One Month Here

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(by Heather)

Somewhere in missionary training, we heard that itis common to experience a “honeymoon” phase of adjustment after moving to a newcountry.  Newness and excitement ofdiscovery can be found around every corner… new friends to meet, new foods totry, new places to explore.  Even as a not-very-adventurous person, I’m right there inthe honeymoon phase.   
We McCropders find much joy in many aspects of our new lives here at language school inFrance.  I could write on and on about thesethings, but I have beaucoup French vocabulary to study yet tonight, so I’lljust briefly mention three of the highlights of our first month in France.
Of course, togetherness with the team is a definitehighlight.  The whole McCropder teamtogether at last has made for great times here already.  We also really appreciate the greater languageschool community.  Our schoolteaches approximately 35 adults from several countries, and most of thesestudents are headed towards French-speaking countries inAfrica.  The camaraderie is a blessing. 
Another highlight:  TheFrench classes themselves.  I absolutelylove my class, my teachers, and even the French grammar lessons.  (Yes, I confess that it’s true that I dosecretly love verb conjugations… and that my former career as a Spanish teacherhas been a huge head-start with learning and enjoying French vocabulary andgrammar.)  All of us, including teammembers who are not as enthusiastic about prepositional phrases and the like,are soaking up French and understanding a whole lot more each week.
And all of that while living in this beautiful place.  This afternoon while out for a run, I turnedtoward home and caught sight of a dazzling rainbow stretching over theAlps.  In this picture, ourapartments/school are a few blocks ahead on the left.  Any of you who have attempted to photograph arainbow with a cell phone camera will commiserate with the fact that no such photocan capture such beauty. In the same way, my brief report here has not adequatelydescribed the goodness of God in answering many prayers for our team’s transitionsto language school.  We feel tremendously blessed aswe continue to settle in here, thankful for this phase of the journey towardsBurundi.