Hello! This blog will hopefully be an effective method of communication for the next semester. I will be spending 5 months at Kibuye Hope Hospital in Burundi, where a team of doctors and their families teach and practice. You can read all about them here!!!!: mccropders.com. During my time at Kibuye, I'll be spending a lot of time with the kids of the Serge Kibuye team, teaching preschool, piano, ballet, and probably more. I'll also be seeing what the team does at the hospital. The team includes doctors of many different specialties, and I am excited to see each of them working in a cross-cultural context.

I have several hopes and goals for this trip. The first is to serve the Serge Kibuye team and allow them to do their work more effectively. The second is to look at medicine from a different perspective before med school and gain a little more clarity as to where I'm called to practice and what specialties  would suit me. The third goal is to understand the title of this blog in a fuller way.

I stole the title from Serge, who's motto is also: grace at the fray. To understand the motto, there are two words to define: serge and grace. A serge is a type of stitch can be used to bring two pieces of fabric together. Grace is unmerited favor from God, which he shows to us through his salvation and love, even when we are weak and imperfect and broken as people. Serge's motto is grace at the fray because God meets us at our frayed places and shows his grace by serging them together. He promises healing for the world's brokenness. So beautiful! This semester, I hope to understand this truth in new and more complete ways. Yup, basically I am embarking on a journey to understand my name better! I hope to accept the areas that I am frayed in, which are pretty much everywhere as I am realizing, and I hope to depend on God's grace for those areas more wholly. I also hope meet people in their frayed places and extend God's grace to them.

If you'd like more clarification, let me know! I will be available by email and Facebook.
I am also leaving in a hour for Brussels, then Bujumbura, and I am counting on your prayers!: please pray for safety for me and the McLaughlins as we travel through Bujumbura, and for an open heart to learn what God would like to teach me!

Bye for now!