The House Collective

oh, baby.

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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.

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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.

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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.

all in a week.

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Whoa, what a week.

We took this crew to church on Sunday, including the marijuana hat. And snail hat was left behind.

The left hat caused me to write down this note to myself (hat@church), which I later came back to wondering why I was reminding myself to hate church. 😂

Sunday ended in a large community fight, involving a beer bottle being thrown at one woman’s head and a sword being drawn. We went to the hospital for emergencies twice on Monday night, and the teenage girl who came with us to help was locked out of her hut, because I mistakenly said I’d bring her back in the morning for school when I tried to assure her dad she wouldn’t stay at the hospital but be able to go to school in the morning. She ended up watching some Avengers with us over popcorn and sleeping at our house.

Stephen is teaching The Reinforcers to type in Burmese, and they are working on typing up all our songs for church so they can run them on the projector in coming months. I’m super impressed with all of them, but particularly the husband who can teach them how to type their language and provide them with so many new opportunities.

Wednesday we did a special Valentine’s Flour & Flowers delivery!

And had a flat tire.

And made little gifties for the kids: red off-brand Pocky sticks and pink strawberry yogurt drink. (Do you guys even have on-brand Pocky sticks?) I know you’re jealous.

This was confiscated from an eight-year-old, six-year-old and three-year-old playing with it at our house.

Girls are becoming teenagers and spent their week whispering about boys and things behind curtains. It’s adorable.

Stephen sent this to our little friend in Bangkok, who writes us on Facebook all day every day, and we mostly send photos, emojis, and stickers back and forth. My husband is awesome.

This girl can multiply! After bribes and weeks of practice, she’s got it, and I’m beyond proud. We’re moving on to division!

Stephen made a trip to the border to pick up our Burmese teacher’s wife returning from Burma. And he took this great picture with a great friend.

We did our Friday laundry load of towels and rugs, which is my favorite load of the week. I love what it represents: the feet wiped on the rug on the way in, the bread loaves baked, the breakfasts served, the hands washed before playing computer. It represents a full, active community space that requires so many towels.

We got matching button-up shirts for The Reinforcers that will soon be logo-ed, and we made badges with their names. They’re official! We announced it to the Mae Sot community last week.

And they had two gigs this Saturday! They started at 7am, doing an amazing job at a celebration for a local non-profit. There were over 800 migrant students present at the local university stadium. In the evening they ran sound for a worship night for another local ministry.

Somewhere in there we also had two significant meetings this week, working on two new and very promising connections for the two ladies sewing in our home! We’ll share more info soon, but for now, we are so thankful to see prayers answered and God providing work for them.

We also applied for and received a visa for Burma, and we leave tomorrow afternoon with one of the bread ladies and her little family.

We’re never bored, friends. We are never bored. 😊

a dichotomy.

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While playing a game at Storytime on Tuesday, he was jumping up on me, asking me repeatedly to be held. I did, as long as I could, but he’s seven and lanky. Hardly someone I can hold for too long.

I held him through the story, working hard to keep him focused.

Wednesday found us struggling during Playhouse, as he asked me 101 times for a Superman coloring page. He was throwing things, breaking things, and fighting everyone. We reviewed our house rules.

And then Thursday, when Thida was nearly to tears recounting what he’d said that morning.

He said he likes it at our house because we love him, but his parents don’t love him. They only hit him.

__________________

I can’t speak to their feelings, nor can I imagine a mother not loving her own child, but it’s true that they hit him often. It’s true that they don’t love in an obvious way.

It’s also true that we do very much love him. I can speak to my own feelings, and he’s very close to my heart.

He’s seven, and quite a mess, as his life has been. He’s had significant adults in and out of his life, moving between prison sentences and questionable lines of work.

He only knows life with violence. We are reviewing, nearly every day right now, that when he’s at our house:

We play. Together.
We don’t fight.
We don’t bite.
We don’t kick.
We don’t hit. 
If we are angry, we use our words.

__________________

This week there was drama about why he isn’t in school–school our community fund paid for him to attend at the beginning of the year. Thida had provided her son’s old uniforms and we got him a bag; we even started sending breakfast extras for lunch. He was sent to Bangkok in the middle of the year and then returned, like something purchased from Target.

Meanwhile, his aunt is asking to join our literacy class–which we’d love for her to. But it’s also heartbreaking. She’s 19 now, and was taken out of school since we got here. We did everything we could to keep her in school, and it didn’t work. She was sent to Bangkok to work, and is now back, raising a baby on her own in the same broken environment as her nephew, and asking for literacy classes.

__________________

And then last night found us with his mom on our floor, in a panic attack, after her drunken family members created a brawl outside.

Stephen went back to the house to ask after their son, and they said he was sleeping. He was doubtful the child slept through all the shouting and fighting, and peeked in on him. He was wide awake.

“Do you want to come to our house? Are you scared?”
“Yes.”

We learned his mom is pregnant with another little baby, and now we’ll be taking her to clinic this week. We work hard to create a culture of celebrating pregnancy in the neighborhood, so I told her I was happy for her.

It was automatic; instantaneous as I feared she was considering abortion.

It was a lie.

__________________

It’s moved so quickly this week, from one mess to another.

It’s hard to reconcile it all in my mind. It’s hard to reconcile waiting on adoption, when we’re offered kids here that we already love. It’s hard to want to keep families together when they are so broken. It’s hard to send a child home into ugly chaos. It’s hard to see smiles as he fights through. It’s hard to know she’s bringing another little baby into this. It’s hard to fight for education when the brokenness is so much deeper. Its hard to hold a seven-year-old.

It’s hard to comprehend that his story, at age seven, involves drugs and trafficking and prison sentences and sexual encounters and drunkenness and stabbings and swords. But also a place across the street where he colors pictures of Superman, climbs on his auntie & uncle, plays with an iPad, and eats breakfast every morning.

Perhaps the dichotomy is overwhelming for him, too.

our biggest fan.

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A few months ago, Thida found out she had a cyst in her uterus. I don’t know what the standard is stateside, but she was told to wait three months and come back for a followup. At that point they said it would either be smaller or have disappeared, and thus be nothing to worry about; or it would be larger and likely cancerous.

She was nervous, for obvious reasons.

Meanwhile, she’s one of my best friends here. We talk all the time, about so much these days. We’re often chatting about faith–what Stephen & I are praying for in the community, some of the challenges of living here, some of the challenges of working in the community. We’ve talked about the church giving money and how things like The Breakfast Club happen.

She told me recently that her nine-year-old son, Jor Gee, wants to be a pastor, just like our pastor Ah Tee, and he asked her if that would make her proud of him. She said yes, she’d love that. He’s one of the sweetest kids and is always looking out for the younger kids, the one who doesn’t have a snack, and anyone underprivileged. He’s always helping out.

Oh, and he’s always copying Stephen, because he’s his hero. Just recently Thida said he’s been praying for Stephen & I to have lots of money, and she asked him why (i.e. why pray for them to have money rather than our family?!). He said, “Stephen and Kelli give money away to all the Burmese people, so it’s better if they have a lot.” 😭

Thida and I have been talking through all these things–what the future holds for her kids; why we gave her daughter Mwei Mwei a job; why her oldest daughter hasn’t had kids yet.

She’ll teach me new recipes when I ask and helps me learn new words in the market. If anyone asks about me speaking Burmese (nearly every week) she uses it as a moment to brag on us. She tells random folks how great we are.

She’s probably our biggest fan around here, and we’re definitely hers. She’s one of our best gifts over the past year in particular.

So when she’s had this concern, I’ve been praying. And as we drove to the hospital on Wednesday, I asked her if I could pray with her. She seemed grateful, and said she was so scared. I prayed while I drove, and honestly, it was adorable how she folded up her hands so tight and placed them right in front of her face. It was like a Precious Moments kid. (Did anyone else’s grandma take them to the Precious Moments chapel as a kid? Anyone?)

And guys, when I saw her that afternoon at Playhouse, she was giddy. It’s gone, and she was just thrilled. She said thank you for praying. She said it was because we had been praying.

Honestly? I don’t know what God is doing in her; in that family. I have no idea how they view this faith thing.

Honestly? I don’t know why he answered that prayer so apparently, and not others. We’ve been praying for Aung Moe to have his vision back for years; or even just a plan for him. We’ve been praying for Daw Ma Oo for nearly a year, and while she’s improving, she’s back in Burma for another round of treatment and followup.

Honestly? We love that family so, so much. And I’m so thankful that God answered such a big prayer for her!

treasures.

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2 Corinthians 4:7-10

But we have this treasure in jars of clay
to show that the surpassing power belongs to God
and not to us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not driven despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken;
struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

As I read this verse yesterday, I immediately thought of the treasure all around me: our community.

___________________

Flour & Flowers is a treasure. I never thought we’d make it this far, and we’re over three years in. Somehow we’re weekly providing salaries to four families by driving around town with a car load of flower bouquets and bread. Those relationships, the miracle of it making profit and creating a savings plan–these are treasures.

And it rests in jars of clay. It rests on a foreigner market that flows in and out. We are losing and gaining customers nearly every month. It rests on a small store in the market that may or may not have the exact ingredients we need; or might have a different size pan this month, or perhaps a new type of flour. It rests on changing weather and a kitchen that is practically outside in that weather, so that some weeks the bread rises like a charm and other weeks we’re re-doing batches into the afternoon. It rests on second language learning that sometimes leaves us going in circles. It rests on women who haven’t completed high school, and sometimes keeping count of how many tortillas they’ve rolled or writing down the time the bread started rising is a challenge. (Just this week, the paper where they are to write the rising start time said “40 minutes,” and I had to ask, “But what hour?” It took us awhile to sort that.) It rests on changing government and laws; it rests on families dealing with the challenges of poverty.

We’re three years into me wondering if we could possibly keep this up every week. So that every week, when we finish and the books balance and salaries are handed out, I know that God made it happen again.

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The Breakfast Club just keeps growing. More kids, more days, more meals.

Every evening I wonder if it’s too much for Thida to be making breakfast for fifty every morning at 6. Every morning she awes me with her grace–her uncanny ability to predict portions, her kindness to the kids, her ability to check in on so many while serving so many others. Her checklists of each kid, while also reminding me of who needs to go to the clinic and who needs medicine.

And she reminds me if I forgot to give money for Aung Moe, the blind man in our community, eat, she reminds me, which has happened more often than it hasn’t…🤦🏼‍♀️

Because while Breakfast Club is amazing–a treasure, for sure–it rests in jars of clay. It rests on funding from around the world, on records that need to be kept up, on early, tired mornings.  It rests on a sacrificed kitchen.  It rests on Thida, whom I love and thank God for regularly, and who is herself a reminder of God’s surpassing power.

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The kids still come to play in the afternoon. (And they still ask every morning if we’re playing at 4 o’clock.)

It’s a treasure to see them pile in the door for Storytime; to see them clap and dance to If You’re Happy & You Know It. It’s a treasure to hear them sing Praise Ye The Lord outside our door on Saturday. It’s a treasure to see them learn to say thank you. It’s a treasure to see them master Minecraft and the alphabet. It’s a treasure to see them beat me at Mario Kart. It’s a treasure to see them win at Memory with pride and confidence. It’s a treasure to watch this girl come in every day to grab a pillow and a blanket and curl up on the floor.

But it’s one big jar of clay. It rests on me not losing my temper when one child throws a toy at another child. It rests on my explaining in broken Burmese why we don’t bite each other. It rests on getting that crayon off the wall. It rests on cleaning up water off the floor and having specific towels for cleaning up after un-diapered kids.

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Many of our most treasured moments of the past 7+ years have come in medical & trauma needs: women going into labor and babies seizing; women running from their machete-clad husbands; bloody wounds and broken fingers; stitches and daily bandage changes. In these moments, there are treasured conversations, treasured assurances, prayers and miracles.

But it all rests in jars of clay. I hate stitches, and they make me horribly queasy. I hate blood. I hate changing wounds. I hate hospitals. I am one big mess of clay when it comes to all of these, and yet–it’s a reminder.

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Light of Love Church is a treasure in our lives. This week I got to watch these two teenagers–off to the left in yellow & red–sing and worship together, while Stephen played guitar with the band, and two teenage boys ran sound by themselves.

And it sits in a jar of clay as we attempt to get everyone there before ten (and often “tiptoe in the back” with fifteen kids). I am a jar of clay when another kid gets shoved out of the back of the car on his birthday and eats concrete.

As I sing the Burmese lyrics and we pray together as a congregation, I’m often feeling the treasure. When we’re halfway through the sermon and I’m struggling to make the words into anything…pulling out every little word I understand: I aware of my clay, breaking.

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Our newest treasure is The Reinforcers. As we are struggling to finalize a logo and create some promotional materials for around town, they had three gigs over the past two weekends. It’s working and the guys are doing amazing.

But it is in jars of clay, too.

We received incredible gifts that made it possible to purchase the speakers–but not without usually Thailand-level difficulties of three hours on Bangkok public transit to sign a credit card slip, or picking up the delivery in multiple trips to town because the Mae Sot branch office offers “no service.”

We haven’t gotten the correct modem in the mail yet, so we’re currently using an old one we had. It works sometimes, but two times gave us a scare that it wasn’t going to. But when it worked in two last-minute miracles? A treasure.

Stephen had to bike home with one of them at 11pm on Friday, after a day that started at 6am, because the kid is still only 15. His mom waiting for him at the door with a huge smile of gratitude: a treasure.

We don’t know how it will all unfold; how popular it will be; how it will balance with the boys’ school and exam schedules. But we know it’s a treasure to get the time with them, to see it working. And we know that every little unknown will point us to it all resting on the surpassing power of God.

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This little community holds so many treasures for us. And we can’t control or handle or manage one of them.

We are afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down. {Read: This isn’t easy. Some days I’m done. Some days I want to “go home,” wherever that is.}

But we are not crushed. We are not in despair, we are not forsaken, we are not destroyed.

Instead, we are reminded every day of clay that we are. We are reminded every day that the treasures only happen by the surpassing power of God.

the breakfast club | week seventeen.

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Last week we wrapped up our seventeenth week of The Breakfast Club, and as of last Friday, Thida–with very minimal help from us–has served up 3,070 meals to kids in this community.

3,070!

That is so much rice I can’t even wrap my head around it, even after buying it and lugging it home from the market each week!

Thida is an incredible gift. She is a chef, server, leader, mom, grandma, and friend to each and every child, mom and dad that comes to the door. She understands the power of a steady, healthy meal in the unsteady, unhealthy lives of these kids. She gets why some are served free and some not. She gets why it’s hard to draw lines in the sand. She gets the value of it and the challenge of it; and she’s taking it on day after day with excellence.

And she’s become one of my best friends, in many ways through this endeavor. While we’ve shared the responsibility of early mornings and market trips and planning for feeding, that isn’t what brought us closer. It has been sharing the pain of the poverty of this community.

They ask her for loans, too, and she has to figure out what to do. They tell her their pains and ailments and worries, and she has to find words, too. She has unknowns in her future, too. She has become a confidant on how to handle difficult situations, what to say (in theory and in actual vocabulary!), what to hope for, and what to pray for. I don’t know exactly what she believes, but I know we’re having regular conversations about our prayers and hopes.

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Last week as two of the bread ladies came in to bake, they dropped their kids at the door for breakfast & came into the kitchen. As they looked back at the large group of kids gathered around our Thanksgiving leftovers, one of them asked, “Do you just like feeding the kids? Are you happy?”

You see, while Thida gets it, most of the community doesn’t. It’s weird that we serve breakfast for free, only to the kids, and only to the skinny ones. It’s weird that we pour in loads of meat and eggs and pumpkins and beans. It’s weird.

But I was a little confused at her question. Am I happy…today? Am I happy to feed them Thanksgiving food? Am I happy…for what?

And once I understood, I tried to explain. This is in short what I attempted to say in Burmese: Well, yes, it does make me happy to see them eating good food. But, that’s not why we do this. We knew many of the kids were too skinny and not getting enough food. So we told our church about it, and asked if they would help us feed the kids breakfast. We thought about 50 of the kids would be “too skinny.”  Now, it’s more than that, so sometimes I get nervous we won’t have enough money to feed everyone. But, I think it’s really important. If they eat enough food and eat healthy food, they will be smarter. When they get older, I think this will help their lives be easier.

Easier? They asked.

Both of them have recently been in very hard seasons, and we’ve been helping them out. So I felt comfortable to say: I see how hard life is for you. It’s hard to get work, it’s hard to live, it’s hard to live here without papers, it’s hard to have enough money. I hope that if you’re kids eat healthy, life will be easier for them than it is for you.

And while this isn’t the first time we’ve explained The Breakfast Club–maybe more like the one thousandth time?–they seemed to see it. Three thousand meals in, and maybe a couple moms looked me in the eye and got it: it’s a long-term plan.

And it’s enough of a plan we think it’s worth getting up at 5am for. It’s enough of a plan we are going to measure all your kids and put them into a system and keep track of their growth. It’s enough of a plan for us to go to the market every week and buy insane amounts of food. It’s a plan, and it’s working.

We’re 3,070 meals in, folks!

this bites: but we’re famous!

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Some of our dear friends in Mae Sot, Adam & Nu, have a two-year-old daughter, and she took a tumble last week. She seized and passed out following it, so they rushed her to the emergency room to have her looked over and run some tests.

I will reassure you of two things: First and most celebratory, she is fine! Everything checked out as normal. Second, you can see that it isn’t just us. It’s this town or something.

Anyway, they found themselves in the ER during the night shift, when our translator friend works. Since Nu is Burmese, he came to help them communicate with the Thai staff.

And in the middle of it all, he said there was a couple here last week that speaks great Burmese and goes to church. He said he’s friends with us now and wanted to know if Adam & Nu knew us.  Sure enough, they do. And he was over the moon that we could just all be friends!

Even when it bites: at least you get complimented on your language skills and you all turn up okay in the end 🙂

this bites: the other side.

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Last night Stephen reminded me of the Seinfeld episode where Elaine was bit by a dog, so of course we had to watch it.

So, do I need a shot? 
No, not shot. Dog bite.
No, I know I wasn’t shot. Do I need a shot? 
No, not shot. Woof-woof, not bang-bang.

This is the story of our lives in SO MANY WAYS.

So it bites, but your life is also a comedy show for somebody out there!

In other news, the dog is apparently dead, likely because he bit me and when they told me he had already bit three people this week, I said something along the lines of, “Then kill it,” through gritted teeth.

They took me seriously, it seems. I’m definitely not upset about it, and Stephen sent me a text with confetti when he heard. Oh, and he’s on the hunt for a dead dog emoji! 🙂

this bites.

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I’m nearly out of words, friends.

Since we landed back in Mae Sot in April–what seems like ages ago!–it has just been one thing after another. It has been life-changing shifts, government surprises, arrests, emergencies, deaths, and tragedies at every turn. Whoa.

And this week was another biting one, this time literally.

One of our bread ladies has had her two-year-old admitted to the hospital all week, so we’ve been visiting them every day. And while she sure does look cute on this creepy old hospital bed, it wasn’t a fun week for her.

And since they were still in the hospital on Friday, I filled in with bread making. We served breakfast starting at 6:30am, and while kids still trailed in, we started making bread and tortillas at 7am.

I came back from deliveries pretty exhausted. We were ready to call it a day, but one of the girls in the community said her “uncle” had a sore foot and asked if I’d come bring him some medicine. They live on the road behind our house, and then down a little path in a field. Since it’s rainy season, I went as far as I could on the motorbike and then hopped off to walk the rest of the way through the mud and cornfields, growing high over my head.

Right where the fields break into the clearing for their house–just a few meters from their house–three street dogs lunged toward me, two in front and one ran around behind me. Since we have some twenty street dogs on our road, I didn’t think much of it, just pulled back a bit to let them call them off, throw rocks, or whatever they would do.

Ah, but not so lucky.

The one that came behind me was more aggressive and bit right into my calf. I was a bit stunned, since I encounter street dogs all the time, have been out to their house multiple times; I just thought nothing of it. But as I kept walking I was certain he had got me.

I went ahead and gave the girl’s “uncle” the medicine he needed–for a wound, mind you, that was much smaller than the one I’d just gained giving it to him!–and I tried to just make my way back home quickly. I had a ways to walk back and still the motorbike to drive home, but I couldn’t see blood seeping through yet and thought I’d just hurry!

Well, long story short: It’s really, really good I was wearing jeans. You could see a full ring of bite marks, but only two teeth had punctured. He had gotten all muscle, and it huuurrrrrtt. But the worst part: those two little punctures (and the fact that he’d bit three other people that week) definitely meant I needed rabies shots.

Off to the ER.

Since our public hospital is Thai-run but encounters primarily Burmese patients, they have translators on staff. We had met one of the night-shift ER translators last week when we brought in our friend with a bicycle accident. He loved that we knew Burmese, invited us to church with him, and just generally really wanted to be friends.

So on Friday, he was incredibly friendly and welcoming. It was nice to be able to tell exactly what had happened, and to be honest, even though we haven’t learned Thai, we are finding that most Thais we encounter are at least impressed we learned Burmese (and Burmese translators are easier to find than English!).

Alas, it was still a rough night. There was a stab victim in the ER, too, and that was less than pleasant. We were also given masks shortly after arriving, because apparently the H1N1 outbreak is continuing to get worse, and they had had five cases already that day. 😳😷

I had to have six shots in the end–one in each upper arm, one in my lower arm, one in my hip, & two into the wound itself, which I will openly tell you IS THE MOST HORRIBLE THING. I don’t know exactly what they did, but it involved putting the needle in and moving it around for a very long time, where you have just been bitten by an angry dog. I screamed in shock when she started moving the needle around in the wound. I also limped for two days following, perhaps from the bite and perhaps from the shot.

Oh, and I have four more rounds of shots to return for in the next month.

So that bites.

a few of my favorite things.

by Filed Under: house calls, kelli, photos, playhouse Leave a Comment

When the word feels like its crumbling in your own neighborhood, in your host country, and in your home country–just accentuate those positives. Big & small alike.

1. Smart fish. So, we went to a coffee shop outside of town last weekend. It was lovely in so many respects, and I posted pictures of us there in this post. However, THE FISH. They had a lake full of fish, with these nice little walkways across it where you had the option to buy fish food and feed them. I had no fish food with me, but the fish follow you! They followed our footsteps, hoping for food, as we walked and walked back and forth different directions. A whole host of them. I don’t have a great photo, but just take my word for it: those smart fish were very, very awesome.


2. Podcasts. This is my new favorite way to be involved in America and American culture. I still love the Instagram photos, but Facebook is wasting me away. And the news: oh, I simply can’t handle it. But, podcasts give me a taste of America from an admittedly biased, personal perspective that is at least palatable. My current favorites, of which I’ve found them all on iTunes, are: This American Life–always have loved and always will; I feel like Ira & I are friends. Persuasion–recommended by a friend and have loved it! Two American Christian ladies just chatting about some important and some not-so-important things. They are humble, not having all the answers but just chatting. Also one of the ladies is from Central Illinois and it feels oddly like home. Still Processing–another humble, we-don’t-have-all-the-answers podcast. This podcast often addresses racial issues and as of yet was my favorite perspective on Charlottesville–it was just honest and it challenged me and it broke me. I think that’s probably what we need most. Upside Down Podcast–more Christian women chatting about difficult things. These ladies all seem to live in similar communities to what we do. I feel like we’re already friends. Hey, girl.–American women from different backgrounds and races chatting about a variety of important and not-so-important things. The Red Couch–an interesting, personalized take on politics and society. Diverse, unique, and hilarious: a winner.

3. Reading aloud, currently Lord of the Rings. We’re always trying to find new ways to decompress in the evenings. While we still go through the occasional TV series or season, I have to say there isn’t that much I want to watch, particularly when you eliminate serious, scary dramas (i.e. police, crime) or too-life-like dramas (i.e. This is Us is out). It also has to be accessible to us here, which is a whole different issue. Anyway, we’re exploring other options. We’re trying podcasts together, currently listening through Serial in the evenings or the occasional This American Life. And, we’re reading together.  We have been for years, and we’re currently nearing the end of Lord of the Rings trilogy. While I’ve always loved reading together, I’m really loving it now. I’m realizing how peaceful it is and is becoming one of my favorite things at the end of long days.

4. ကျွေးတယ် || To feed. This is likely one of my favorite aspects of Burmese childrearing. From a extremely early age, kids are taught to share their food. No matter what. Every bag of squid chips is shared with the whole group. Every pop-ice. Even every sucker. It may not always be the most sanitary activity, but I do love how the kids learn so quickly to share so freely. And it makes for adorable situations like this:




5. Sewing. This is my newest hobby! A team purchased two Singer machines for our little sewing project, and that means there is usually a machine available to me on evenings and weekends. I’m only tackling simple mending, curtains, pillowcases, and blankets for now (read: straight lines, easy to fix mistakes), but I am happy to be listening to a podcast & the hum of the machine.

6. Injuries that bring us together. There is always quite a bit of sickness during rainy season, but we also have had our fair share of major injuries. On Wednesday, we took one baby to be admitted at the clinic for potential H1N1, and then found ourselves at the orthopedic doctor with an eight-year-old with a broken tibia from playing football.


And just a few hours after that, we were called after a bicycle accident. Two people had collided on their bicycles just returning to the community from work. Stephen & I ended up at the ER with our friend San San, while they put twenty stitches into her leg. With other injuries in the mix, it was a long week. But I was thankful that we tackled them together.


Stephen helped carry the little boy in and out of x-rays; and he was there to help get San San into the ER. And we ate street food for dinner on a hospital bench, so–while it does get more romantic than that, I’m thankful for the fact that we do this together. He’s the best.

7. ဝတ်မှုန်း || Win Moun. Speaking of injuries, one of our favorite little girls is currently admitted to the local hospital. She has an infection on her tiny little finger that has gotten ridiculous, and they need to watch it for a few days and potentially lance it while she is sedated. But this girl–she has our hearts, and she is bringing a smile to our faces every day when she calls for us, Uncle Stephen & Aunt Kelli. She is very verbal, and held both arms out yesterday at the hospital–one having a hurt finger and one having just had blood taken–shouting, “It hurts! It hurts!” in her best pathetic tone. She also shouted to the doctor, “Don’t do that! DON’T DO THAT! It HURTS!”

I was wearing this sweater when she held my cheeks and said the Burmese equivalent of, “I wear it.” She then went to get my pink jelly shoes to complete the ensemble. 😍


8. New glasses. (Read: any happy-ending story.) It was a feat we’ve been tackling since June, but eight appointments later and a only a few tears, this beautiful little girl was able to get glasses!  And adorable little pink ones to make it even better.



9. The Rock Game. We’ve been playing this for years, but I’m getting better at it now! It’s similar to jacks, but much harder and the kids play it from about two years old on up. So I’m way behind on learning. But we now have a little group playing it a few times a week during Playhouse–mostly teenage girls and young moms, and it brings a smile to my face. Especially if I can at least play on par with the ten-year-olds!


The world is probably still crumbling in broken stories. But the positives have been successfully accentuated. ✔️