not to be neglected.

There has been good, too; I don’t want to neglect that.

One of our lost girls is back from Burma. Most of the family is together, living back in Mae Sot. She’s boarding at our pastor’s house and attending school. We get to see her on Sundays, and that is a joy.

We saw one of Thida’s daughters off to study in Burma for a year. We sent her off with photos and all the love & encouragement we could muster. We love her to bits.

Sometimes we come home to things like this, to both horrify and humor us.

I started a toddler class with Mwei Mwei on Thursday mornings. The kids call it “school” and often come with little backpacks that are empty.

I teach them English for thirty minutes or so, and then Mwei Mwei teaches them some Burmese. We sing songs while Stephen plays the guitar. It has brought me so much laughter over the past few weeks, and I love it.

We started a new after school program for the older kids–the full story which requires another post–but it’s going really well. The kids are loving it, and it’s manageable for us, so we’re thankful.

This team found a basketball game on the computer they love (and they are learning about angles while they play!) He vocally cheers for himself when he makes a shot. 😍

We’re still celebrating birthdays, and that’s fun.

We took one of our sweet friends out to snacks and ice cream with a small group of her friends, and it really was a beautiful afternoon smack in the midst of some of the messes mentioned above. We laughed and loved it.

And we put birthday candles into chicken nuggets. 🤷🏼‍♀️

On the way, the birthday girl was laughing at Stephen & I, saying, “Kelli always says, ‘Uhhmm-hmm, uhhmm-hmm.’ Stephen always says, ‘Yep! Yep! Yep!'” Oh, they know us so well.

Sometimes, we make cakes and attempt to decorate them with jelly filling for little at-home parties. And we laugh and love those, too.

We have this little fellow who likes to be drawn on and a babysitter that enjoys it even more.

We have this little girl, who came to the door last week to tell us she was going to get a snack with her mom. To this I asked, “And when you mom gives you your snack, what are you going to tell her?”
“Thank you.”
Her mom, in awe, “Who taught you that?!”
“Auntie Kelli.”
I mean, could I be more proud?! (Admittedly, we’ve become quite well-known for the fact we counter-culturally require thank yous and hand washing to the extreme.)

We still have Thida and her whole family. And that is such a gift.

And we’re making it together. We’re still discovering new places in Mae Sot, one of which serves up delicious soft serve (or soft sever..). They let us bring in our own little parties as you saw above, and one of the staff also works at the hotel where we swim often. So now she sees us all the time for either ice cream or a swim! At least we’re attempting to balance it out 😊

Stephen is gearing up for the OneHouse worship night this come week, and he’s managed to work with local students and worship leaders to have songs available in English, Thai, Burmese, and Karen; with a variety of musicians. It is not a small feat, but it’s really beautiful how God is pulling it together.

That could be said of a lot of things in our lives. Many little things, but no small feats. Many hard things, but many beautiful things.
None to be neglected.