Stephen & Kelli Spurlock

it’s never as we expect.

October 11, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house church, kelli 1 Comment

I’m not sure how to prevent expectation, really, but I certainly wish I could; because it never goes as we expect.

House church is a great example of this. We spent months attending church with our neighbors, struggling to find passages in the Burmese Bible for barely literate friends to sound out and trying to keep way too many kids quiet.

So thus unfolded house church, as we tried to open our doors to hosting right here in our neighborhood. We are walking through the Storybook Bible, combined with the New Readers’ International Version, and attempting to tell the stories of the Bible and connect it all to Jesus.

We had hopes of it being mostly adults, but welcoming to kids.

Instead, it’s very, very welcoming to kids, and we have some adults that attend. We even have one adult who comes occasionally, but every week comes in afterward to read the Burmese Bible on our floor while his wife packs up the bread orders for the week.

Sometimes I wonder if it’s working or worth the effort, something I ask for nearly everything in our lives. If only a few adults are coming and sitting in the back, how do we reach them? Are the kids getting anything out of this? Do they understand why we do this week after week?

And for that matter, do they understand why we do EVERYTHING THAT WE DO week after week?

We never know. It’s never as we expect.

Enter today, as a few kids spread out on our floor to play. One of them pulls out one of the children’s Bible and asks if this is David or Moses. I explain that it’s actually Joseph, and then she begins to trace his drawing and the entire landscape.

Another child pulls out the Storybook Bible from bible study, and finds the story from last week. He tells the boy next to him about how David was chosen as king, and how he was the smallest of his brothers. He talks about how Kelvin played the oldest brother and Zwe Ne Na played the next…

Yet another child pulls out another children’s Bible. She opens to a picture and page she knows, and then tells the story in Burmese–in her best teacher voice–to the four year old boy looking on. She points to different parts of the illustration and tells the Bible story with confidence.

Her little brother is sitting next to her reading a book about how much God loves him. He loves the page that unfolds to show that God loves you taller than the tallest tree, and the foggy mirror at the end where he can see his face.

A mother was sitting in the corner, looking through yet another children’s Bible.

{You can’t say we haven’t provided opportunities!}

As the rain stops, most of the kids leave. One little girl, Neh Wey, stays behind and pulls up next to me with an illustrated Burmese children’s Bible. At first I am typing away on the computer, and she asks me who this person is. Before long, she goes back to the beginning and we go page by page through the Bible, reviewing the stories. Reviewing them because she knows them. We reach Jericho and she tells me how we just learned about that, and how they walked around the wall, shouted, and it fell down. When I point out Jonathan & David, she remembers that Jonathan is Saul’s son. Saul tries to kill David, but David & Jonathan are friends. When I can’t remember the name of the Queen that Solomon meets with, she insists that we ask Stephen, because he will certainly know.

The stories of the New Testament roll off her tongue: the man couldn’t see and then Jesus touched him and he could! There were just five loaves of bread and two fish and everyone ate and ate and were fat! Jesus walked on the water and then the man got out and walked and then he sank!

We went through all of the Old Testament and nearly all of the New Testament before her mother called her home.

It’s never as we expect. We can count how many people come to house church or quantify the number of stories we’ve told. We can tell you how many hours a week it takes to pull off a translated Bible study with snacks and we can look around the room to see if adults are hearing this.

But it’s likely not in house church where they meet Jesus. They’re not likely to find him in Scripture they can’t read. Instead, it’s likely in the day to day, over dishes and at hospital visits and in conversations in the car.

May they meet Jesus in us, where we least expect it.

that happy ending.

October 10, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, kelli, on the house 1 Comment

Remember this story?

It was a sad one. We were desperately waiting for a happy ending as we brought food to this family week after week.

In some ways, a happy ending is forming. The husband is no longer on crutches and can walk again. The family has received some compensation from his job, and that has helped them make ends meet while he cannot work.

And this week, an opportunity presented itself. A friend of ours here in Mae Sot was looking for someone to look after her kids for a few hours each morning while she & her husband go to Thai class. Than Dar Oo seemed a great fit–she speaks Thai, to help them practice and to teach their kiddos; she is good with kids and can bicycle to their house. Today we went over to meet the family and get her introduced, and she starts Monday.

It’s just a couple hours a day, and she’ll make about $15 a week. They received compensation of about $300 total, which is nothing in comparison to his injuries and the months of work he was forced to take. They still live in a hut, which flooded just a few weeks ago.

I can confidently say this isn’t a great season for them, and you can see the exhaustion in their smiles.

But I guess I never know when to write: what happy ending am I looking for? What are they looking for?

I think a happy ending isn’t what I should have been looking for. Instead, it was a just a breath of fresh hope.

We can hope that they have seen Jesus in the rice we’ve delivered to their door or the balloons we shared with their kiddos. We can hope that they saw Jesus in the rides we gave them all around town while he was unable to walk. We can hope they see Jesus as we try to help them find work and go to an interview with her at 8am on Saturday. We can hope that they will continue to see Jesus in the home of this family she works for.

So here’s to a breath of fresh hope on their little home.

houseguests!

October 10, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos 1 Comment

It’s been awhile since we’ve had familial visitors, so we were pretty excited to have my parents come for a visit last month!

We spent a couple days in Chiang Mai at the beginning, which included visiting the 3D Art Museum–the most cultural experience we could give them! It’s an entire museum of art painted to look 3D, and generally designed to be turned into one selfie after another.

We then headed to Mae Sot for a week, so my parents could have a glimpse into our chaos. They were able to be there for our September OneHouse worship night, as well as trip to the tea shop on the house, baking bread and making Flour & Flower deliveries, and our weekly house church. And per usual, we had some house calls mixed in there, too.

We snapped a few photos of the beautiful flowers we delivered, including two beautiful pregnant mothers! This is Pyo Pyo & Nyein Nyein, who bake & sale bread each week.

And Daw Ma Oo, who sells flowers. This is my favorite picture of her to date.

We also baked a cake to celebrate Yedi’s tenth birthday! It was a sweet little party, which included Yedi feeding each of us the first bites of cake. {Welcome to the community, Mom & Dad! Let’s all share a spoon.}
We climbed (and fell down) the waterfalls around Mae Sot one day. It was both beautiful and hilarious!

And toward the end, we headed off to Bangkok for a couple days. We mostly wandered through busy streets and malls finding delicious food, drinking well-roasted coffee, and playing Euchre. And as the author of this blog, I think it’s safe to say there is no need to record who won the tournament. 😉

We also made an epic trip to Ikea, which none of us had ever visited before. It is truly nothing short of epic.

Thanks for making the trek, Mom & Dad! That flight isn’t for the faint of heart, and neither is our squatty potty 🙂

we are yours.

September 28, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, onehouse, photos 4 Comments

We had our third OneHouse event in Mae Sot last week–a worship night with all welcomed to come and sing together, praying for God to envelop this town. It’s gone really well since we started it and we certainly filled out our home on Saturday night with over thirty adults and many kids singing together. It was full.

Every time we host this, I’m not sure how to involve our neighbors. Although we plan to have songs translated in the future, for now it is all English songs, which doesn’t really welcome our neighbors in. It’s obviously targeted at expats–English songs with Western-style worship and Western-style snacks following.

However, we live communally, so there are always kids outside and often adults. After opening our doors every other hour of the day, it seems incongruent to shut the gate for church. “Now we are having church, so you aren’t welcome to come” isn’t something I see exemplified in the Gospels.

But the minute you open up your doors, you might have a hundred people outside. They might be screaming children. They might play football. They might be drunk adults. They might talk loudly on a cell phone. They might come bleeding.

There is no telling.

Meanwhile, I have a house full of friends I am intending to host. I want to provide a place for them to worship, which for most, their definition of worship doesn’t include screaming, blood, or drunkenness at first glance.

So I never know how it will go. The first two nights we’ve hosted this, I’ve sat by the door and allowed a few kids to sit inside if they are interested in listening. I’ve told them we are having church so they need to be quiet; I motion with exaggerated “praying hands” whenever we are praying, to signal them to be quiet.

It gets complicated because the expat kids are allowed to play in the corner, but we really can’t open it up to our neighborhood for that, since some twenty or thirty kids would come. Instead, we let them sit in and listen, but they can’t play. It seems unfair.

It is unfair and messy. And the world seems to be unfair & messy often.

This time, it was just beautiful. It was more beautiful than I could have imagined.

A couple kids came in near the beginning and plopped down at the door, with one in my lap. They tried to follow along with the English words and kept up with each song we were on. They even ignored the toy car that ran by in front of their toes.

And then, they sang. They sang along–oh so loudly & boldly–to English songs. The first I noticed it on was We Are Yours, which repeats enough that they could sing along.

We are Yours, we are Yours, we are Yours.

Then I heard them singing along to Set A Fire. They did surprisingly well keeping up with the “words”–or at least tones that sounded a whole lot like it–and it was just really beautiful.

That is our prayer. That they will be His. That they will have fire down in their soul.

By the end of the evening, we had a house full of expat adults singing praises in our home, with the overflow on the porch. We had a few adults from our neighborhood gathered outside and at the door to listen and a few kids singing loudly inside the front door.

And this–this is the dream for OneHouse, unfolding before us!

language class.

September 23, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos 2 Comments

We are Chiang Mai for a language intensive, and that means our lives are consumed in Burmese.

We attend class for just two to three hours a day, but we then study an additional four to eight more hours, depending on what we can muster up. We are reviewing vocabulary and flashcards, writing sentences, listening to audio, writing transcripts, reading documents, writing responses.

Does that sound as tiring as it is?

Other than thousands of vocabulary words and grammar rules, I wouldn’t mind forgetting most of the experience.

And the other things that I want to remember involve Stephen, because he makes everything in my life much, much better. And funnier.

We found CAMP: a study center just down the road from our class and a large university in Chiang Mai. You can get coffee or snacks, or just sit, for as many hours as you’d like. I absolutely love it and we have spent many-an-hour (and day) studying there. The first day, I told Stephen it felt like we were back at university. He replied, “We are. It’s just much, much HARDER.” That is very, very true.

Our teacher is an elderly British man than has studied and taught Burmese language for nearly fifty years. He’s great, except for one phrase: nasal seepage. He uses this to describe when the Burmese pronunciation changes because syllables run together. Nothing can make me sicker faster than someone talking about nasal seepage. Or any kind of seepage, most likely.

We did take one day last week to celebrate Stephen’s birthday over a trip to few local music shops, a movie, and dinner out. He’s the best.

And last–he’s hilarious in language. He is by the far the most dedicated and organized language learner. He has system upon system and will study for hours upon hours.

But he absolutely hates being called on in class; he sort of panics and struggles to respond to things he knows so well.

And yet, the other evening, we’d been giving homework to transcribe a short recording. We had listened through it and were trying to pick it apart word-for-word and type in out correctly. At one point, he was adamant about a phrase. Our conversation went like this:

S: There is a ye in there. I can hear it!
K: But which one? Which ye makes sense in that sentence? It’s not possessive or “water” or “write.”
{These are all different tones of ye.}
S: But it’s there.
K: How do we spell it for the transcription? Why is it there? Could it be another word? Why say, “Ne gaun ye la?”
S: I don’t know. But I know it’s there. And I know I say that to the neighbors. Ne gaun ye la; ne gaun ye la. We say that! I know it’s there.

After searching through notes and dictionaries, we put in the ye with a guessed spelling. We decided to we’d ask the next day for an explanation {even though sometimes he deems certain questions ridiculous and this might be in this category, welcoming ridicule}.

So we are sitting in class and following along, and I whisper to Stephen that I’m going to ask about the ye so we can figure it out. I raise my hand and ask. The teacher repeats the question and asks if anyone knows why this is there?

At this point, Stephen raises his hand, nearly jumping out of his chair. I am now looking at him with absolute absurdity, as he tells the teacher the specific grammar of why ye is in there. If you’re curious, it’s to ask a question expecting a negative answer, or to push for a genuine response. The teacher was duly impressed at him knowing so specifically. I was super confused.

Our teacher was confused, too, since we do our homework together and somehow I was asking a question he was answering. After class, we had this conversation:

K: “What happened? We looked up spellings and definitions and talked through every version of the word ye last night, and you said absolutely none of this!”
S: “Yeah, I didn’t know it then. But as soon as you asked the question it all came back really quick.”

So random. I don’t understand him at all, but I’m glad we can laugh together in the {dare I say, miserable} adventure of language learning!

the flood of 2015, because apparently this is annual.

September 21, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli Leave a Comment

It’s never good to find your phone a buzz with multiple calls from the same neighborhood. As I glanced down after breakfast last Friday, I saw five missed calls from Nyein Nyein, three from San Aye; and then Stephen’s phone began to ring with Pa Chit calling right that moment.

We had thought by traveling in September we’d be in the clear, but the monsoon rains came late this year. The water has finally become too much that the city decided to release the dam–yet again, our yearly flood anniversary! The waters were rising around our house and filling our neighbor’s houses, and they were calling to ask for help.

I called our friend, Alisha, who is helping with bread & flower deliveries while were away and was scheduled to be there to deliver already-baked bread and already-arranged flowers in just an hour. I told her it was flooding, and I didn’t really know what that meant. I didn’t know if they’d still deliver, or if she’d even be able to get to their houses. I didn’t know if things would be piled up at our house or perhaps people might need a place to stay dry? I had no idea really, but I wanted to give her a heads up.

The next hour we took calls from a variety of neighbors, including one who had walked a kilometer to my Karen teacher’s house and asked her to call me.

Then I got a call from Alisha, laughing, as she told me she had parked a few blocks away and was walking because it was too high to drive through. It was now up to her waist as she neared our house, and everyone was out and about trying to get things to dry places.

This is our corner, with houses to the left and a plot of land (where houses used to be) to the right.

These were the neighbors houses. So sad.

And this is in front of our house…

…and our yard. But don’t worry, a safe place was found for the pigs & chickens!

It got nearer to our house than it has any other year. We were nervous for so many homes–the water was even into the concrete homes and flooding out the huts; we asked about Aung Moo, the blind man, to make sure someone would ensure he was okay. We called another family down the road that has had a lake of standing water under their home since June, and asked if it was okay. I told her in Burmese I had heard the water was coming up a lot, was her family okay? She replied in broken English, “This morning the water more and more into my house. Now it goes down little, little, little.”

Stephen & I weren’t really sure what to do. It was a pretty stressful morning of trying to decide if we get in the car and go to help, but hoping with all that we are that the water would be gone down by the time we could trek across the country and arrive at dinnertime. We asked a whole lot of questions, played out a whole lot of scenarios, and said we were sorry to a whole lot of friends over the phone.

We watched as our friends receiving flowers & bread graciously took them late and sent their love to the community. We heard as Alisha checked on everyone and made sure there were dry places to cook and sleep. And by late afternoon, we were seeing photos of the kids playing with Alisha’s kids swimming in the road.

Yet again, all the feelings. And yet again, so thankful for friendships and seeing these friendships collide.

all the feelings.

September 13, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli Leave a Comment

I think this might be the best way to sum up the season we are in: all the feelings. I have been speechless for weeks, attempting to put into words all that is happening and all that we are experiencing, and it wasn’t until we saw Inside Out this week that I realized it has just been so many emotions, so many feelings, and I am just swamped by them. All the feelings.

Last week we packed up our sometimes-working car and headed off to Chiang Mai for a whopping three weeks. Our lives have changed so much since really digging into our neighborhood, and we are there so much. We have traveled away for a weekend or left for a day or two to escape the knocks on the door, but we are really constantly around our home. This is the longest we’ve been away outside of trips to America, and we’ll be in Chiang Mai for nearly half of our trip to the States earlier this year!

So that means a lot of things. A lot of feelings, if you will. In some ways, we were ready to take a break. Our lives are not light by any means, so time away seemed promising. But what brings us here? Not a break of any sorts: we are taking an intensive Burmese course, with about two hours of class every day and–so far–about seven or eight hours of studying outside of that. Rest probably isn’t the right word; just different energies.

It has been so nice to be staying a friends’ house who so graciously opened up a place for us to live and study, where we can also cook, bring lunches with us to class, and do laundry. This is more helpful than I could ever say, and we’re really, really thankful. So many feelings of gratitude for her.

But now that our lives are even more engrossed in our little community than before, it’s not easy to leave. It means stocking up two families on rice and organizing food and clean water to purchased for Aung Moo, the blind man in the neighborhood. It means running around ensuring the pregnant women have a way to get to their appointments and the followup tetanus shots are arranged. It means sitting down with a few precious kids in more unstable homes, reassuring them that we’ll be back and when.

It means organizing a friend to oh-so-bravely commit to three long Thursdays of baking bread and three long Fridays of flower & bread deliveries all across town. It means taking orders ahead of time and writing out the lists in English & Burmese. It means sorting out money and ingredients. It means teaching Pyo Pyo & Nyein Nyein how to clean up after bread–washing dishtowels and taking out trash. {Side note: They know me well. As I told them about washing the counters, they said, Yes, because you don’t like ants. And when I mentioned washing all the dishes, they said, Yes, because you don’t like ants. And when I mentioned taking out the trash, they said, Yes, because you don’t like ants…} It means trusting our home to them–the mess, the treasures inside, the space.

It means all the feelings: the trust, the joy, the sadness, the hope.

And then we arrived to Chiang Mai, and dropped our car off at a repair shop. We had been putting off a few things they told us they couldn’t do in Mae Sot, namely a new alternator we were hoping would make it all the way to the city. We also had a few odds and ends: can you add a new wiper arm? Could we repair the windshield that’s been broken for over a year? Can we find out what that cold water that drips on our feet is?

We got the dreaded call that it was a little more than we thought: in checking it over, they found four holes in the gas tank and a leak in our LPG tank; so in a vehicle with two forms of fuel, we were leaking in five places. All the feelings–thankfulness we survived without blowing up!? Thankful for an opportunity to repair it, and really still thankful for the car. There was plenty of anger and disgust and confusion mixed in there, too.

And with such a bill, the effects of the soccer ball to the windshield is just going to have to remain a bit longer.

Oh, and then one of the new belts needs some adjustments, so it’s squealing through the weekend, and we’re getting {a whole lot of} stares.

And with all the questions about if it was a good purchase, all the thankfulness for the relationships its built in the community, all the hot days spent on the side of the road, all the realizations that we do have a car and we are the richest folks on our street…All the feelings.

Meanwhile, another friend in Chiang Mai was traveling this week and oh-so-graciously let us borrow her car while ours was in the shop. This has been such a blessing, continuing to make this trip possible.

So as we struggle through messy lives, study hours a day, try to help a few families get a few more dollars a day, make sure that little guy has food, and hope that we can eat after we fix our car…God is good. We have friends looking after us in every direction, loaning us cars and rooms, and stepping into our chaos. The friend helping us with Housewares? We texted back and forth all day on Thursday, as she had a surprise guest show up to bake with them, had a vaccine clinic from the local hospital set up in our driveway (not unlike this one a few years ago) while they baked, had her two kids homeschooling at our house, miscommunicated about lunch, and then she locked up our house at 7:30pm that night. It was not a day for the faint of heart.

We’re studying today, and we’ll be off to the car repair shop again tomorrow. We’re catching up with old friends in the city, fitting in a few long-delayed doctor visits and necessary trips to the US Consulate, while we study our lives away for this community we love and continue to ask questions of what God is up to and what the future holds, while we celebrate our new website and seeing some dreams coming true. All the feelings, folks. All the feelings.

spoons.

August 19, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, on the house, photos Leave a Comment

After hosting our first Bingo night in the community a few months ago, we realized it was a huge hit. We play every week before house church, just for pieces of candy and mostly with the kids. But occasionally, we play with the adults, for “real prizes.”

This weekend’s Bingo night was inspired by the birthday party we attended a couple weeks ago, and our not-so-sly attempt to gift spoons to this family without simply giving them to them.

Enter the elaborate plan to host a Bingo night for the adults and a movie night for the kids outside. We packed a Bingo prize table with $20 worth of items from around town, complete with glass cups, bowls, baby powder, laundry detergent, soap, small zipper pouches, notebooks, hats, razors, hair clips, and, of course–spoons.

I felt a bit like my grandmother, who used to always play Bingo with us and have a basket of goodies. I imagine this is what she felt like as she picked out little treasures she knew we’d be excited for. It’s also a bit of a social experiment to see which prizes go first; it helps to see what people might like for Christmas gifts! The glasses, bowls, & spoons were the first to go, but we can happily say that Pyo Pyo went home with a pack of six spoons.

Bingo night a hit, as was the Aladdin movie night outside. And most importantly, we successfully gifted spoons!

bus stop.

August 15, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos, playhouse Leave a Comment

There are three school options for the kids in our neighborhood. There is a migrant school down the road, one of the largest of 70 in the area, that they can go to. Many students have for years, until this year, when the fees went up considerably.

There is a Thai school just across the highway, and according to Thai law, migrants are permitted to go. That said, this town has way too many migrants for the number of Thai schools, so the openings are limited.

And as of this year, a new migrant school moved into our neighborhood, that was cheaper. A lot of parents took this option. It is a chaotic school, and sometimes we wonder how much teaching occurs, but they are certainly trying.

But this past week, they were kicked out of the house & land they were on just around the corner from us. They had to move just a quarter mile or so down the highway.

This meant two things:
1. School was closed for two weeks, which left many, many children at our house all day, every day for two weeks, like a little reminder of the chaos of summer break.
2. Now that the school is down the highway, they have a “bus”–a truck with seats in the back– that makes trips to bring the kids to school.

I’ll give you one guess where the bus stop might be.

Oh, yes. It’s our front door & driveway, the perfect place for kids to wait out of the rain. In some ways, we are so glad to be such an integral part of the community. In other ways, twenty or thirty kids gathered outside your window from 7:30 am to nearly 9, while they eat breakfast, play games, & wait for the bus can be overwhelming…

But I guess we’re the new bus stop!

waiting for the happy ending.

August 12, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, kelli, on the house, photos Leave a Comment

Their life is like a movie.

A movie where the unfolding drama is surreal, you hurt for them, and just want the credits to roll with a happy ending.

But it’s a part of our story, too; and for so many of the people who make it possible for us to be here, it’s a part of your story. It’s a part of the global story of poverty and development, and hopefully a part of the story of the coming Kingdom.

They are a family of four. A father, mother, a little boy of three, and a little boy nearing 1 year. We met them when we first moved here and they lived in the huts across the street. They are connected in the community, and for those who know some of the community & of our bread delivery venture–the mother, Than Dar Oo, is Pyo Pyo’s sister and Nyein Nyein’s sister-in-law.

The father went to Bangkok to work first. When their oldest son was under a year old, Than Dar Oo followed and left their son, Doh Doh, with the grandparents. We watched him grow and laugh alongside his cousin.

They all returned to Mae Sot early this year with the newest baby in tow. They moved in with the grandparents–Than Dar Oo’s mother and her step-father, with Doh Doh, now 3.

First there were some abuse issues in the extended family. It was tense and we weren’t sure how to be involved. Than Dar Oo and her family moved out, down the road from us. But Doh Doh wouldn’t come. He didn’t know them and refused to stay with his parents; it was painful to watch for us, and I can’t imagine it for them.

The grandparents were quite exhausted of an ornery toddler. And to further complicate things, he liked us because he knew us. He’s been offered to us to adopt more times than I can count. It’s complicated.

Then Than Dar Oo came down with typhoid in June. Typhoid? Really? She was admitted to be given shots daily, and we helped them make the treks back and forth from the clinic for a week, moving dad and baby and grandma back and forth.

Just weeks later, we got a call from them at the hospital. She said they were already at the hospital, but could we come? We were pretty confused, but went and started the search to find them.

Than Dar Oo had been called to the hospital because a roof had fallen on her husband at work. They had dropped off at the ER with $60. He had a large neck wound with more stitches than I could count; it looks Frankenstein-like. He also had a broken hip or femur, which required surgery and a bolt to be put in. He was in the hospital for a week and his bills were over $300. Than Dar Oo did a great job negotiating the bill with social services and was able to give the $60 his work had provided. We simply helped with rides to and from the hospital each day.

Now he is at home, in a hut with crutches during monsoon season. He can’t work now, and we’re not sure when he will be able to. She has a one-year-old and her husband to look after.

So we started providing them with food each week. We buy about $10 worth of food, including rice, fish paste, noodles, and a few vegetables or fruit. The first they were shy, saying they didn’t need it.

The second week they took it gratefully.

The third week, we arrived as she was “making dinner” of chicken-flavored snack crackers and chopped onions.

This was about the time we learned about the bigger problem. She had gone to his work to get his pay–they owed him for nearly three months worth of work, about $600. And they said they didn’t have it and wouldn’t be paying it.

Than Dar Oo went to talk to a Burmese workers’ association here in Mae Sot, and did a great job taking the initiative. They both have papers, which is an incredibly huge blessing, so the Thai government has a responsibility to defend them. They have kept records over the three months, so they have evidence of what is owed in pay; they have the records from the hospital to prove the accident.

But they are still Burmese. And he is still on crutches, they don’t have money for living expenses now, and they aren’t sure what the future holds.

So this Monday & Tuesday found us at the workers’ association office, putting in official complaints and files and then negotiating with the employer. The negotiations went something like this:

We’d like 150,000 baht ($4,225) in compensation, in 3,000 baht ($90) increments per month.
We’ll give you 15,000 baht ($422) over the next two weeks.

There is only so much we can do. But we can help get them back and forth in the car rather than her biking him across town, with crutches and baby. We can help make sure they have food now, until they know about tomorrow. We can help Doh Doh recognize his mom and encourage time with her. We can try to bring restoration and redemption to pain and deceit. We can pray for God to be their defender.

We can pray for a happy ending!

It’s been hard to see this family. It’s been hard to see his face cringe in pain. It’s been hard to break down the barriers of what their needs actually are and how we can help.

But I’m so thankful to be here. I’m so thankful for people who support the community fund and allow us to buy food for a family that is so desperately thankful for rice and fish. I’m so thankful for the people that pay for our rent and food and car, so we can spend days sitting alongside them, doing life with them. It’s a messy, sad, painful life for them right now, but we can do that with them, too.