rejoice with me!

Since we returned to Mae Sot, it’s been a dark season. I’m not sure I can even put my finger on it, or words to it, except to say that I’ve wanted to move back more than ever before. I’ve questioned if anything is coming of this; if it is worth the heartache and challenges. If it is worth the mountain that constantly seems to lie in front of us.

While we were stateside, one of the ideas gnawing on me was this: I don’t just want to do good here. Good is, well, it’s innately good; but it’s so temporary. Take Flour & Flowers: I love it. It kills me every week, but I love it. I love that I can see the women learning new skills, building their confidence, and seeing their families better off. There are clear successes and clear results, which is unique in this work, and rewarding.

However, if we’re honest, it’s so minimal. They are still paperless; they are still poor. They are only slightly more comfortable and stable; and what happens when we go? Or people stop buying bread & flowers? It feels like you are working so hard for, well, a Band-Aid. A temporary relief of pain, while we’re all still stirring around in the same pot of brokenness.

{I told you this was a dark season, and I am wrestling with my own dark season. But I promise this post ends in great rejoicing. Get excited, and don’t give up on me!}

So I’ve been praying through this: how do we communicate hope in Christ? And how do we even continue to walk in it, broken situation after broken situation?

I’ve been praying through many prayers, wrestling through many questions, and crying many tears. Because I just feel like God hasn’t said to leave yet, but sometimes I’m not sure why we stay.

But this past week we have had some beautiful news.

And I’m simply going to report it in the order it came in, because really, where do you start? Apparently beginnings & conclusions aren’t my speciality. I’m just in for the long, long road in the middle.

First, two years ago in July 2015, we loaned a young couple a large sum of money. It was around $700, to help them pay off a loan they had taken with a loan shark & had a horrible interest rate–30% monthly if I recall correctly. Their plan to pay it off was to split up, with her moving to Burma pregnant & him staying behind to work it off. We offered a plan for them to pay it off in four months to us interest-free.

Two years later, it’s quite clear four months didn’t happen! After the first few $60 payments, they bailed for awhile. We then asked them to give her Flour & Flowers salary each week, about $9. And in $9 increments, for well over a year, they paid off the entire loan last week.

{Insert all the shock and awe and pride you can imagine.}

And then it gets even better: she told us last week that they now want to save with us! She’s going to continue giving us the $9 per week to save for their family!

{Internet writing is not equipped to express the emotions needed for this post, and even more is yet to come!}

And in another success story: Mwei Mwei is attending a sewing training here in town at a Christian organization, and she is loving it. We’ve “hired” her to do this training, and in just a couple weeks she’ll be sewing at our house five days a week. This will keep her with her family, out of a Bangkok job, and she’ll be able to study one hour a day.

She’s confident & smiling now; she’s excelling as a seamstress. Her mom tells me every week that she is so happy, and we couldn’t be happier.

I read a [horribly depressing] article this week on Al Jazeera about the loan business and prostitution that is all over Burma now. It talked about those at risk–taking loans, often from neighbors and friends, at ridiculous interest rates and ending up in endless debt. It talked about how many people are turning to prostitution to pay debts and survive. It talked about the young girls, dropping out of school at 13, and taking jobs for the family–sometimes in factories and sometimes in prostitution, but either way leaving them vulnerable for such situations in the future.

But while I read this, these weren’t vague stories: these were my best friends.

While I didn’t love the messy conversations about money or the ridiculousness of keeping track of $9 per week; while I don’t love hiring a 15-year-old and it isn’t easy to line up tutoring for her every day–it’s all worth it.

Because it’s keeping them from much worse, and it’s investing in dear, dear friends.

And now, the true jaw-dropper, friends.

For a long time, we’ve been attending church every week with one family–a couple with three boys–and then a whole lot of kids. We recently added a grandmother and a young girl with mental disabilities. And we always, always have lots of kids.

We’ve been inviting friends and telling them about our faith for years in the best language we can muster, and really, it’s been evident evangelism isn’t our gifting. We’re planters and waterers in this community.  But this family going with us: they are evangelizers. And so are our pastor & his wife.

And as of this week, six people from around our community are in a baptism class, and they’ll be baptized this Saturday at the local reservoir!

I don’t even begin to have the words or descriptions for this. One of them is our sweet little Yaminoo, who we’ve loved for so many years and prayed so many prayers for. And her dad–I don’t have the words.

All I know is that faith, hope, and love remain. All I know is that even if they are stirred in the pot of brokenness forever on this earth, faith, hope, and love will set their lives apart. All I know is that “he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me!'” (Luke 15:6,9)

Rejoice with us, friends. Because this is all worth something.

So if our adoption falls to pieces, or our social skills, or even our sanity: if we have jumped in this pot of brokenness with them and can only come home with more disorders and messes than we can ever deal with, it was all worth it. Because faith, hope, and love will remain.

Rejoice with us!