NOTE: This post – written by Susan – was originally posted on our team blog: www.mccropders.com What I’m about to tell you is a love story.  This is one of the greatest love stories I’ve ever experienced.  It involves unconditional love, costly sacrifice, incredible patience and perseverance.  But this is not your usual love story. …

Well – i think a lot of people just lost one of the major reasons for not visiting us: “It’s too hard / far / tough of a journey.” My mom and my aunt – who I think one can agree are not currently spring chickens –  just left after about 2 1/2 weeks with us…

During our Christmas break we got the chance to see some more of this beautiful part of the world when we went along with some teammates for a few days of camping just across the border in Tanzania. It takes almost 4 hours to drive – plus at least an hour at the border for 14 people…

Well we have just  (yes – over two months ago I realize) celebrated our second Christmas here in Kibuye.  Seems strange in many ways – that we have already been here for a year, that we have made this place our home that we visited for the first time when we arrived here on the day…

Well – as of today we have now been in Burundi for two years! Two years ago today we stepped off a late-night flight from Edmonton (via Montreal & Brussels) to walk across the tarmac at the Bujumbura airport. It feels like we’ve lived so much in that time – lived so many experiences that it must…

Well – we now are a two-teenager family!  Matea turned 13 on the weekend.  I think it’s the kind of milestone-y birthday that causes me to realize that her upbringing is in fact quite different than mine was.  When I was 13 I felt like I was a definite outsider – that kid who had…

Well, let it not be said that we don’t get visitors here in rural Burundi. Not only did our friend Karen stop in to visit us back in May while she was in the neighbourhood (aka only a few thousand km’s away on a trip to South Africa) – but Susan’s parents just left after  a…

While we were in Kenya to take Jonah to RVA– we had a free day while he was in school -before we headed back home.  We decided to use our day by driving down the hill about an hour to a place called Crescent Island (fact: not an island) close to Naivasha. The animals were apparently brought…

So this post has actually been a long time coming – mostly because it’s been something so significant that we’ve really needed some time to process. At the beginning of this school year – we took Jonah to Rift Valley Academy about an hour outside of Nairobi. That’s right: We left our child in Kenya…

I ran Le Grand Duc one time before when we lived there – in a relay of 5 with guys from our church. It was an amazing experience – my first real trail race. This year I was too late to get on a team to run as a relay, however this year they introduced…

Despite the fact that we all had very mixed emotions over the reason why we were in Kenya, there was no disagreement over the good times had in Nairobi. Despite being a giant city – with some fairly ‘interesting’  traffic – we were able to see and do some pretty cool things – especially considering…

Well – our youngest is now 5. In keeping with the apparent tradition in our new community here in Kibuye -no child’s birthday party is complete without a theme. For this one it was “dress up like your favorite stuffed animal.” Alma of course was dressed up like Boing-Boing – her beloved  stuffed bunny that she’s…

Well, we now have three kids into the double-digit age range. Micah turned ten last week – while we were in Kenya. We actually spent most of  his birthday in Nairobi – doing some pretty cool stuff. First we visited an elephant orphanage. OK – first things first  – Micah did what Micah does best –…

…and another rock.  The name literally means “between the rocks” (or actually now that I think about it, maybe it’s just – in the middle of two guys named Pierre ) – but for our family it means a lot more.   If our time in France this summer was a chance to be in…

Since we were already in Europe for our Mission’s conference, we took a side trip to France. There are so many things that we love and really missed about France: wine, cheese, friends, the sea, bread, family, cheese, the alps, pastries, wine, the weather, fromage, families dear to us, du vin, hiking, museums, food, sitting…

In June we had a fantastic time in Spain at our organisation’s triennial conference. This conference brings together our workers from all over – who do an incredibly wide variety of work. Southern Europe is kind of central for us collectively – well, as central as it can be for people in Africa, Asia, North America & Europe (and…

It feels like there hasn’t been anything significant to mention lately – but in some ways that’s nice. So here’s a rundown of a rather uneventful past few weeks: The kids really are thriving here in their new environment. In many ways it’s a kids dream. Free reign for you and a pack of friends running…

It’s been a year since we moved here to Burundi as two weeks ago was the exact day one year ago that our family touched down at the retro-futuristic international airport  in Bujumbura. It sure seems like it’s been more than a year – and I don’t think that’s just because it was a leap year. We…

One-thousand-two-hundred-and-four. A little over a week ago I travelled back to Bujumbura to take part in the Hope Africa University graduation ceremony. It was a very significant event for several reasons.  Firstly – the graduating class was huge – double what it normally is. One-thousand-two-hundred-and-four students who have received their training, been equipped, and are…

Basically if you’ve ever watched Long Way Down or Long Way Around with Ewan McGregor and Charlie Borman…you have some idea of what we were doing. Except instead of 2 guys on bikes plus two support vehicles, we were two dads, plus a mom and a kid on two bikes, and one Land Cruiser with the other 10 people…

So, we thought this would be our first Christmas in Bujumbura – and we even decorated the house with borrowed decorations and a gifted/left-over artificial tree. However the increasing violence – especially when it flared up on Dec 11 and the fighting lasted for 14 hours or so – our security team asked us to…

A few days before we left Rwanda we took a small boat across one of the hundreds of inlets¹ along the Rwandan side of Lake Kivu over to see a project that a local church had started.  It is a small group of women – most of whom are widows, or un/under-employed. The women sit together…

NOTE: This is a blog post from back in October or so..that never got posted….enjoy. So we haven’t really said much of what we’ve been up to in the past number of weeks since we arrived back in Bujumbura.  In some ways that’s probably because it seems like we haven’t done a whole lot that’s noteworthy.…

…Micah is 9. Our last week in Rwanda included Micah turning 9.  He is now the third one in our family to have a birthday since we arrived in Africa.  For my birthday we went to Kimembe for lunch overlooking Lake Kivu (and…to go to the Rwandan customs office along the border with D.R. Congo…but…