The House Collective

the breakfast club | week three.

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We’re int our third week of The Breakfast Club, and Thida had to go back for a few days to Burma for the current passport|new laws|new paperwork situation for migrant workers in Thailand.

Thida has been pivotal in carrying this out. She is patient, she helps us problem solve, and she is such a hard worker. After the first week, we asked her if it was too much work. She was coming five days a week at 5:30am, cooking some at her house; chopping vegetables in the afternoon while the kids play; and helping with Playhouse four days a week. It was a lot to coordinate, and really even more than we anticipated. When we asked her, though, she replied, “I’m so happy. I get to help people, and I am so happy to see the kids eating.”

She’s happy, and she’s also a genius. Check out her solution for my lack of a strainer!

With her out of town, her daughter and I were left making breakfast this morning, both of us a little outside of our realms. We only had two kids who said it didn’t taste good enough to eat! 😂 Others ate seconds, so I think it balances out! And it’s still working: we still have kids showing up every morning. We still have delicious, healthy meals for them to devour, and seconds if they choose.

Zwe Go Go Nine, a two-year-old, is a very big fan of our breakfasts. The first week, he woke up from an afternoon nap and just headed out the door. His sister called after him, “Where are you going?” He said he was going to eat rice, to which she said, “Where? We have rice here at home.” But he said no–“I’m going to Kelli & Stephen’s!” She said it was difficult to explain it was only when he woke up in the morning, not every time he woke up!

His sister said that she was asleep late this morning because it is a school holiday, but she woke up to Zwe hitting her, saying, “Let’s go to Kelli & Stephen’s! Let’s go!”

Stephen and I have had to debrief after nearly every morning as we try to figure out how to do this. For one, getting up at 5 or 5:30am and having people in your home and space is a challenge. We are still figuring out how to get our showers and coffee and prayer time and breakfast ourselves (especially if we aren’t interested in the rice and fish every day of the week…). Speaking another language within five or ten minutes of waking is another feat. (My 8:30am Burmese lesson suddenly feels too late in the day for me to have enough head space!)

In addition to these physical challenges, one of the things we’ve said to each other repeatedly is that its emotionally draining. We both have said we feel regularly on the verge of tears–in some ways, so excited to see the kids so excited. To have a kid bursting at the door for breakfast, so complimentary of the meal, saying thank you repeatedly, and then off to school–it’s beautiful. It’s working! But they’re also bursting at the door. To see the kids so hungry, eating seconds and thirds–and once fourths! To see the hungry moms, the tired faces.  The kids needing medicine or their trousers sewn before school.

We’re still figuring out how to not be exhausted by 8am.

Another family of four kids, quite poor, asked on Thursday about Friday’s menu. The oldest brother then asked shyly, “How…how long will you do this?”
I answered, “For a year. For this school year we’ll serve breakfast and then we don’t know.”
He was sure I had made a mistake, “A year? Or a day? Will you have it next week?”
“Yes, we’ll have it next week. And then for a year. For the whole school year–from now until March. Every day you have school–Monday to Friday–we’ll have breakfast.”
“A whole year?!” They were all ecstatic and cheered.

We’re with Thida: we’re really happy to see the kids eating!

palpable.

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The darkness is so palpable recently. Each day has sufficiently held enough trouble of its own.

We’ve just past the first deadline of the new laws put into effect for Burmese migrants. I can’t even begin to try to explain the ins and outs of it while we are all trying to sort it ourselves here in Mae Sot, expatriates and migrants and locals alike. I do know that we’ve now spent two days at the Labor Office, and both were absolute chaos–like 500 people, over 100 degrees, a legitimate fear of being trampled to death–that sort of chaos.

I also can’t even begin to capture the stress and strain it puts on our neighbors. Poverty is a strain in and of itself, and this is simply a pile of cherries on a very difficult cake to swallow.

I can’t explain the conversations: asking for loans, asking for money for rice; talking about what they should do and what their futures hold. Because no one knows.

And even for us as a couple, this season is just another pile of unknowns and another list of questions. Yet again, our lives are entirely resting on miracles and more miracles, in every direction.

Meanwhile, Daw Ma Oo and her husband are living at a Yangon Hospital, while she receives treatment for her cancer. Her two youngest sons, 12 and 16, are cared for by their other siblings in town.

The assistant pastor at our church fell 8 or 10 meters from a roof on Saturday, leaving him in the hospital with severe head wounds. It’s a miracle he’s alive now, and we’re all praying, praying, praying.

One of the little boys’ parents left him this week. The one we just got into school; the one who we remind to come to our house every morning for breakfast; the one who asks every day if we are playing today at 4pm. Overnight, he became an orphan, because his parents left and he’s in the care of his grandfather–who took care of him while his parents were in prison the first few years of his life. The sadness is palpable.

I sat in church yesterday, fighting back tears from all of this weight, as we celebrated Thai Mother’s Day. The second Mother’s Day of the year, while we wait for placement in our adoption. Sitting next to the little boy who lost his mother on Wednesday. Thinking of the family of four kids who told me they weren’t going to school Friday because it was a Mother’s Day celebration, and you only go if you have a mom. Thinking of The Breakfast Club, and the hungry, hungry kids that come every day, threatening to break me with emotion each and every morning. Thinking of how to possibly pray for all the things: the friend current in surgery to drain the blood from his brain; the friend currently in chemo; the kids currently scared of losing their mom; the kid who just lost his mom; the kids who still mourn the loss of their mom.

And then we had cake, to celebrate Mother’s Day and a first birthday of one of the kids from our community. I think I’m definitely learning how to cater to my audience when it comes to cake decor.

Maybe you feel the same? America isn’t shining at the moment, and sadness seems palpable there, too.

Not all the cake & holidays in the world can make it all go away.

And yet a light shines in the darkness. The darkness has not overcome it.

These faces still shine with joy.

And this week, their heavenly Father has fed them, again. Sometimes in our own home.

Walking with us, sitting next to me on Mother’s Day and mourning their friend, too, are our pastors. They walk this road with us and provide such sweet camaraderie.

Our home is still a place of peace for all ages.

And this guy still finds new places for us to explore. And just sit at and be.

And he takes me there for a few hours on Saturday, to just read and see the beautiful views and be best friends.

The darkness is palpable wherever we are. But the light still shines. The darkness has not overcome us.

the breakfast club | week one.

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Sometimes it is so difficult to keep writing.

There is so much I want to tell you about. There is so much I want to record and never forget.

I want to tell you how we started The Breakfast Club this week. We have over forty kids coming into our house every morning between 6:30 and 8am to eat a full bowl of breakfast–rice or noodles, eggs, tofu, or  fish; tiny chopped vegetables so the kids gulp them right down. A well-balanced meal.

I wish you could see their faces or watch them pull out their Breakfast Club card like a badge. I wish you could see Thida show up with a smile at 6am or before to start cooking, to chop everything, to stir curry in a ginormous pot that covers two burners. I wish you could see, in person, what a five liter rice cooker looks like on our tiny little counter in our tiny little kitchen.

I wish you could see Thida bring them a full plate, make sure they are full before they go, and just ensure they are cared for.

I wish you could see the floor when they leave. And see how well Thida cares for that, too.

It’s working. We are watching kids come hungry and leave full. And it isn’t worst-case-scenario chaotic: just normal chaos.

But there are also so many things I want to forget, too.

I’d also have to tell you about the hungry moms. I’d have to tell you about the challenges of determining how to ensure we aren’t taken advantage of by some, but also not missing an opportunity with others. I’d have to tell you about the mom hiding in the kitchen, scarfing down the last of her son’s unfinished bowl. I’d have to tell you how, even among the malnourished, you can tell who is truly, truly poor and truly, truly hungry. You can see it in their faces and in their eyes and in their bowls.

You can feel it, and it follows you–through the day and to the next morning, when they eat two big bowls all over again.

I knew The Breakfast Club was a big task. I knew our house would be open at early every morning (the 5:30am was a surprise…), and I knew that’d be an interesting shift in our lives. I knew it’d be a new dynamic with Thida as we learn the ropes. I knew there would be people with questions about why their kids weren’t included; I knew we’d have others that would take advantage. I knew it would be a lot more shopping in the market and a lot more activity in our home.

It is all those things.

But I didn’t expect the weight of it. The joy and mourning, every morning at such an early hour. The mourning of hungry kids waiting at the front door and those so excited for a plate of food, perhaps because they are hungry from the last “meal” they had. The joy of having a hot, steaming bowl ready for them. The emotions of seeing some embarrassed because they are just so hungry.

Oh, friends–this place is heavy.

It is good, and there are good things happening. We are thankful The Breakfast Club is funded and functioning, perhaps at the best time possible while families are a bit panicked at new laws coming into play and the potential of their lives shifting. God knows, and God is good.

And God is here, waking with us each morning, listening patiently to our questions, wiping away our tears, and filling their empty bellies.

double dengue.

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I go back and forth, finding it difficult to believe it is already the end of July, but simultaneously confused that it is still July. What a month.

We were hit recently with what I’m calling double-dengue.

I came home from Flour & Flowers deliveries on cinnamon roll week, after we had delivered 33 pans of cinnamon rolls all over town, in addition to 180 hand-rolled tortillas and a basket of bread loaves, exhausted and with a fever. It seemed reasonable to be tired, waking up at 5am, baking until 3pm, and jumping in the car to make deliveries until 7pm. But the fever persisted on Saturday, and I thought I was fighting some sort of virus.

We left on Sunday for a trip to Bangkok with friends, hoping I’d be over whatever it was soon. And for the record, they were contributing hand, foot & mouth to the car from their daughter, too, so it wasn’t just me!  Unfortunately, we learned the very next day that I had dengue fever; and then two days after that, Stephen did, too. Dengue is absolutely nothing to joke of–it is a beast. The fevers are high, the rash is red and horrifying and itchy. And the body aches! Someone asked if it is in fact like you’ve been hit by truck, and it is. Every joint and muscle throbs like you’ve just run way too far and swam too far and sat too long and been hit by a fast car, all at once. You want to sleep and sleep some more, but you ache like you can’t find a comfortable way to sit or lay. And if you do happen to sleep, you’ll wake up in fever fits before too long.

Ten days of that.

For us, we went to Bangkok with friends to drop them at the airport, which left us to drive back to Mae Sot. We ended up taking it slow–very, very slow. We would get up late, around 9am, to catch the end of the hotel’s breakfast. Then we’d go back for a nap, because eating a few pieces of toast can really take it out of you. We’d wake up to check out at 12pm, and take turns driving, about 1 1/2 hours each, before we’d pull into the next hotel and go to sleep, about 3 or 4pm. So for multiple days in a row we were sleeping upwards of 16 hours a day.

We also got checked to make sure we didn’t have internal hemorrhaging, which can come with dengue. And we found out it can also lead to hepatitis, or swelling of the liver, which I had toward the end.

What a mess of a disease.

We both were all-cleared for the bigger risks–dehydration, hemorrhaging, and hepatitis–last Sunday, just in time to cross the border for a new visa stamp on Monday. We were up and out of the house by 10am, and walked across the bridge at the edge of town, only to walk back for a new stamp. And then we went home to take a rest, because it plum wiped us out.

But alas–still another week after that, we’ve now made it through two days in a row without a nap mid-afternoon, so we seem to be on the up and up!

oh, kid.

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One of the little boys is just six, and has been dealt a rough hand already.

His parents were in prison for the first three years or so of his life; he was often watched by his teenage aunts and lived with his grandfather. Not so long after his parents were out of prison and he was living back with them, his father was diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis and dangerously malnourished, so he was admitted to the clinic and then transferred to a tuberculosis isolation spot about two hours out of town.  They whole family went.

They all returned months later, but just after school started. So he’s back to the familiar of our neighborhood, but doesn’t attend school while his friends do. He spends his days playing in our yard with two to four year olds.

He also asks every day if we are playing inside. We have tried to explain the days of the week and how certain days we play at 4pm and certain days we don’t. He’s not capturing all of it, so he now asks every morning: Are we playing at 4pm today? And we say yes or no. Picking our battles, at least he’s only asking once a day.

Last week his foot got caught in his dad’s bicycle. His ankle swelled quickly, so we took him to see if it was broken. It wasn’t broken, but sprained; and had a large cut on the side.  Most of the instructions we gave weren’t heeded, so I began changing the bandages at our house.

A few more days went by, with bandages just not staying put. I decided since it was closed, we should just focus on getting antibiotic cream on it, rather than keeping it wrapped in gauze. Again, we’re picking battles carefully.

I took medicine to the mother and explained it to her.

Fast foward to today: our house is full of thirty-some children and adults, coloring, playing on the computers, playing market…they are everywhere. Suddenly I look down and see blood on the floor. Everywhere. There are large drops and smears of blood–everywhere. Covering most of the floor.

Thida, Stephen & I see it at nearly the same time, and we’re shouting all at once: Wait! Stop! WHO IS BLEEDING? BLOOD. WHO IS BLEEDING? WHO IS BLEEDING??

It took ridiculously long to figure out who, but it was little friend. His cut isn’t healing so well and broke open; and apparently he didn’t notice his trail.

I carried him into the kitchen to try to bandage him up. Thida very sweetly came in and asked him if his mom had put any of the medicine on it. He said no. She explained that his mom was “naughty” (not sure how else to translate that!) and wouldn’t put medicine on it. She made sure he understood to come to our house every day to get medicine.

He went back to playing, and then left at 6pm with the other kids.

About 6:30pm, he was at the door, calling for us.

“Stephen, are we going to play today at 4pm?”
“Well, we did, buddy. 4pm already came. We already played. But we’ll play tomorrow at 4pm, too.”
And then in English–“Don’t you remember playing? You bled out on our floor!”

bitter|sweet.

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My sister recommended a book a few years back, Every Bitter Thing is Sweet by Sara Hagerty. In short, every sad, broken, sorrowful thing that happens to us has a sweet side–it has a side that shows us Jesus.

I found myself thinking about this all week. While every bitter thing IS sweet (and would recommend the book!), I kind of think the opposite is true, too: every sweet thing is bitter.

This very well might be the pessimist’s mantra. Please don’t hate me for being a pessimist. But consider: sometimes I think we as Westerners want so many things to only be sweet–we want to ignore the bitter. We want to buy the clothes without thinking of who made them; we want to eat the food without thinking of who isn’t able to do that; we want to post the perfect picture without acknowledging the story behind it.

Which, wanting to be optimistic isn’t horrible, but I do think it can lead us to a denial of the world we live in.

It’s broken.

The Bible writes it on every page: sin is here, and it’s bitter. And yet Jesus is here, too, and he’s sweet. I think we need to be willing to swallow them both down together.

_______________________

As we returned this week to our community, it was sweet to be back in our home, surrounded by our friends, and chatting about life. Chatting in a language we have invested so many hours in, but are now communicating. Surrounded by friends that we have invested so many years in, but are now friends. Living in a place that felt uncomfortable in so many ways, but now feels comfortable. It was sweet.

But it was also a bitter, bitter week.

We landed in Bangkok, hoping to see Musana. We learned that her grandmother & cousin, Zen Yaw, were on their way to Bangkok. We delayed seeing her to the last day we were in the city, hoping to catch them all. He arrived the very next morning after we left. And now he’s not here, running up to our door. I don’t know if I can really put it into words, but it is a deep, real loss to the community. Like Musana, he had a sticker on him, as God’s good gift to us–in smiles and laughter and the best hugs; watching the washer wash; singing Hallelujah. Gosh, those two kids were huge gifts to us.

And now, they are really long way away, and it’s bitter.

It’s sweet, too: God gave us the incredible, incredible miraculous gift of knowing where they are. We can call them; we can visit them. I cannot over-exclaim the complete and utter miracle it is that we know where they live and have found them, three times now, outside of Bangkok. This is a great gift to us. They are healthy and gaining weight; they are in concrete homes with running water. Their families are together.

And I know God is good: maybe he knows that Zen Yaw was my little guy, and us adopting a little babe would have been hard on him. Even our leaving for a weekend or going to church without him was really difficult for him. So perhaps this is bittersweet for all of us.

We also learned of other families that left while we were gone. Two families we knew really well have gone back to Burma, and we likely won’t see them again. That’s really hard to adjust to, in a way I can’t describe.

And Daw Ma Oo, the sweet woman who sells flowers with Flour & Flowers, was gone when we returned. She was just recently diagnosed with uterine cancer and went to Yangon for surgery. We hear she’ll back in six months or eight; when she’s well…no one seems to know. Her husband & sons are here; the whole community is pretty closely connected to her and hurting. It’s terrifying, and we all know it.

Honestly? Cancer is often diagnosed late here, and usually little can be done. Most people we know lose family members within months of diagnosis. It’s bitter to swallow.

Another young girl–just a teenager–was sick with what we guessed was cancer when we left. We had been to the clinic a few times with her, and it was a sticky situation to say the least. Her mother refused to seek help from an organization to pay for her daughter’s treatment. She left the hospital, and it’s continued to worsen. She passed away Friday and we had the funeral on Saturday.

We learned of one family that attends church with us was kicked off their land, so they now live with another family–10 people in a small, shambled hut. It’s bitter.

But we gave them seeds before we left, and they have a beautiful garden going. They are proud of it, and it was a great investment of our $2. I’m thrilled they can see the fruit of their labor. I’m thrilled they are eating the fruit! It’s sweet.

I don’t even have the words really for the incredible sweetness and the incredible bitterness this week has held. Instead, I just keep thinking of both sides: Every bitter thing is sweet. Every sweet thing is bitter.

And then there will be heaven.

six days.

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In the last six days, we:

Met with our caseworker in Bangkok
Visited Musana & her family, our neighbor friends who moved to Bangkok
Flew to Mae Sot, arriving in the middle of Playhouse and a full house of kiddos
Met a few new faces
Made seventeen batches of birthday cake, for two neighbor kiddos & my own birthday
Had a birthday party!
Returned to Flour & Flowers, made deliveries around town
Learned of three neighbor families that moved away while we were gone
Learned who lost jobs, who lost homes; where the new places were
Learned of two cancer diagnoses
One was fatal within days–one death, one funeral
Another is in Yangon awaiting surgery

I don’t wonder at all why this town makes me tired.

ready or not: part 1.

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This trip to America has come quickly. It was nothing short of a miracle that we made it out the door this past Saturday, and with perhaps all the loose ends tied up! We sacrificed a great deal of sleep for it, but it seems that maybe, just maybe, it worked.

In the last week of December, the little boy in the middle had a piece of tin roof fall onto his leg. The tin sliced his leg wide open. We were away camping for a few days, so he came to tell us when we got back. It was wrapped in a dirty, torn piece of school uniform. He initially wouldn’t let me touch it or see it; his brothers and sisters had forced him to come, in tears.  He eventually conceded for me to see it and bandage it myself if I agreed not to take him to the hospital for them to do it. (Noted: This was a risky agreement. There is a reason I’m not a professional.)

It was a huge gash, now too split for the stitches it needed. Since we were beyond stitches, I started cleaning it and changing the bandage every morning. I had a nurse friend come by to clean it more than I was able or willing. The sweet boy was so tough when it was so horrible at the beginning, but he came faithfully each day to the house, and then we’d drive all of them to school—which they loved!

As we discovered we’d be leaving sooner than we thought for America, I started praying it would heal before we left, as it’s hard to keep things clean when we’re away. Putting on a clean bandage in a dirty house on a dirty leg with hands cleaned in unpurified water is, well, not very effective.

And I’m so happy to say that in the last week it made such great strides, completely closing up! It healed up so well!

Amidst the chaos, we managed to fit in a weekend trip to Chiang Mai, where we met up with friends who are currently living in China. We had a fun time touring them around to the zoo and bunny cafe!

I’ll leave a picture from the zoo here—please note the impressive selfie-stick use to include the panda and all three kids!—but the bunny cafe needs a post of it’s own.

We managed to do a trial run of Flour & Flowers with order pick-ups the Friday before we left, and it worked! It was so incredible to see how gracious all the customers were and so kind to continue to ordering without deliveries. Our friend, Liz, is also helping to make sure they have all the ingredients and to sort money each week.

It was certainly no easy task to have everything ready: we have pages of instructions in both Burmese & English, outlining how to sort money, cost, and profits. We have envelopes of change and special situations, all translated and sorted. We have ingredient order lists, with every item photographed and translated, for the ladies to write down what they need and send  an “order form” with Liz.

We gave a stack of envelopes to Pranee, the pastor’s wife at our Burmese church, who is helping to deliver salaries each week. This will keep the sewing project & Playhouse continuing; and ensure that Aung Moe has food each week.

We did a test run of the weekly rides to the clinic. While it didn’t go off exactly on time—two hours late!—it happened! And hopefully happens more smoothly this week.

Honestly, pulling all these things together was so much work. It’s hard to scrounge up three months of salaries and get them into the correct currency and sorted in bilingual envelopes! It’s hard to write pages of bilingual instructions! But, I think it all came together, and that is a miracle in itself.

We also went to the clinic with our friend Weh Weh Lwin, who a few weeks ago came to us with a number of swollen lumps on her lymph nodes. It’s been a bit of an ordeal, requiring many trips to the clinic and eventually a biopsy. The biopsy also took some convincing—her husband’s father had previously had similar knots on his neck and went for a biopsy. According to them, after the biopsy, the lumps continued to grow and spread, and then he died four months later. Both were so concerned that the biopsy was the problem, so it took some convincing to note that this was actually a different case all together. We tried to explain he likely had cancer, so even with the biopsy, it was untreatable. In her, the doctors were actually looking for tuberculosis in her lymph nodes, which is both treatable and rarely fatal. But that’s a lot to explain, particularly to a culture that has more fear of “surgery” than I’ve ever known. When I’ve told them about my thyroid surgery and the fact I was put under, had the surgery, and now I’m fine—you’d think I rose from the dead!

But, nonetheless—we managed to convince them to have the biopsy and went to the clinic multiple times for long periods of sitting with their sweet baby girl while the parents had repeated minor breakdowns of worry.

And, in God’s sweet kindness, her last appointment was on Saturday, the day we left. She got a call that the results were in. She doesn’t have tuberculosis nor cancer, and it is just an infection; nothing to worry about! She was ecstatic, and the look on her face made me so thankful we had walked this road with her, right up until three hours before our flight!

God also worked out more than a few details to ensure that we finalized all the paperwork on the house next door! We signed the contract on Tuesday, and swapped keys with Kelvin & Laura on Friday, just in time to lock our bicycles up before we left. We are so thankful to have this when we return and be able to expand a bit.

We headed off to Bangkok on Saturday with a few goals. The first was to find some friends in Bangkok. Remember Musana, who left abruptly to go back and be with her mom?  We found her in “Bangkok”—actually a different province and it took us five hours and five modes of transportation to get there— in October. Well, we hoped to see her again, only to find out that she moved!

But—here’s the exciting part—we managed to call her and determine where she was all on our own, without any translating help!  She was so excited that we’d be coming and asked for “lots of pictures of her friends and Zen Yaw.”

We certainly did bring pictures, as well as Christmas gifts since she missed out this year. The heart-shaped fuzzy pillow was a big hit.

We found her much more easily this time—

…one hour on the mass public transit system,

…one hour on a rickety old train (for just 30 cents!),…and a 20-minute tuktuk ride.

And this time we found the whole family!  They have moved so they are all together. She is now living with her mom, stepdad, older sister, younger step sister, aunt, & uncle.

It’s challenging to get nine people and a big pink pillow in one photo, even with a selfie stick!

The aunt & uncle are parents to Zen Yaw, the cousin she raised in Mae Sot. It sounds like he and the grandmother will be joining the family next month.

And while that makes me all 😭, it’s actually quite beautiful to see the family reuniting and, even thriving. They are living in an apartment complex that is entirely Burmese. They are simple concrete rooms, but they are renting three—each with it’s own bathroom & thus, indoor plumbing.

This is such a big improvement, and we’re excited for her. She’s also healthier; no longer malnourished. Our only sadness is that she can’t go to school there and there aren’t many kids her age. She helps with the younger kids and we continue to bring her English & math practice books. We’re working on a few other ideas to help her keep learning.

We had a lovely morning with them all—sharing snacks and lunch, chatting about the families, sharing photos, and playing Pass the Pigs. We colored pictures, too—Musana asked me to draw some flowers, and then Stephen drew the picture on the right, a copy of a photo we took!

Even as we left, it was so joyful. I feel like she really understands how much she is loved. It is such a relief that we can go visit her and see her, quite easily enough. It’s a miracle, really, to have found her twice in the monstrosity of Bangkok, that really isn’t even Bangkok! But God is good. It’s such a picture of redemption for me, and I’m so thankful.

After we met Musana, we trekked back across Bangkok to meet another neighbor! Thida, who manages Playhouse hours after school, has seven kids. One of them, their 14-year-old girl, moved to Bangkok this year to work. We’ve been quite uneasy about it—talking to Thida about trafficking and how unsafe jobs like that can be for young girls. They have not been easy conversations, emotionally or practically. And she’s still there, so I’d consider them somewhat unsuccessful. But, we really wanted to be able to see Mwei Mwei—to see that she’s doing alright, to ask in person how she is and if she likes it, and to give her a Christmas gift like the rest of her family got!

To find her, we started with our Burmese teacher helping us to translate. He got the name of a mall that she lived near, but we couldn’t seem to find it. After a few unsuccessful attempts, we called Mwei Mwei with her mom there, who I can communicate with quite easily since we talk often. Basically, she’s aware of my vocabulary limits and works with me. Those are the best kinds of friends, really—so gracious.

Well, we managed to find the area of town she was living in, and then what we thought was the mall name. It was one of these:

What’s the name of the mall?
Nyamyawan.
Ok…there’s one here called Ngamwongwan.
Yeah! That’s it! Wow! Computers are amazing!
Can you say it again? I’m not sure we’re saying the same thing.
Nyamyawan.
Yeah, I’m not sure those are the same. They sound different.
No! I think the same!
Oh, okay…well, it’s near a university. Can you ask her if she sees lots of university students or knows there is a university nearby?
Yes! Two!
Okay, yes…{I’m trying to determine how to confirm it’s the same place. The names are close, but so are the names of everything in Bangkok, particularly when they are speaking with a Burmese accent and I’m speaking with an English accent and we’re both saying Thai words, which we don’t speak. Talk about lost in translation. This is point where her mom is convinced its the right place, and wants to arrange where we’ll meet.}

Mwei Mwei said there is a place that you can walk above the road and go into the mall. Do you know this place?
{Now I’m Google Image-ing the mall, and Thida looks over to see a walkway going into the mall.}
Like this! Wow! That’s amazing! So cool! Computers are so cool! You found the picture just like she said!

I didn’t have the heart to tell her there are likely a million of those walkways throughout Bangkok and that every mall I’ve seen has two or three of them. But she was so impressed and so certain we’d see her daughter, we had to try.

So that afternoon found us waiting on this walkway for about thirty minutes, questioning often if we were on the right one of a billion overpasses in Bangkok.

But—we were! Mwei Mwei and her friend that she works with came, and we were able to have ice cream, chat, share photos, and give gifts.

Again, nothing short of a miracle—the communication to find her as well as actually finding her in a city of that size. God was so gracious.

And then it continues just a bit further. The next day was Monday, the only business day we were in Bangkok. We needed to meet with our adoption caseworker, since their office in Bangkok. We also needed to get fingerprinted at the police headquarters (again! I’ve lost count). The biggest challenge was this: we hadn’t been able to set up an appointment with our caseworker. We had sent three or four emails, called and left messages; we weren’t getting any replies, and we had this one day that we needed to make it work before we went back to the States.

You see, in many ways this adoption has gone so smoothly—for Thailand, in particular. A lot of things have come together and clearly had God’s favor all over it. That said, it has been a very foreign experience. We are on our third caseworker, and most of them have given us different answers to questions. It’s extremely difficult to contact any of these caseworkers—often we wait weeks for an email back and spend weeks trying to set up an appointment for the times we’re in Bangkok. And even with an appointment, we tend to get thirty minutes or so to ask every question we can and try to get them to like us and remember us.

We had some deadlines and important questions to ask her—multiple things that had the potential to delay our adoption months and even a year more. So after many calls and emails, we decided to go and hope to catch her—and also hope for the favor that she’d be happy to meet with us and not be frustrated.

We said a lot of prayers for this.

After finishing our fingerprints, we grabbed a coffee and headed off to the government offices. When we got there and told them our names and that we were hoping to meet with our caseworker, they recognized our surname—that’d we’d called and emailed many times 🙄

They sat us in an office and we waited, quite nervously.

But God was so good. He sent us with all the favor. She was so kind and understanding; she was glad we came. She sat with us for about an hour and half, sorting through paperwork and answering questions. She was actually our caseworker in the sense I imagined it, and we were so thankful.

We still have a few deadlines that worry us, and when she says “she’ll email us” about all these things, hopefully she really and truly will! We both left so encouraged though.

Really, we left Mae Sot and Thailand altogether encouraged. God is doing some incredible things, and it was really difficult to leave. We are falling so deeply in love with this community. We are loving the doors God is opening and we are thankful to do life with these friends.

I say all that for this: God readied things in Mae Sot for us in miraculous ways. He healed up wounds and helped test results come in time; he helped us find two needles in a very big haystack in just one day in “Bangkok”; he allowed us to meet with our caseworker and blessed the entire situation. He is allowing so many things to continue while we’re away, and it’s unbelievable.

full.

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

I’m just going to cut to the chase: we’re coming to America for a visit, and soon!

We had different plans, all based around a required course we need to take for the adoption; and the agency changed it on us. Because of the ins and outs of what’s ahead in the coming years, we had a choice:

Option 1: Go to America before the course and before placement, which is NOW.

Option 2: Go to America after the course, while you are being placed, and potentially miss an opportunity for a child.

Option 3: Don’t go to America at all for 2-3 more years, not seeing family or friends at all.  This also includes the significant practical challenge of getting a number of visas from other nearby countries for the next 2-3 years.

So we chose #1, and bought tickets three weeks out from leaving. This has also left us scrambling for what exactly we are going to do with the community while we are away.

I distinctly remember the afternoon we sat down with sticky notes all over our table, with the categories of things that needed to be done or continue while we were away–Flour & Flowers, worship nights, the neighbors going to church, medical needs, Playhouse after school, the sewing project, paying our bills…and then each sticky note had names on it, of who we’d ask first and in what order.

It’s a list of how many ridiculous favors you can ask of your friends in the shortest window of time and hope they’ll still be your friends at the end of doing said favor for you for three months.

____________

Yesterday we had meetings in the community for three hours. The kids came to play from 4-6, and then we had a community meeting–with a translator, just to be sure everything was clear! We met with everyone together over cookies, telling them about adoption and our trip back to States. We turned down the babies we were offered, again, and tried to explain about papers and processes. We tried to assuage their disappointments that we won’t be having a snow-white baby that they all wish to hold and dote on.

We have arranged for a friend to come once a week to give rides to the clinic; the church will come each week to pick up everyone to go.

We met with Thida, and sorted out how she’ll continue with Playhouse while we’re away, so the kids can use the computers and have a safe place to play. We met with San Aye to talk about how she’ll continue sewing and how we’ll get her salary to her.

We met with the Flour & Flower ladies, to talk about how we’ll do deliveries one more week and then they’ll be setting up shop in our house each week for people to come get their orders. We reviewed hand-washing and cleaning up to prevent ants. We sorted out how I’ll get the order forms to them from around the world and who in the community has Facebook so they can write us messages in Burmese.

Somewhere in the middle of these meetings our translator turned to us and asked, “So does everyone have a key to your house?”

{Sort of, well–yes.}

Our house will be opened to the community for someone to work or play six of seven days a week the entire time we’re gone. So I’m not really sure it’s a house anymore. Welcome to The House Collective!

____________

And that brings us to another big change this month! Our neighbors, Kelvin & Laura, have decided to move out into a different house in Mae Sot and focus on their ministry in a local children’s home. We have decided to start renting their house, which connects to ours as a duplex. Our hope is to put a door in the wall between the two when we return, at which point we’ll start living on one side and devote this entire side to the community.

This is incredible in so many ways!

First–we have felt a bit over-crowded as of late. Our house being open six of seven days a week has been happening while we’re here, too, and it’s just getting full. Bread continues to grow; sewing has taken off; the kids are loving the playtime. But it’s full!

Particularly with a baby on the way and the Thai government looking into our home on a regular basis, we feel like it will really help to have a “family” side and a “community” side. It will allow us to have a baby room.

Really, we have so many details to sort, and this wouldn’t be the ideal time we’d choose. But we are so thankful for the room to expand. The landlords have also been so, so gracious. They love us and love that we have stayed so long, so they’ve agreed to rent us both houses with a $45 per month discount. At the current exchange rate, our rent is $140 per month, and we’ll be able to get both houses for $240.

We have dreams of a sewing room; of space for bread! We have ideas of a computer corner for the older kids and a table for homework help.

Since we arrived, it has felt like God has asked how much we’re willing to share and trust him with. First it was just our yard and porch. Then the kids starting moving inside, and we gave up an area at the front. Then we felt like God was asking us to share the kitchen for bread (this was a tough one for me!); and then the space in between. Then sewing joined a few months ago…

Each time, we felt like it was right. We felt like God was asking us to share and to really open our lives to trust our neighbors as friends. It’s opened doors for conversations about respecting our space and things, but also about trusting each other and sharing openly what God’s given us.

And after six years of always moving in the direction of sharing more, we feel like God has provided a space of our own. It’s making it easier to leave our house for 3 months of being community-run. It’s making it easier to think of finding space for a baby bed!

There are so many decisions to be made, and we just aren’t really sure how it will all play out yet. But we do know that we are so thankful that God has opened the doors for this, and America, too–even if its creating a very full month and a few full months ahead!

Full of good things, good people, and–we hope–good rest.

a little bit fat.

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

I had this little conversation as I walked with two of my favorite little neighbors. This came from the seven-year-old.

Where are you going?

Well, first, I’m walking you & your sister home [because you live on a dangerous road]. Then I’m going to visit Po Gwee to give him this medicine for the big sore on his leg. And then I’m going to go for a run. Exercise!

Oh, because you’re a little bit fat now and if you run you’ll be a little bit skinny, right?

Well…yes.