the hospital)
Nail brushes (for cleaning hands before surgery)
Fuses for our van
Drawer sliders for a desk I am building
Speakers for the Operating Room (its nice to listen to music during long operations)
Foot pedal to operate the endoscope
Ultrasound machine which was repaired while we were back
Table Saw blades for various construction projects
Headlight (it's hard to operate when the lights go out)
Transformer (to convert 220v to 110 volt electricity)
Humby knife (used to remove skin to use for skin grafts in burned patients)
Nasal Canulas (for giving oxygen to patients)

Please pray that we'll just breeze through customs. : )

Tracking Big Packages

By Jason

One of the really fun aspects of living overseas is that we have opportunities to be involved in some unique spheres of society.  This past year I have enjoyed the world of shipping containers (this coming from someone who still enjoys Richard Scarry’s “Cars and Trucks” book).  If you have been following the sub-plot of our shipping container on this blog, then you will know that the container was picked up last month from a farm outside of Ann Arbor, Michigan, after John had packed it to the gills.  As it turns out, we can track the container, just like a UPS package, only hopefully it is harder to lose.  So I went to the tracking website and plugged in the container number and found that it had been put on a train in Detroit and traveled by rail to New York.  It was then placed on the MSC Toronto (pictured below) and is on its way to Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, via Salalah, Oman.  It is due to arrive in Tanzania sometime in October.  At that point, it can travel over land to Burundi.

A Google search about “MSC Toronto” yields all kinds of information about the boat (built in 2006, managed by someone named Reederei Claus-Peter, max speed of 13.4 knots, length of 325m), and better yet, I found that I can get real-time information about the position of the boat and its path.  The picture below shows that the MSC Toronto is currently docked in Richmond. 

You can bet that I will be watching carefully when this vessel heads down the east coast of Africa in some weeks… hopefully no pirates are reading this blog who would be interested in all the books and peanut butter stashed away in our container!

Big Rig Send-Off

By John Cropsey

The McCropders have finished packing a forty foot, metal clad box with what remains of their earthly possessions mingled together with "essentials" for their work and ministry . . .  generators, welders, motorcycles, drill presses, axes, six foot steel pry bars, sledge hammers, indestructible Kevlar soccer balls . . .  OK, we even let the girls put a few things on too.  However, given the shear amount of testosterone contained with in this shipping container, it was only fitting that her sendoff be performed by two beastly wreckers and a maxed-out big rig chassis.  Feast your eyes on the video below of nearly 40,000 pounds being dead-lifted off the ground and onto a semi chassis as my son Micah and I revel in the music of big diesel.

(click this link if you have trouble playing the video above)

Credits: background music "Green" by Kissinger.

The McCropder men take our hats off to the ladies of the team who have been willing to say "au revoir" to homes, goods and the financial security of a higher tax bracket.  Instead, they risk losing that which remains to the bottom of the high seas or into the hands of brigands by land as our metal box journeys from the shores of the USA to the landlocked interior of Africa.  As we bid "a Dieu" to our container and its contents, we rest knowing that our Heavenly Father knows exactly what we do and do not need to minister His Good News most effectively in Burundi.  If these mere earthly things would hinder us or our brothers and sisters in fruitfulness, may they come to rest at the bottom of Davie Jone's locker.  

Prayer for Planting

The long-awaited date is getting close.  In less than two weeks, our team will have relocated to Burundi.  It's been almost two years of active preparation, and almost three years since Rachel and I took the first scouting trip there.

Pray for us.  There is travel and logistics.  There are the throes of transition, especially for the kids, with or without jet-lag.  There are first impressions, and the first moments of relationships that will likely last a long time.  Pray for us.

Another prayer request:  Pray for us as we plant.

Explanation:  For each adult on our team, it has been the same thing.  Since leaving home at the end of high school, we have moved often, and we have always known that this place has a definite time limit.  For the doctors, college was four years, and we knew med school was coming.  Of course, that wouldn't last, and residency would follow, which was always (thanks to the grace of God) limited as well.  Then we moved to Kenya, and we knew that was for two years.  We headed back to the States, but that was temporary, as was language school.  And then, after 15 years or more... We arrive.

I'll draw a distinction here.  The Faders signed on for six years in Ann Arbor.  I lived there for seven (though I thought it would be shorter).  It was a decently long time, and we invested in the communities around us.  Even in Kenya for two years, we were always trying to act in ways that made sense beyond our own tenure, trying to avoid solutions that rang of "well, I won't be here then, so whatever."

However, there was always a next thing.  And, in two weeks, in a very real sense, there will be no next thing.

What does that mean for us?  Of course, it means that there are a lot of unavoidable expectations.  More than that?  Who knows?  This is uncharted territory for us vagabonds, and that is precisely the point.

We have been striving to approach this vision from a long-term perspective.  Why else do all the language-learning time and effort?  And we are thankful for all of you who have shared this perspective with us.  This is our goal.  What will it feel like?  We wouldn't know.  

Some of you readers would.  You have been through this.

So, pray for us as we plant.  When Jesus talked about planting (which he did frequently), the images abounded.  It's like the seed dying, so that it can be born again, and better.  The seed is sown, but then there is mystery.  We don't know exactly how growth happens after planting.  We have to trust.  Plant where you will, but you can never be sure who your neighbors will be.  Thorns?  Weeds?  But the planting is a beginning.  And at the end:  Harvest.  And that is in the sure hands of our Lord.

World Travel 202: How to Use Your Credit Card

(from Eric)

Accessing and Spending Money when you live abroad are big topics.  Suffice to say that, if you've never gone through it, it's more complicated than you would think.  A few sample conundrums:

• I don't need US cash, right?  What?  You want me to purchase my long-stay visas for your country in US cash?  How do I get US cash, when I live in Africa?
• My US cash isn't good enough?  You need bills in mint condition, issued after 2006 at the latest?
• Which bank could I use to minimize international withdrawal fees?
• My card is expiring.  How do I get the new one into my hands, when the permanent address they have on file is thousands of miles away.
• Yay, an ATM in country!  Now I don't have to get my local cash by getting my Pakistani grocer friend to cash my personal checks!  But which ATMs can I trust? (real scenario)

However, in times of preparation for travel (like us currently...again), one of the most important steps is to alert your bank(s) of your travel plans, so that your cards won't be held the first time you try to use them in another country.  Always be sure to give them a call and notify them at least several days ahead of time.  A few tips:

1. Take each card separately.  Obviously different banks require different calls.  But we have a credit card and a debit card with the same bank, but they never talk to each other, including on this issue.  So, generally speaking, one card = one call.
2. Be prepared for utter failure.  We have done this several times, and roughly half the time, one of our cards will be blocked the first time we use it in the new country.  Call again (internationally this time).  "Yes, we blocked it because someone tried to use it in Albertville, France!... Oh, that was you?... Oh, yeah, I do see that note here.  Sorry about that."
3. If you want, try and notify them about your erratic spending patterns.  I doubt this will help, but our friends in Kenya would get blocked almost every trip to get groceries in Nairobi.  No card activity for 6 weeks, then a veritable spending spree (a.k.a. stocking up) in a weekend.  Hold!
4. Be prepared to give additional information.  Today, I called the lady, and told her our plans.  Her follow-up question?  "Could you spell Burundi for me?"  Absolutely, I can.  (Really, I don't blame her, so if you can't spell it either, don't feel bad.)
5. Take a deep breath and be thankful they care.  We have had several rounds of identity theft, including a huge theft spree last fall from Kenya.  So, I wish the system worked more efficiently, but the alternative would be much more problematic.

Visa Sagas: The Bio Chapter I Appreciate More and More

(from Eric McLaughlin)

Missionaries have a thing for autobiographies.  As in, for writing their own autobiography.  And it must be said that they have some great stories, so more power to them.  I have read several of them, including this one on the hospital we visited in 2007.  Tenwek has a pretty popular one.  

After you've read a couple, you will realize that there seem to be a few, unwritten, formulaic elements.  One of them is that there will be a chapter where the missionary describes how God answered their prayers by giving them a visa for a longer period of time, say four years or even (in the case of one I read from Rwanda) for a lifetime.

I have always found these chapters particularly hard to engage.  I mean, the people are entering foreign lands, starting new hospitals, treating exotic diseases, hunting large game animals, riding motorcycles, and getting trapped in civil wars.  Just to name a few.  I mean, can't they just skip the immigration office and get back to the part where they have to stave off dehydration by drinking milk from the mammary glands of the wildebeest they just shot? 

No, they can't, and I must say that I think I'm coming to see their point of view.  Because the visa is so essential.  We have known multiple families who had to fly out of the country, at least temporarily, to deal with visa troubles, which is both expensive and disruptive to life and work.  Not to mention the time in going back and forth to the capital city's immigration office.

So it was that we trekked down to Atlanta for our French visa appointment, without which we couldn't depart for language school, just over a month away at the time.  Mountains of paperwork after streams of emails and trying to sift through confusing lists of requirements online.  We thought it went well, with only one more piece of documentation to send in.

And then we waited.  They would mail it to us when it was complete.  And it should be ready, though if there were further problems, it might easily encroach on our departure time.  We prayed, and remembered those under-appreciated biography chapters.

Yesterday we got the word:  Our four passports delivered with one-year visas to France.  In pretty record time, actually.  The work God has started, he is faithful to complete.  This means that Carlan is the only person still waiting on his visa, and his appointment is coming up soon.

We are not writing a book.  And though I still wouldn't include a chapter on God's faithfulness in the visa process, I do have a growing appreciation for it.  So, maybe just a blog post.

How To Live Out Of Your Car

(from Eric McLaughlin, in an attempt at a little something different...)

I wish I knew how to live out of my car.  I mean how to do it right.  Because I'm sure there are some things we could do way better, and we learn as we go.  We shared some of these thoughts before.

Nevertheless we are going on 9 months now of living out of our car.  Thankfully, due to extremely gracious hospitality, we have never actually spent the night in our car, so really I mean that we have carried with us everything we "need" for the last nine months.

This kind of portable living is generally a feature true of missionary life.  We're not always on the go.  In fact, sometimes, we wouldn't leave our home in Kenya (even by so much as a mile) for a couple months at a time.  That idea alone would have given me cabin fever before moving there, but travel can be pretty exhausting in Kenya, so we didn't really mind.  

Despite this, we had limited luggage to take to Kenya, we have limitations now in our car.  And we will go through this process again moving to France in a couple months, and again later in Burundi.  And through this, we have found a few key items, and thought that they might be worth sharing.

 1.  The Dora Bed.  One of our friends in Kenya recommended that we travel with our own pillows, so that wherever we were, we would be laying our heads on our own pillows.  We didn't do that, and by now, I think our own pillows would be pretty worn and ragged.  However, the first week we were home, we bought this Dora bed for $1 at a garage sale, and it has been Maggie's bed ever since.  We have placed this is innumerable locations, oftentimes on top of another bed, but it has provided Maggie with a stable place to sleep.  And it packs down super small, so it doesn't take up much space.

2.  The High Chair.  We bought this when Maggie was six months old, and we were living out on the Navajo for a couple months, before moving to Kenya.  We were already living out of our car, and when Rachel said she had purchased a "high chair", I had my doubts as to the feasibility of traveling with this.  But it worked awesome.  It's lightweight, it attaches to any chair, and it's easy to wash.  It packs down small, and we took it to Kenya, and now Ben is currently sitting in it, having a snack next to me.  We visit with a lot of people who don't necessarily have a reason to own a high chair, so this greatly improves mealtimes for everyone, and is well worth the space in the car.

3. and 4.  The Expandable File Folder and the Umbrella Stroller. When we were moving out of our house in Michigan in 2009, we had 2 file drawers full of papers.  They all seemed important, and we wondered what we were going to do.  We purchased this little blue file folder, which has about 15-20 pockets, and having been carting it around ever since, keeping track of all the important documents that we need in our lives.  The Umbrella Stroller behind may be out of style, but it takes up little space, it costs $12, and no one ever raises an eyebrow when you want to gate-check it at an airport.  Pure Gold.

5.  Lastly, any discussion on space saving wouldn't be complete without a nod to the digital world.  Our little disc wallet carries over 100 dvds.  Our iPod has over 16 days of music (and backs up our laptop), and the kindle has over 70 books, and can carry a lot more.  We don't need those things, but they sure are nice to have along, and our movies and music have been loaned out to more of our fellow travelers than I can remember.

Any addenda from the travel-savvy?

Hospitality: The Other Side of Homelessness

(by Eric McLaughlin)

This post has been a while in coming.  Some of you may remember the earlier thoughts on homelessness, as experienced by our family this year in the US.  No doubt, this continues to be a challenge, and we are currently thankful for several weeks of staying still here in Colorado.  However, there is another side to that struggle.

Over the past seven months, we have been hosted by no less than 30 families, maybe more.  Friends and family alike have welcomed us into their homes.  When I was a young single guy, even half of a married couple, I didn't think of myself as much of an imposition.  When Ben cries at 1am, and Maggie is up at 5:30, I no longer feel I can safely say that.  And yet, people give up rooms to us, they prepare us meals, and (perhaps the most gracious of all) they amazingly make us feel like they are glad to do it.  I have said it many times, and I could not mean it more:  Our nomadic family is sustained along the long journey by just such hospitality as this.

We have slept in bedrooms, while our hosts' kids take a sleeping bag, or even while the hosts themselves take the couch.  Multiple times, we have come to stay at a house, when our friends weren't even there.  People have rearranged schedules for us, and introduced us to their friends.  One family even scheduled Rachel and I for a complimentary professional massage!

A special mention goes to our four long-term hosts (thus far): Tim and Sharon McLaughlin, Jean Selle, and the Fader family have all taken us in for extended periods of time.  It is no small thing to bring a family into your home for a couple days, sometimes stopping everything else in its tracks.  However, after a while, if you continue as the host, life must go on, and that means that the guests become a part of your daily life.  This is another whole step in sacrifice and hospitality, and we are very grateful for it.

The fourth family is Dan and Suzanne Hayward (pictured here - I figure if they choose a photo for a facebook profile, it's fair game to share it) and their four boys.  They are going to get special mention, because no one has amazed me more with their hospitality this year.

Dan and Suzanne are a doctor-doctor couple, who had lived at Tenwek for a year, prior to our arrival in Kenya.  We had met briefly, during their visit back while we were there.  When they heard that I was going to be working in St. Joseph, MI, for a few months, they contacted me and said that they would be happy for me and my family to come and stay at their home.  For several months.  With their family.  And eat their food.  They even delayed dinner sometimes when I was working late, so that I could eat with their family.  And then there is the extra car that they let me drive.  And the dollhouse they found and brought so that Maggie would have some girly toys.  And the time they arranged a babysitter for us to attend a missions event.  And on it goes...  They barely knew us.  I'm so very glad for the friendship that resulted for this time.  And in the end, they send us on our way with a feeling that they were blessed by our presence, and that they are looking forward to us coming by again.

Really, it's overwhelming blessing.  It strengthens and sustains.

One of the universal features of missionary life is that, while living in foreign countries, you very often will play the host.  When I see the love that has been shown to us by so many, I begin to see that this is a gift of an opportunity.  An opportunity to love.  An opportunity to glorify God.

"Above all, keep fervent in your love for one another, because love covers a multitude of sins. Be hospitable to one another without complaint. As each one has received a special gift, employ it in serving one another, as good stewards of the manifold grace of God. Whoever speaks, let him speak, as it were, the utterances of God; whoever serves, let him do so as by the strength which God supplies; so that in all things God may be glorified through Jesus Christ, to whom belongs the glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen."  (1 Peter 4:8-11)

"Your love has given me great joy and encouragement, because you, brother, have refreshed the hearts of the saints." (Philemon 7)

Being Homeless (Like Jesus?)

When you are a missionary, the question "Where are you from?" or "Where do you live?" gets very complex.  This year, it's even more difficult for us.  In 11 months in the US, we will "live" in Tennessee 3 months (but gone half the time), Arizona 2 months, Michigan 2 months, Colorado 6 weeks, and Baltimore 4 weeks.

After arriving home, we bought ourselves a sturdy little car to get ourselves around this year.  I called up the insurance company to get all my ducks in a row, and explained that we had just returned from living abroad.  The agent asked if I would be needing homeowner's insurance or renter's insurance.  My reply: "Well, you know that CR-V you just insured?  That's our home for this year."  His response: "Well, I'm sorry to hear that, sir, and I do hope that things improve quickly for you."  Serious and tactful to the point of funny.

We are functionally homeless.  We depend on the generous hospitality of others.  We have bedrooms and maybe a bathroom, but not a home.  One day (on the road), Maggie asked, "Where is our home?"  Silence ensued.  We will not have our own home this year, other than our car, pictured below, packed to the hilt.  

This can definitely be challenging.  When you lose something, it is gone.  We unpack and pack a lot.  We are always a guest.

Jesus once said that "foxes have dens, and birds have nests, but the Son of Man has no place to lay his head." (Matthew 8)  In fact, for a long time, various segments of the church have chosen to describe Jesus as "homeless".  The Franciscans in particular, for a very long time, engaged in long dialogues about whether Jesus even owned the cloak on his back (the idea of his being homeless being a foregone conclusion).  Anyone would agree that he traveled light. ("take no bag for the journey or extra shirt" he told his disciples.)

And yes, since Jesus emulated this, there is a virtue to be found in this.  I thought that is what I was feeling all of those times when I would go off with a single backpack, containing everything I needed for the next two months.  And maybe it was, sort of.  But I still had a home to go back to, at the end of the journey.

At one point in our journey, Rachel and I concluded that:

• Yes, we are living "like Jesus" in our homelessness, BUT
• No, Jesus did not carry all these loads of stuff around with him everywhere he went

And thus the joys of "traveling light" are not ours.  We wonder about this.  Should we just trust that, wherever we show up will have a place for Ben to sleep, and thus the pack-n-play is unnecessary?  Should we just trust that Maggie will have clothes waiting for her when we get there?  Or maybe we'll just show up under-dressed to every quasi-formal event for the next year on the grounds that we will only travel with 3 shirts, 2 pairs of pants, 1 sweater, and 1 coat?

It's funny, because our lives in Africa have led us to reduce our possessions pretty dramatically.  And it continues to do so, as we know that we are not in a position to be acquiring much of anything.  I mean, there's no room in the car.

And yet, "the stuff" still has an element of burden to it.  We still feel how it creates a gap between us and the life of Jesus.  That doesn't mean that it doesn't also serve as a benefit in other ways, but the benefit is not without burden.

And so, oddly enough, we look back to our apartment in Kenya, full of hand-me-down furniture and borrowed kitchen utensils, as well as looking forward to a student dorm apartment in France, for a sense of home.  Not in the "home culture" or "friends and family" sense.  But in the "place to rest your family in their own space" sense.  And in the meantime, we will keep moving across this beloved homeland of ours, pursuing what we believe God has called us towards, incredibly grateful for the homes of others, opened to us as we sojourn on.

(Below: Ben jumps into the sneaker-car at a McDonald's in Gallup, New Mexico, during a pit stop, showing that he can never get enough of the open road.)