I’m in the process of re-working a few aspects of Flour & Flowers. We’re adding a couple items, making some pricing and system changes, promoting someone to manager.
Really, we’re always making little tweaks.
Because I have no idea what I’m doing.
I put together a letter to our customers this week, to inform them, to thank them, and ultimately to say, Please, please don’t give up on us. I’m sorry I don’t know what I’m doing, but this is helping these families so much. So many beautiful things are coming out of these friendships. You buying their products is putting gorgeous smiles on their faces and hope in their step. Please, please like these products; please, please think they are a good deal; and please, please keep making this possible week after week. Heaven only knows we can’t eat $30 worth of bread every week or buy $20 worth of flowers; we need you!
And meanwhile, I’m telling these women: please keep working with us. Be patient with my Burmese. Be patient when I stop to chat with the foreigners. Be patient with our little car. Can you see how much I love you to do this with you every week? Can you see how much Jesus loves you and your family to bring us here to sell $30 of bread and $20 of flowers?
There have been some discouragements as of late; some challenges. There have been tears. There have been a lot of prayers that we can only do this with grace and miracles and that we need Him!
You see, I know it isn’t huge. We’re reaching about three families and getting them about $10 a week, with some business skills mixed in.
Meanwhile, I know business isn’t me. I calculate the costs, and recalculate them; they’re probably still inaccurate. I want the women to win; I want them to make money. But I also want the customers–my friends–to be happy, to love what they are getting. And business is not for people pleasers.
But beyond business, I’ve been realizing lately that this is more draining than just that. For a language-learning introvert, going door to door visiting foreigners with three Burmese in tow is no piece of cake. Working in a kitchen reaching over 115 degrees, with two ovens running and a stove top flame cooking tortillas is not for the faint of heart. Neither is rolling out 120 tortillas and baking multiple loaves of bread before noon. And for that matter, doing it in another language and simultaneously discussing domestic abuse, school schedules, when we’ll play Bingo, who is in the latest crisis, and how much my shirt cost me can wear you out, too.
For some reason it took me a number of months to realize why Thursdays & Fridays have worn me out. I only just noticed that it stretches me mentally, physically, relationally, spiritually, and psychologically. I only just realized that we are taking the longest, most challenging road possible to give these families a small sum of income.
It would be so much easier to just give them the money.
But I wouldn’t know Pyo Pyo the way I do. We wouldn’t have been able to ensure they get a good meal of meat and vegetables once a week. We wouldn’t be able to talk about all the hard things we talk about. We wouldn’t be able to talk about savings and budgets and costs and profit. They wouldn’t be picking up English and I wouldn’t know as much Burmese. I wouldn’t get to see their elated faces when someone gives them a 10 baht tip. They wouldn’t be able to see Stephen and I interact, to see me make him coffee and hear him say thank you. They wouldn’t hear us tell each other we love each other or see us help each other out. I woudn’t have been able to learn different Burmese dishes we cook over lunch or how to cut the pumpkin most wasteless-ly.
The list is endless. In short, if we just gave them the money, we wouldn’t be friends.
Instead, we are just tired after a long day of being friends and doing life together {in a place that is sometimes difficult to do life}.
So Flour & Flowers keeps growing and took a couple big leaps this week. We added two new recipes and we’ll now be baking and delivering on the same day! I’m passing over tasks to our new manager, to equip her and ease the work on me. We hope to add more young moms and families soon.
I keep telling Stephen I don’t know what I’m doing; he keeps telling me it doesn’t matter–it’s working! So here’s to things working 🙂
Kelli, I just read this post. There are SO many ways that I identify with you. I LOVE bread baking, I LOVE flowers, I LOVE/hate business….mostly love though. I love how you’re equipping these three women with invaluable skills. You’re a better business person than you realize. I love that the Lord is blessing your business and it’s growing. And how He’s teaching all of you so much about depending on Him for His provision. He is a good provider and equips us in every way to do what He desires. I LOVE how Stephen’s quiet but secure presence covers you’re household. It is very much the role of Christ and the Church. And how your marriage is truly a picture of that.
I know how exhausting it is to communicate about deep topics with the language barrier but I also know how deeply satisfying and rewarding it is at the same. Only in Jesus can we truly accept and appreciate the conflicting emotions that happen all at the same time to us. It is a gift. (I’m sure Jesus experienced that even more profoundly being fully God and fully human) We are truly fearfully and wonderfully made and enabled to do that.
We love you both!