The House Collective

come on in.

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Life in this neighborhood is a rollercoaster.

Summertime here is from mid-March to the first of June, and it is chaotic to say the least. The kids are absolutely crazy: climbing fences and gates and trees before 7am, with so much energy and so little structure. We have kids napping on our porch; there are so many I fear aren’t fed regular meals. They’ll easily spend all day in our yard and on our porch and in our house.

Hence, the summer program. We still do Breakfast Club every weekday morning; we have two days a week of summer school classes, and two more days of play and games. We do mid-day fruit at least twice a week, plus other days of milk and packaged snacks.

Then it gets even more complicated. Many of the kids in the community live with grandparents or aunts or uncles through the school year, and their parents “call” for them over the summer. They will be sent off to Bangkok or places in Burma to stay with their parents for a few months before they return for school.

It’s also common for kids to live in Burma with grandparents while the parents work in Mae Sot. The parents, likewise, “call” for their kids over the holidays, so we have a whole new slew of kids in our neighborhood that we don’t know, but their parents know us, and they are here just for a few months.

And there is yet another group that lives here with their immediate family, but goes off to visit aunts, uncles, and cousins in Burma for the holiday.

It’s a very big, very convoluted switcheroo.

So while we still have The Breakfast Club, we added about fifteen kids and lost about twenty, presumably both temporarily. And while we have the summer program, some of the kids don’t know the routines: what our rules are, the fact that we speak Burmese (but not perfectly; no, I didn’t get that spiel…). It’s a big learning curve for all of us.

And it’s messy.

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This little boy, he left us in early December, just a few days before his birthday. We had a cake early and said our goodbyes as he moved back to Burma with his dad. Then he came back, just two weeks later. He didn’t like it, and came back to live with his mom, older sister, and younger brother.

He and his sister left again at the end of March, to leave over the summer. They said they’d be back for school in June. We gave them hugs and said goodbyes; just a few months, right?

The little brother followed just a few weeks after. I asked Thida last week, and she’s talking now about how they might stay. It is going well with their dad and grandmother–maybe the mother was the problem, and she’s still here in Mae Sot.  Now they might start school in Burma this year.

That might be the last of their living in our community; I don’t even know yet. And I won’t even pretend I can swallow that. We’ve been snapping photos together for over seven years. To say we love them is the understatement of our lives here.

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This little boy: he left us last year.

His parents got in a fight and split; he was left with a grandfather and an aunt. He was then called to Bangkok by his grandmother and yet another aunt; we said our goodbyes and hoped it might be better for his messy little life.

Then he came back, a few months later. His parents are back under the same roof. They are expecting again, and I’m just not even sure what to think.

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This is a family of first-borns, amazingly enough.

Three are first-borns in their individual families, but all sent to live with their grandparents here in Mae Sot. The littlest is a youngest child in every way you could imagine! They are two more cousins & brothers that have joined at different times and then been sent back, just to really confuse it all. But these four have stayed, and made a second little family of over-achievers.

Over the summer, the oldest got a job, which we hope is just for the summer. Reality? With her switch to Thai school last year she was put back into first grade. And money in the pocket is more generally more tempting than the promise of money through education. I’m nervous she might be a nanny forever.

The older boy was called by his parents to go to Bangkok, as was the littlest little guy.

This leaves one. Left behind, not called by his parents; and now having a few breakdowns as of late.

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This girl is one of Thida’s, and we love her!

She left to go to visit an aunt for the summer, and I was so sad to not have her in the summer program. Her smile can light up a place, and a she’s a natural leader.

Thida casually mentioned she called to ask after her daughter, and they said she was in Yangon. Thida laughed about all the fun she was going to have.

I have been praying all week for her. It terrifies me to have her traveling on her own, generally a paperless young teenage girl, in a world and region where human trafficking is rampant.

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One of our Breakfast Club families is in a hard season: in the past six months they have moved into a field, living in a shanty hut with no water or electricity. They are unable to afford the insurance program we are offering and supplementing; and it’s putting us in a challenging position.

Her baby was due for vaccinations last week, and while we are no longer driving out to the clinic, I did agree to drive her to a free vaccination clinic in the market. As she got in the car, Thida asked her if her husband was working that day. She said no, as her husband was hungover from yesterday and unable to work.

Thida later told me this is her second husband, and shared their sad story. Apparently their are two more kids in Burma, and it’s just messy.  We talked about how we just aren’t sure how to help, because if we help with one thing, it will just be another.

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This little boy moved to Bangkok to join his mom and dad, aunts, uncles, and cousins in Bangkok last year.

We have visited him there, and while we missed him terribly, we were hopeful.

But his grandmother & primary caregiver didn’t like Bangkok–not enough people to talk to during the day–and wanted to move back to Mae Sot with him. This week, we helped move them in a shanty room off the main road, amidst a rough crowd.

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One of the bread ladies is unexpectedly pregnant again, struggling with morning sickness with a toddler and unsure about the coming season. This week she said her husband’s boss left town–he had a great job installing windows, and the boss owed him a month’s salary when he left.

This happened last month to another bread ladies’ husband. A month’s salary owed, and the boss skips town.

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The Breakfast Club is no easy task. Creating a summer curriculum for forty kids in your house in 100 degree weather sans air con is not to be taken lightly. Sharing your kitchen with a breakfast service and bread business is challenging.

The hard part, though: It isn’t serving breakfast to 50 kids before 8am. It isn’t even the hot, sweaty kids shouting out their ABCs.

It is opening up your door to fifty kids with broken families, painful stories, instability; and saying,
Yeah, COME ON IN, with all that baggage.
Every day before 8am.

summer program 2018.

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We’re already a week into the chaos of Summer Program 2018!

For about eight weeks through the summer, we have “hired” four teenage students–two are The Reinforcers, one works at our house regularly, and the other is Mwei Mwei’s sister & Thida’s daughter. In short, they are our sisters & brothers! We are quite close to them and have known them all since they were 8 or 9.

We had their shirts made at a local Bible school in town, and I love them! The back says “teacher.” (Technically, “male teacher” and “female teacher” respectively.)

We’ve asked them to come on Mondays & Wednesdays from 8-12 to be teachers for the kids. This allows us to simply coordinate–a big enough task!–and equips them to be learning and helping provide for their families over the summer.

The week before, we met together with the teachers to prep all the materials. They were able to help us translate some of the lessons I’d put together and prepare some lessons themselves. Stephen has also already taught the two guys to type in Burmese, so they were typing up documents for us!  It was fun to work with them, even amidst the chaos and lack of sleep. (Hindsight, I probably shouldn’t have scheduled the Summer Program to start the same week as Easter, OneHouse, and Flour & Flowers + Cinnamon Rolls; and the same week we started the M-Fund insurance program. Whoops!)

They are teaching Burmese reading and writing, English writing and speaking, math, geography, and science. We have about forty kids enrolled, from ages 5 to 14; and they are at all levels of reading and writing.

So far, it’s going swimmingly! Each subject has different levels. For Burmese, the lowest level is learning to write their consonants; the second level is learning vowels and tones. The middle level can read simple Burmese, so they are reading stories in The Storybook Bible in Burmese (which is in colloquial Burmese) and then answering questions. And the final level is reading Wikipedia articles (which Wikipedia translates into Burmese, but literary style) about famous people: Mother Teresa, Martin Luther King, Galileo Galilei, Nelson Mandela, and more. I am so excited about all of these.

For English, we have some writing the alphabet, others learning basic words; the older groups are using lessons from an ESL program. Math is divided into eight groups at all different levels, mostly done through self-study. The teachers are there to help explain new concepts one-on-one.

After these three subjects, the kids that aren’t literate get to go home. The older kids stay for two classes of Geography & Science. In Geography, they are learning continents and oceans, plus thirteen specific countries (which the boys picked, so mostly those famous for soccer!). In those countries they learn the flag, the capital city, the population, the languages they speak, and few interesting facts. In science they are learning the basics of the solar system and planets.

Overall, I feel like the kids are learning so much. After the classes, every student gets a piece of fruit on their way home, and the teachers have lunch with Stephen, Thida & I.

Every child enrolled–and all the kids in the neighborhood under 5–are getting free breakfast for the summer. This includes malnourished & nourished kids! We are doing this through the summer. For next school year, The Breakfast Club will be free for malnourished kids, but available to purchase for healthy kids (as we have more that have passed into nourishment!). We’ll offer a well-balanced meal with unlimited refills for 15 cents per person per day; or 9 cents per day if pre-paid for the week. We’re trying to promote health, planning ahead and savings all in one 😃

In addition to the two days of classes, on Tuesday & Thursday we have Playhouse. We have made in the morning for these summer days, when it is cooler. Honestly, we also hope to wear them out with safe activities before they come up with other ideas, too!

We have some friends who come to join for street football and crafts.

They brought chalk this week for the street, and it officially felt like summer! Sidewalk chalk & hopscotch? We’ve arrived.

This is all a bit of a switch up to our schedule, and our house got even crazier (somehow!). But, we love that the kids are learning and utilizing their summer months. We are also glad that they are at least getting a meal a day, snacks, structure and stability. We hope it goes a long way for all of them, but we know it does for some families in particular.

the breakfast club | year one.

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On March 30, The Breakfast Club completed it’s first school year!

The very next Monday we started The Summer Breakfast Club, so I can’t say it looks much different. Except to say that one school year was completed!

And in the first year, Thida smoothly served up 5,977 meals before 8:00am.

Did I mention she’s my hero? And the families who have committed to support this project!

one giant leap for this community.

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We made a big leap last week.

Just a few months after we moved into this community, a seven-year-old little girl broke her finger {at our house, because of our “creative, fun” idea}. Her parents said they couldn’t go to the hospital because they were afraid of the police. And since her finger was blatant perpendicular to where it was supposed to be, and because it was our fault, and because she is adorable–we took her to the hospital.

Little did we know, but this would unfold years of helping with medical in this community. It opened doors to trips and admissions to the hospital, trips to the emergency room, trips to the free clinic. It turned into trips for more labors & new babies than we could count, more vaccinations, more broken & set bones, and more bloody disasters than we knew a community could create.

If I didn’t love that little-girl-turned-teenager so very, very much and have celebrated her baptism last year, I might regret that first trip to the hospital. And if so many of those emergencies hadn’t turned this community into our best friends, I might regret them.

Instead, we celebrate that House Calls has created epic opportunities this community.

We’ve had to adjust our methods all along–when we couldn’t afford to pay for the hospital for everyone, we started accessing the free clinic. When they couldn’t do everything, we had to learn what their specialties were. When we had medical problems beyond our capacity, we had to call in reinforcements.

And after a few recent situations–including the breech baby emergency–we realized the free clinic was no longer a good option for our neighbors. We felt we needed to come up with something else that was still feasible. It was also through the breech baby emergency that we learned about M-Fund.

M-Fund started last year, and is a local organization that has partnered with the public Thai hospital to create an insurance program for undocumented migrants in Mae Sot and surrounding areas. For our neighbors, they can pay $3 per person per month (plus family discounts; and a higher rate for chronic situations) and receive entirely free treatment at the public hospital, up to $3200.

For those of you in the turmoil of American healthcare who perhaps just paid a premium of hundreds or thousands of dollars, I know you’re thinking this is insane. It is a bit. Even at $3 per person, that’s about 1/3 of a day’s wage, and not readily available for the community around us.

But, it’s an incredible development. For our community, access to this means that they will get better treatment available within biking distance. The better treatment includes X-rays and CAT scans; casts for broken bones; and surgeries. It also means that pregnant mothers can have their baby in a hospital, where a C-section is available if necessary, and their child will receive some form of official birth certificate & access to some Thai social programs and even legality in some cases.

!!!!!

For us, it means we can be done with 30 minute trips out to the clinic multiple times per week.

!!!!!

However, it is no easy feat to convince a community of impoverished families to invest in healthcare and insurance. We admit we are a bit of the problem: if we provide a free ride to a free clinic, even with poor care, it’s still free. It’s still easy and non-committal. We also realize that jumping into pay for your whole family is a big portion of their income–comparable to rent–and not easy.

Looking at our community budget, so much of our finances goes toward emergencies: C-sections, broken bones, and hospital stays. We decided to present a plan to the community that we think (we hope!) uses our community fund more wisely and more sustainably for the next couple years, while also helping our neighbors toward development.

Our plan, which we presented at a community meeting last week, is to offer M-Fund subsidies for the first year. After a community family applies for M-Fund and is given their premium, they have an opportunity to apply with us. From now until October, we’ll pay a percentage up to 50% for different families. We’re creating a tiered system–50% for Tier 1, 25% for Tier 2, and 10% for Tier 3. We pay that percentage for 6 months, and then they are moved down a tier (or out for Tier 1). This happens again six months later. So that even for the highest tiers, we no longer subsidize at the end of 2019.

We have also committed to help with pregnant mothers indefinitely, and we’ll pay their individual premium from the time they know they are pregnant until 3 months after birth. This is mostly because of the breech baby emergency, and that paying premiums has both the potential to save us thousands and change the trajectory of the baby’s life by giving them access to Thai social programs.

Meanwhile, we hope that this creates a window for development: a chance to see how insurance works and how it is beneficial for the family. It also creates a habit of saving and planning. It also helps to create a long-term plan for the community for the future, when we might not be here to help in the same capacity or at all.

And guys, it feels pretty epic. We’re not driving out to the clinic anymore! I just gained two hours most Tuesdays!
Instead, we’re pushing for huge strides toward development.

Following our community meeting last week, we’ve had three more to register new families. Over 60 people have registered!

It comes with challenges to: drawing a hard line in the sand is complicated. There are grey areas; there are hard no’s and situations to mourn. It’s not easy.

But it’s also a part of moving forward. And we do feel like more than ever, our strategies and involvement in the community are intentional: intentional for development, for projects that create returns, for things that are sustainable. And honestly, it wasn’t something we set out to do or had a long-term plan for, but God has led us.

Despite it just being the two of us, despite being in over our heads regularly, despite our inexperience and disorganization, God is good. He has heard our cries, and we are often amazed to look around and see how he led us forward, even just showing us a tiny step in front of us.

And that’s how we’re seeing M-Fund. We didn’t know it would come or when, but we’re excited for what it means practically and developmentally for the community. It’s a giant leap forward for these friends of ours.

whispered needs.

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It’s been almost a year since Mwei Mwei came back from Bangkok. It’s been just over two years since she left.

I remember sitting with Thida after summer program in 2016, trying to use my limited Burmese to explain trafficking and why we were worried about her thirteen-year-old going off to Bangkok by herself.

I remember sitting with Mwei Mwei at an ice cream shop in Bangkok, after we miraculously found her in January 2017. We showed her pictures of her family and tried to gauge the danger of the situation she was in. She cried, and we left worried.

In Sara Hagerty’s book Unseen, she writes, “To meet any need, I first have to hear God’s whisper about that need.” I think that’s what happened as we sat with her over ice cream. We didn’t know the details of what she was in, or where it would go, or what was true. But we knew he had whispered that we needed to do something.

We told Thida we’d create her a job if they’d bring her back to Mae Sot, even if we didn’t know how we felt about hiring a fifteen-year-old. We weren’t really sure what it was we needed to do, but we felt there was a need.

And then she arrived back to Mae Sot just as we landed back from America, and we scrambled to get her into a sewing training and ultimately, to come up with a plan.

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The past year has been a lot of “coming up with plans.”

While we tried to create additional sewing work for Mwei Mwei, our regular seamstress–who had a contracted job with a local organization–lost that contract. We now had two ladies, both coming from painful, rough situations, looking to us for work.

There were a lot of weeks of made up projects. I have a whole stack of zipper pouches and bunting and bags that we made samples of as I tried out new ideas and chased new prospects.

While her family has told her she’s not the smart one, we knew she had so much potential. We didn’t want to see her end her education. Somehow, we wanted her getting some education while she was able to work and be viewed as a contributor to the family.

But coming up with education opportunities wasn’t easy, either. We created a group English class for her join, but she hated it. We had our church come teach a group Thai class, but she sat in the back silently. I worked with her in math, and it was like pulling teeth. I tried to have her read Burmese books and write book reports, and then spent ages trying to read them myself, realizing this wasn’t a time-efficient plan as her “teacher.”

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In the end, we found solutions. It just took a little time & chaos.

For work, we are so thankful to be partnering with Sojourn Studios here in town. This is a project of a local Christian nonprofit, training teenagers and women to make ceramic jewelry. Both Mwei Mwei & San Aye make jewelry for them two days a week, and Mwei Mwei also participates in their Youth Program, where she makes jewelry with other students her age and participates in a life skills course.

Sojourn Studios plans to have this jewelry for sale internationally in coming months, but for now–watch this video, and be inspired!

We are also just beginning a partnership with a local Bible school. They screen print on to t-shirts, and we are partnering with them to sell reusable grocery bags with screen prints on them. We hope this will be available internationally soon, too.

Either way, they both have steady, sustainable work, right in our home! 🎉

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We found a few solutions for education, too.

First, we bribed her. I couldn’t get her over the hump of her multiplication tables, but I knew she could do it. I gave her three weeks to memorize them, with a reward of an extra weeks’ salary as a reward. She couldn’t give it to her family collective, though–where money traditionally goes. She’d go on a special trip to the market with us to spend it on her.

It worked 😁

More than anything, I think it showed her she could. Since then, she has completed all her multiplication lessons and passed the “exam” I gave her with flying colors. We’re on to division, and she says it’s easy. And I am loving that time with her every week.

Second, we let her vote on what she actually wanted to learn. And we’ve learned: if she wants to learn it, she gives it her all.

English got ousted; she just wasn’t interested. She hopes to open a nail salon someday (as you can see in the video above), and if she plans to do that in Thailand, we wanted her to start learning Thai. So now a portion of her salary ifrom Sojourn Studios goes to hire a Thai teacher once a week. She has just started, but the teacher already says she’s doing great.

We also offered her most of the things we know and could train her in: and photography was voted highest. Enter Stephen. He now is teaching her photography using our Canon DSLR & Mac software on our computers.

Mwei Mwei’s also becoming a bit of a teacher herself. San Aye is becoming literate in Burmese, and has a teacher that comes once or twice a week. However, she requested more practice and study time. As part of her work time, she now studies with Mwei Mwei helping her three days a week.

And still further–she’s one of our teachers for the Summer Program this year! Two mornings over the summer she teaches Burmese, Science, Math & basic English to the younger kids in the community. She is absolutely thriving in so many things these days.

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She celebrated her sixteen birthday a few weeks ago. It fell right near when the two Reinforcers were both turning seventeen, so we hosted a party for all three! We told them they could each bring five friends, and pick what day & time, the menu, and what movie we’d watch on the projector.

They initially picked Saturday morning at 8am for hamburgers, which surprised us a little.

Our laughter led them to think that wasn’t cool, so it was switched to Saturday night at 5pm. They still picked hamburgers, but wanted chicken.

{Beef is pretty expensive and not that favored by Burmese, so I asked if they wanted some beef and some pork. They all made faces of disgust–“Not beef! We like chicken.” Right. Chicken hamburgers, coming right up.}

They invited a collection of friends and family, including two toddlers…so it wasn’t we expected by any means. But, hey, we had chicken hamburgers and sodas and cake and popcorn. We watched Spiderman. And Mwei Mwei fell asleep, so… 🤷🏼‍♀️

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We gifted her a set of nail polish and nail care kit for her birthday. She loved it. She came the next day with her nails all done and I snapped this photo.

I don’t want to forget where we’ve come.

I don’t want to forget how her demeanor has changed since we sat with her in the ice cream shop last January. I don’t want to forget the day I had to use broken Burmese to ask her if she was cutting. I don’t want to forget the scowl on her face at every math lesson, Thai class, and English class.

I don’t want to forget the day she passed her multiplication tables. I don’t want to forget the day we talked about how much we believe in her. I don’t want to forget the day she thanked us for her new Thai class and teacher. I don’t want to forget my pride for her as became an excellent teacher in the Summer Program.

I don’t want her working alongside her mom, chatting and laughing, to become so normal that I don’t give thanks for the gift it is. It wasn’t there a year ago, and it’s a beautiful, beautiful growth.

So much has changed in the last year, and it’s been messy. I’m so glad she’s sixteen, because somehow that feels less ridiculous that we’re hiring her. I’m so glad we have some sustainable work solutions, because we were just pouring money into ideas.

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It still feels unfair, sometimes when I look at who we have hired: it’s uneven; it’s random. We have three ladies making bread, one lady making flower bouquets, two ladies making jewelry and sewing. We have one woman making breakfast for fifty & overseeing the community space. We have two boys running sound. Some work one day a week; some two, some five. Some have savings plans and some don’t. Some have extra education built into their hours, and some don’t.

The only pattern is that they are needs God whispered to us about. And I’m really thankful we felt the whisper for this need.

bits of the chaos.

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International Women’s Day happened–about a month ago now!–and we participated in a local event. The Reinforcers ran sound for a local band, and Flour & Flowers donated & served cinnamon rolls to the audience. Mwei Mwei also came along to practice her newly acquired photography skills.

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I’ve been {attempting} teaching Sunday school at our Burmese church once per month. It’s been a challenge, to say the least. First, attempting to teach Bible (most often presented in very high level language) in Burmese is no small feat, and I’m just not there yet. Second, the kids tend to know they can walk on me. Our neighbor kids are slightly better, but most of the other kids at church know I only understand some of what goes on!

I’m learning.

First, I’ve learned to bribe: they are each promised a small prize at the end if they are good. If they cause problems, it gets taken away. This worked wonders, and was well-worth handing out snacks and toothbrushes.

Second, I’ve simplified. Perhaps communicating how the prodigal son returning to the Lord is a parallel to us returning to our Heavenly Father was a bit ambitious. This past time I set my goal at one verse. I chose Psalm 119:105. We practiced it in English, we memorized it in Burmese; we discussed what it generally meant. We learned a song for it in English.

Then, we each got a pair of $1 flip-flops, which we decorated with the verse and it’s meaning with Sharpies.

And last, I taped paper to the floor to make a human-sized CandyLand game. Each square was either a color, ABC, ကခဂ, or 🎵. They drew and went to the square, where they either had to say the color, the verse in English, the verse in Burmese, or sing the song.

They left with a much simpler understanding, but I also felt like I could successfully communicate it all! I felt like they learned more overall, kept their attention, and for a group of lower-income kids, they went home with new shoes, snacks & toothbrushes.

We also were able to finally get in touch with a couple in Burma who recently translated the Children’s Storybook Bible into colloquial Burmese!

This is an incredible resource, and I’m so excited to use it, both for our summer program & for Sunday school. It should be easy to understand for even lower-education levels, and I’m just beyond excited.

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High school for the migrant schools goes up to Grade 10, at which point the students take their final matriculations. This is a weeklong exam–one subject per day, including English, Burmese, Physics, Chemistry, Biology, and Math–that is similar to an ACT or SAT for us. It’s incredibly difficult, and how they score not only determines their acceptance to college, but also decides your major for you.

No pressure or anything.

For the past six months, most of the students have lived in a dorm at the school, where they attend regular classes during the day and return to eat, then study together until midnight. They also study in the morning before school from 6am to 8am, on Saturday morning and on Sunday evening–with a 24 hour break on the weekend to visit their families. Every day for six months.

Our sweet little sister, Pwei Pwei, has been living at the dorm for these past six months, and we’ve only seen her occasionally. We’ve gone to visit, we delivered her Christmas present…but we’ve missed her! The day she came back from her exam she fell asleep on our floor, surrounded by fifty screaming, playing kids.

She’s now one of our teachers for the Summer Program, and we’re so glad we get to see her everyday!

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Thida and I were on our weekly market & Makro trips. I was looking for ant poison because, well, I live here. She asked if I knew anything that could work for rats, as they had some at their house and she just didn’t know what to do about it. I helped her pick out some glue traps and explained how to use them.

As we unloaded things from the car, her son saw the picture of the rat on the front of the package and asked what they were. I explained they were to kill rats; and he said, “Oh! We need these!” He was relieved to know his mom had bought them.

Just two days later, she told me they worked great and she was so pleased.

“Oh, have you caught some already?” I asked.
“Yes! Ten!”

😳😱

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We came home last Wednesday to the two ladies sewing in the Housewares room, per usual; and then four kids asleep on our community floor.

I have no idea.

In general, I have a hard time understanding the fleece blankets when it’s April, and ’roundabout 100 degrees.

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With our new duplex-style living (with one house ours and one house for the community) we have a new front yard area that is kid-free. We have recently put in a little grill, an outdoor table, and a lovely hammock!

But this “kid-free zone” has a gate that a few tiny little kiddos can squeeze right under.

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I received this Facebook message from one of our community friends.

I have no idea. But, unfortunately, I’m fairly certain that’s a Bitmoji of me.

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Easter weekend arrived! We had a OneHouse for Good Friday, and it was absolutely beautiful. I love hearing worship in multiple languages, and Stephen is doing a great job of bringing people together.


 I had my first attempt at hot cross buns, too!

And at church on Easter Sunday, they had a basket of hard-boiled eggs up front! We were a bit excited, in hopes of an egg hunt for the kids. Instead, we were all handed a hard-boiled egg on our way out.

Almost as quintessential.

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Otherwise, we often have kids around us. And more often then not, they are smiling or making us smile.

So, #winning.

the music run.

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Sickness and chaos sort of won the past week or so…it happens.

Keeping The Breakfast Club, Flour & Flowers, the Reinforcers and Playhouse going through a regular week is a challenge anyway, and we’re trying to get The Summer Program started next Monday…

And then there was sickness. And there’s a few other projects we haven’t even had time to write about yet: the ladies making jewelry two days a week; the Bible school we’re working with to make reusable bags; the new migrant insurance program we’re partnering with; the Thai lessons that Mwei Mwei started; the photography lessons Stephen is teaching; the surprise iMac we were gift last week that Stephen’s setting up for the community.

Hence the radio silence.

But, we went to Bangkok last weekend! Stephen ran a 5k and I {attempted} a 10k…It was much sloppier and harder than I anticipated, but I had a fever the following three days, so 🤷🏼‍♀️

It was a Music Run, so they had speakers lining the whole path–hundreds of them. It was incredible. They played music through all the races. (We took this photo on our way to check-in. Can you see the speakers lining the whole way?)

We arrived to get our packs at 2:30pm, so we had a few hours to burn. And since it’s Bangkok and it takes a few hours to go anywhere, we just sat at the park and read our books.

We checked our bag at the check-in, but kept our books out to read until the start. Later when Stephen brought them back by the lady recognized him (probably the white guy with his book out at a race?) and said, “Ready to put your book in your bag?” 😂

We were clearly the coolest people there.

While my race was not spectacular, Stephen did pretty awesome. He finished in 31 minutes, and had two surprise obstacle courses in the middle!  He wasn’t super-thrilled about those 😂

And then we ended at a concert!

We also rounded out the weekend meeting with our caseworker, putting our best foot forward in our attempts at real adult clothes.

Here’s to hoping next year we can run with baby bunny in a jogging stroller! 😊

the book club.

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Stephen got me the best Christmas gift.

He gave me a Book Club–just for me! I got one book for Christmas, and then he picks out a new book for each month. I get to open it on the first of every month!

I don’t have to choose it; I don’t have to buy it. I don’t even have to order it and track it down.

And since I don’t like decisions, I don’t like spending money, and I don’t like finding English books and getting them here: #thebestgift.

And he’s the BEST picker.

When I opened this one, he said: “An autobiography, a refugee, politics, the first woman to be Secretary of State. It just seemed to fit you perfectly.” 😍

My next one (when I finish this 600 pager!) is a oral history of migrant workers in California. The two before that were by the newest to my favorite-author-list, Fredrik Backman.

Such a great gift! And the best book club for an introvert 😊

oh, baby.

by Filed Under: house calls, kelli Leave a Comment

It was weeks ago now when the drama started to unfold.

Let me first introduce Mu Mu Aye, a sweet friend of ours. She’s shy, and hesitant to ask for help. But she has two little boys, nearly 4 and nearly 2; and thus her hands full. In the wake of new laws and needing papers, it’s been a hard year for their family.

She found out she was pregnant with their third little boy in September of last year. Honestly, everyone was chatting about it: she’s pregnant again? Oh, dear. Can they handle that? What about money? Three little kids? All boys! 

We wanted to encourage her to keep the baby, and assure her that we’d help in anyway we could. We bought her a few maternity dresses in the market; provided a few random bags of rice. We kept track of all her appointments and took her each time. In the middle of her pregnancy, they moved about three kilometers away. Difficult to get to, but possible; an area where they are out-of-view of police.

We kept up with her. We met her neighbor there and continued to pick her up for every clinic visit. We helped her kids get caught up on their vaccines when we learned they were behind.

Fast-forward to two weeks ago, when I took her to her usual appointment and picked her up. She said she needed to come back the following week to have the baby. It was scheduled because it needed to be a Cesarean section;  the baby was breech.

Honestly, this was the first time I looked at her file. I usually don’t want to be too invasive, and she was telling me when each appointment was and that things were fine. I guess we just have different interpretations of that. Now that I opened her book, I learned the baby had been breech from the beginning.

Either way, she had an appointment, and the clinic seemed to be taking care of it.

_______________

The following week we picked her up and took her to the clinic for delivery. Or so we thought.

She called just a few hours later–much too quick for a C-section!–and said she needed to be picked up. We were pretty confused: Did you already have the baby? The surgery is over? And now you’re…going home? What?

Turns out the clinic doesn’t provide C-sections or referrals anymore, and hadn’t helped her to come up with another plan. Because I don’t want to use this to take a stance {on issues that are highly controversial in this little town and altogether irrelevant to the rest of the world}–I’ll just say that I was disappointed at how it was handled. She was given a pamphlet on a new insurance program offered in town, and told to call them.

And since you and I know a bit about insurance–she did not–we understand that you can’t call an insurance company the day you need emergency surgery and expect to be covered.

I’ll just say that day involved calling my teacher to help translate, because I wasn’t sure how emergent this was nor how to discuss insurance in Burmese. It included a meeting with the insurance company, where we learned that, sure enough!–they don’t cover emergency surgeries when you’re on the way to the ER.

Because the medical system is a bit of a mess for the paperless in our town, I’ll summarize: we had the choice of taking her to the ER and paying for the surgery outright; we could drop her at the ER and have her walk out on the bill, leaving it in her name and with potential future problems (but if I’m honest, probably more problems for our consciences than her life practically). Or we could call a friend.

We called a friend. {I blatantly used my privilege, and I’m not sure how I feel about it. It worked.}

She works at a clinic outside of town that has excellent ob-gyn care. They said they’d see her that afternoon and could assess how emergent she was. They also can deliver breech babies naturally quite often, and have a number of midwives on staff. And if they can’t, they can refer to the hospital, and the mother is sent with a representative, translator, and advocate.

They saw her that afternoon–no earlier than 4:30pm, so incredibly kind of them–and admitted her. They watched her for four days, when they decided it wasn’t quite time and she could go home and wait for natural labor. Either way, they’d do their best to encourage natural delivery, with the agreement that she had a sponsor–you and I!–if she needed to be admitted, as they didn’t have the funds. We took her back for two more check ups last week and had another one scheduled for this morning.

_______________

I was supposed to pick up one of her friends at 8:30am, who would be going along to stay with her and help. (The father was staying back with the two older kids.) I left for a run about 6:30am.

I had made it just over a kilometer from home when they called: she was in labor and couldn’t wait to 8:30. We needed to go now.

The challenge was: I was a distance from home, on foot. I needed the car. I also needed the friend, who lives out in a field. And the pregnant mother, who lives 3km from our house down tiny little streets that have to be backed out of. And I needed to get her to the clinic an hour away.

And Burmese people have a tendency to wait to the last minute to tell you they need to go. We’ve had many mothers deliver within the hour of us arriving at the hospital, and that’s a closer hospital!  I was scared.

I ran home as fast as I could. (So, not that fast.) I ran through Breakfast Club and explained to Thida that Mu Mu Aye was in labor now and I had to go; I grabbed my bag and hopped in the car.  I went to find the friend: I parked on the road and ran through the fields to get to their house and woke them up. They were confused: isn’t it 8:30? Yes, but she’s in labor NOW. Hurry! We drove to Mu Mu Aye’s house and headed out to the clinic, while I prayed the whole way that please, oh please, could she not have this breech baby in our car, as we’re driving further away from a hospital? Please, oh please…this baby we so encouraged her to keep–please let them both be okay.

Probably the most stressful day before 8am I’ve ever had.

_______________

We made it to the clinic in time. She was admitted, and they tried natural. She was transferred to a local hospital and had a Cesarean, delivering a healthy little 2.8-kilogram boy.

Stephen and I have done our share of driving for this little boy. We–all of the House Collective family–spent quite a bit of money already, and we’ll be reimbursing a C-section now.  She’s keeping a third baby that she seems a bit unsure about, while we wait on a seemingly endless waiting list to adopt a baby. I thought I might be holding a baby of ours by now, and instead I’ll be holding hers.

I’m struck by the surprises life holds. The surprises of pregnancies, the surprises of breech babies, the surprises of finances. The surprises of friendship, the surprises of who you love and who you give your time and life for. The surprises of what you hold and what you don’t. The surprises of a God who gives and takes away, and you don’t always know which a day might hold.

another home.

by Filed Under: housewares, kelli, photos, stephen 1 Comment

You never really know how the cookie will crumble, and we have the privilege of being reminded of that daily.

We’ve been discussing a trip to Burma: we wanted to see the towns and villages many of our neighbors come from. We have the knowledge that as soon as we are placed for our adoption, we’ll be “stuck” in Thailand for at least six months; and we learned just recently that we also have another visa run we need to make in May…it’s a long story. But visas often crumble a different way than you think 😉

It was mid-February when we realized the easiest time for us to go to these towns and villages was on our current visa, which needed on February 22. That gave us a four-day window between a Reinforcers gig and our visa expiring.

So we applied for our visas to Burma, and they fell into place. So we went.

Some friends wanted to go that week, too, so we explained we could all go together, but we just couldn’t shift our dates at all because of visas. They seemed game, so we all crossed the border after church on Sunday and grabbed a car to take us to their village. It was Stephen & I, our bread baker Nyein Nyein and her husband Kyaw Htet, and their two-year-old Sai Bo Bo.

It’s kind of an event to go to Burma to see family, so Sai Bo Bo was all jazzed up in his best clothes.

In short, many of our neighbors and closest friends–maybe 75%?–are from this one particular town and surrounding areas. And one village just outside is where one bread lady is from, the flower lady and one Reinforcer, Thida–as you can see, a lot of families came from this little fishing village.

That evening we just stopped by, but we did get to see Nyein Nyein’s family. They used to live in Mae Sot and moved back about three years ago, so we knew them all. It was so fun to see the girls grown!

Unfortunately we can’t stay with friends in Burma: we have to stay at foreigner-registered hotels. Their village didn’t even have a store, so no hotels there. We went about thirty minutes further into Thaton, where there is one foreigner-registered hotel, and stayed there. We spent the next two days exploring Thaton while Nyein Nyein spent time with her family.

We spent the majority of our time biking around the city, our favorite way to see a place. It’s just fast enough to see a lot of it, but slow enough to actually see it. And you get exercise while you go! We biked just over 42 kilometers in two days and got to see so much of the city. We actually went about 5 kilometers out of the city in all directions, so…it’s a small town 😊

And it’s a beautiful town.

Our favorite building.

I think I will always love Burmese markets in particular.

We also climbed the local mountain, which is also a temple. Most of Burma & Thailand, at least from our experience, loves to build a temple on top of every mountain. And they love to make concrete steps that go all the way to the top. As a Westerner that prefers sloping, swerving hikes on real dirt and rocks, it isn’t my favorite. But it’s growing on me. I’m learning to love the views out rather than the feel beneath my feet.

So we climbed 903 steps.

My favorite part was near the top, when I was sitting to have a snack and water. A little boy came up to where he could see me over the steps and immediately turned around and shouted, in Burmese, at the top of his lungs, “Brother! Sister! There’s a white woman up here eating a snack!” I smiled and said hi, and asked why he wasn’t at school today. Instead of answering, he turned back around and shouted, “And she speaks Burmese!” 😂

By far the most fun part of the trip was just how natural it felt. We knew the language to get around, to get directions, to order. It was so simple compared to Mae Sot, where we are constantly switching languages or smashing them together.

We also knew the culture in a way we don’t usually. Mae Sot is such an extreme melting pot, and while we’ve learned the culture of this town specifically, we often feel at a loss when we are in a large Thai city or even meeting with our adoption caseworker. But the culture we know best–right in the neighborhood around us–just exploded into this town, and it felt oddly familiar. Yet another home.

On Wednesday, we went back through Thaton and visited Nyein Nyein’s family again before heading back to Mae Sot.

Nyein Nyein’s little brother and two little sisters spent so much time at our house growing up. Now they are attending school in Burma, and it was so lovely to see them.

Part of the village many of our friends are from. It’s right on the river, and they say every family has a boat. Fishing and shrimping (?) are the two primary livelihoods.

And they took us to the temple. It’s kind of the only thing to do in most towns, but especially villages of this size. They also fed us shrimp, because that’s the village!

Really, we loved the whole trip. We continue to be amazed as God shows us the pieces of the stories we know: learning more about each family, their history, their path to Mae Sot; the path of us becoming friends in the most unlikely ways. And also just how he keeps redeeming each individual relationship.

And somehow, how he’s made another home for us around the world.