house calls – Page 4

on the sidelines.

November 9, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, house church, housewares, kelli, photos, playhouse 1 Comment

These are the {many} sidelines and side stories of the past few weeks.

It is still one of my favorite things to see the kids pour over books in our house.

Castles have taken on popularity: in drawing, in building, in discussion. I also love how freshly showered and tanaka-ed kids look a bit scary!

Go Fish is still extremely popular. Since they can’t read or pronounce the fish names in English–and in Burmese it gets challenging to describe the type of fish–we simply hold out the card we want and say, “{Name}, do you have it?”

This week, 8-year-old Jorgee decided to switch to English, without asking how to say it in English. He now holds up his card, and asks, “ARE YOU OKAY?” If they shake their head no, he shouts, “I DON’T KNOW!”

This is enough to make me shake with laughter while we play.

We have also had more and more women joining for Open House in the afternoons. Sometimes they come to let their young babies play, and sometimes they come to play themselves! We had a group of four moms and grandmothers playing Go Fish on the floor the other day!

We added Minecraft to the computers, and the kids love it! It’s pretty cool to see them learning the mouse and how to get around; and problem-solving themselves since we don’t know much about it.

We also had three broken arms in two weeks!

One was an older woman from a falling coconut; another was this little boy playing at his house. Sadly, yet another was a young girl playing on our playset, when the tire and wood bar fell on her. When I found myself back at the orthopedist for the third time in two weeks, I gave the name and age, and where they live:
“Really? The same? All near you?”

I got to visit these two cuties every morning for two weeks while changing bandages in the family. Noted: when you need to change bandages on gruesome wounds for days on end, make sure there are cute kids to brighten your day following.

We are trekking off to Burmese church each week still, which is in fact an event! We have a family attending regularly and a steady group of teenagers that are interested. And some weeks–like this one–we are nearly half the church. We had thirteen older kids, six adults and two babies! I also had a meeting that evening about an upcoming friends’ wedding I’m helping to coordinate, so Stephen drove and coordinated all 21 attendees himself 😳

They still do such a great job with the kids’ program in the afternoon, and this week was one of my favorites. It was a song about helping each other and giving hugs to each other, and it was adorable.

He was pretty adorable, too.

Flour & Flowers is exploding, and we are finding ourselves looking at how to handle the growth in coming months. For now, we are starting earlier in the days (7am most weeks; 5:30am on cinnamon roll weeks!) and going later into the evenings with deliveries. It is pretty amazing to see, because we certainly can’t take credit for it and just didn’t know it’d grow like this. But God is providing ideas and people and words and capacities, and we are thankful.

And then this week it truly exploded: while we were making cinnamon rolls, the honey on my shelf exploded. ALL OVER. As if our kitchen wasn’t crazy enough!

The rest of house stays pretty crazy, too, while the “older kids”–aged five to eleven–help with the babies. Sometimes it involves putting them in baskets and taking them for rides around the tile floor!

And recently we’re having trouble keeping the new walkers away from the ovens! Two tiny burnt hands that required popsicles to ice them down 😞

We still make plenty of trips to the clinic (Mae Tao, or MT for Stephen & I), & sometimes it goes smoother than others. Here was our text string the other day, admiring timely patients!

And then we found ourselves at a new dentist this week, to take our friend to get a tooth replacement after the recent domestic violence. It was quite an adventure that involved us meeting the dentist on the side of the road to follow him out to his house, which is why Stephen join the two of us women! And thankfully Stephen was there to take the baby, as I was asked to fill in for his dental assistant that was away.

😳😳😳

Our lives are so ridiculous. Sometimes in the middle of a situation I find my mind reeling backward to sort out how exactly I found myself here. {Was it when I agreed to pick up the water-sucker-tool? No, no; you were in long before that…} But, it was a great way to have a hand on her shoulder in the midst of challenging season and uncomfortable morning.

The sidelines are crowded, folks! Too many stories to tell 😀

darkness.

October 25, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, kelli, on the house 4 Comments

It’s been so dark lately.

I keep hoping it will subside, that the light will break through. That would be a better place to write from. But then more darkness comes.

I can’t really capture it all, the ins and outs of different fronts, different battles, different darknesses.

There was another stabbing in our community. This was both our fourth & fifth stab victim. They went to the hospital by a hired cart, so we actually have only been helping transport family to and from the hospital and now in re-bandaging wounds daily.

Have you ever seen a stab wound? They are traumatizing. Even when I heard about it that afternoon, I could see all the others so clearly in my mind, all over again.

This time a number of the kids saw it, as it was around 3pm. One of the kids said she cried when she saw it. Is that okay? she asked.

Sometime on Tuesday I began to ask myself, Where do we live? Really, WHERE DO WE LIVE? How did I get here?

First you’re playing football in the street. You feel sorry for the poor children that surround you. You are trying to learn language and make a difference in their futures. You are hopeful.

And then you are sitting next to your nurse friend, who is helping you bandage these wounds. I hear myself tell her, I usually do it this way, as I wrap up the gauze I’m holding, it worked well with the other stabbings, so that the bandages didn’t stick. Is this okay to do? And she tells you, I don’t know. You know more about stabbings than I do.

And while you’re changing this bandage, you are sitting next to a three year old, a two year old, and a six-month-old, who have now all seen their uncle and their dad’s stab wounds. And they just lost their 11-year-old caregiver and friend last week when she moved to Bangkok. And they start to cry when you leave and tell them bye; and you’re trying to convince them it’s okay, you’ll be back. I know; she didn’t come back, but I will. It’s going to be okay.

But you’re kind of wondering if it is.

Is it going to be okay for this three-year-old that has reverted back even further in development since he lost his primary caregiver? What is he going to grow up to be? How do we prevent him from becoming a victim, too, or a knife-wielding attacker, for that matter?

Is it going to be okay for the abuse victim I went to see this week? I learned her husband isn’t talking to her; he won’t hold the baby because it isn’t the gender he wanted; and he’s not giving her enough food. She’s hungry. Now we’re sneaking money to her so she can buy her own food; we’re trying to create a job for her. I tell her to come tell us if she needs anything, if he tries to hurt her; it’s going to be okay. But I find myself wondering if it will be.

Or the eight people that came to tell us this week that they don’t have work. Is it going to be okay for them?

Or us–is it going to be okay for us?

The days when you aren’t sure how you got here, or when stab wounds became normal. The days when your dearest friends are desperate for food. The days when your dearest friends take advantage of you. The days when the nightmares come back and you think that what you’ve seen may haunt you forever. The days when you see the weight in your own eyes staring back in the mirror.

Is it going to be okay for us?

I keep reading these encouraging verses–about God’s goodness, about his burden that is light, his yoke that is easy; about him answering prayers and giving good gifts. Perhaps if I meditate on them again, perhaps I will see something differently. Perhaps it just won’t hurt this badly. Perhaps the light will break through.

new wheels.

October 4, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, housewares, kelli, photos Leave a Comment

As of today, we are the proud owners of a new car! Well, new to us. And free to us, too!

Some friends of ours are just now transitioning back to life in the States. They have loved our community well in many ways–coming to play with the kids in the afternoon, helping us to set up the community computers, employing one of our friends as a house help, and faithfully supporting Flour & Flowers every single week.

Phil also played bass for nearly every OneHouse worship night since we started, and they’ve been sweet friends to us.

And now, they’ve gifted us their car!

This is a photo of us with their family.

I’m not sure Daw Ma Oo or Pyo Pyo could have been more excited to now have a delivery vehicle with four doors! Daw Ma Oo kept telling me that she is praying for God to bless them for their gift 🙂

Here is our last Flour & Flower deliveries in Zuk, complete with three adults, two kids, 23 loaves of bread, 160 tortillas, and 11 bouquets of flowers filling this four-seat vehicle. We also took a trip to the clinic last week with eight adults and three kids squeezed in. I’m pretty sure all the neighbors know a bigger car is a gift to them, too!

And let me tell you, it’s an upgrade.

We gained a car ten years newer! We also now have these privileges:

Four doors. This is an incredible upgrade–for bread, for pregnant women, for women in labor, for old people, for people with broken knees and legs, for stab victims.

Aircon with multiple settings. Zuk was either on full blast or off. Or if you put it on a lower setting, it added humidity, which heaven only knows this country does not need more of. Also, the cold setting is the blue one that says cold.

Automatic windows. And even better, the handle isn’t made out of bolts, like in Zuk.

3.0 liter engine, compared with 1.3 liter: you make it up those hills quite a bit easier.

And, we still have leather seats (a big plus for vomit, fish paste, and blood) and four-wheel drive (a big plus for rainy season & flooding). What can we say? This is a pretty idealistic car for us. Not too new or flashy that it can’t be roughed up a bit; instead, rough enough to handle our lives and neighbors.

I do feel a bit like a soccer mom with all those seats behind me, but they are usually full. By the toys filling our house and huge SUV, you’d never guess it was just the two of us! But it rarely is, I suppose 🙂

unfairness.

September 25, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, kelli 2 Comments

We came back on Tuesday from one of the loveliest times away we could have asked for. Toward the end of our trip, both of us had a bit of anxiety to return. Anxiety for what was around the corner and to simply jump back into this lovely community that is swathed in poverty and all that entails.

Now seeing what this week held, it was well-founded anxiety.

Tuesday was brutal, friends. And Wednesday and Thursday weren’t particularly kind.

We’d been expecting a baby to be born while we were away–one of our really good friends. She’s the mother who initially started selling flowers with us (before it was handed off to her mother-in-law, who really had the business) and then later went to the market with us every week for tea shop visits. We helped her start her small pork shop and took her to the market every week to buy meat and ingredients. She recently also started the sewing training with us and will be sewing with us once a week. She’s one of the women I’m closest with in the community.

She didn’t have her baby while we were away, so she was now eight days overdue. In this time, there was a domestic dispute. And while we don’t know or aren’t at liberty to share all the details, we know that she was beaten pretty badly by her husband, leaving her with a black eye, swollen lip, & missing a tooth. He beat her stomach pretty badly as well, so she spent three days in the clinic while they observed the baby.

While we were learning this, she actually went into labor. But being embarrassed–as she was still pretty badly beaten–she didn’t call or tell us. They took a taxi to the clinic.

So Tuesday night found us visiting her in the clinic, far advanced in labor and badly bruised. We then made four more trips to the clinic in the next 12 hours to see the baby and take family members and then bring her home.

Thankfully, the baby is safe and healthy. She is beautiful.

Thankfully, so many friends gathered around to welcome them home with proud smiles and advice.

I’ve had more conversations about abuse this week than I know what to do with. I don’t know what I’m at liberty to talk about or how to present it; I don’t know what to say.

I do know that it was really hard to have such a lovely week with my husband, who is more than I could ever have asked for, while she was beaten by hers. I don’t know why I have this guy and she has him. I don’t know what to say or how to respond. I don’t have the theological answers nor the practical solutions.

The Friday before we left for the beach was pretty full, and I had left our house key with the bread ladies to finish things up while I went to run a few errands. When Stephen returned home, he asked where I was. They said I wasn’t here, but it was no problem, assuring him they were fine to finish baking on their own. He wasn’t actually sure where I was and wanted to know, and replied jokingly, “It IS a problem! I love Kelli and want her here! Where is she?”

It has now become a running joke about how much we love each other and how ridiculously happy we are. They joke about how if one of us isn’t here we’re not happy; we love being together.

It’s true, though.

All those times Stephen has taken them to the clinic when they are worried beyond belief? The times he picks up the baby thats fallen off the step? The times he opens their door and holds their bags while they climb into our two-door car with their baby?

He takes such good care of this community, and he takes even better care of me.

I took this picture of Stephen and one of our little favorites this week. I keep looking at it and trying to reconcile the amazing smiles and joy it captures; the fact that he loves on so many children who aren’t even his. The unfairness of it all.

I feel like I should have a more profound word or response, but it just keeps repeating in my head: it’s unfair.

IT’S UNFAIR.

Six years in to language and culture, I can’t figure out how to answer the questions about why he doesn’t hit me and why we are so happy. I try to say something about loving each other and about Jesus helping us and us loving Jesus and about what the Bible says…but it comes out about that jumbled. Try to imagine a four-year-old trying to explain their faith and belief for why their husband doesn’t beat them, that’s likely what I sound like.

The conversation doesn’t get easier, the words don’t become clearer. Instead the tears feel closer and the answers become more blurred. The situations get closer to home and the dichotomies are more acute.

Instead, we just sit in unfairly distributed households with unfairly distributed blessings. We hold babies and say prayers.

our friends say the darndest things.

July 26, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, kelli, photos, playhouse Leave a Comment

So many things were said this week I don’t want to forget.

____________

I’ve been sick recently–really sick for a week and then a cough and runny nose that stuck around for another week. One of the girls had her arms around my neck as I was coughing one day.

“Oh, Kelli. When we are sick you take us to hospital, but when you are sick, there is no one to take you to the hospital.”

____________

Stephen had gone to watch a movie with a friend one evening, so I let a few kids play games in our house while I worked on a painting project. Around 9:30pm, we shared a bowl of pretzels before they headed back home. As one of the girls left, she hugged me and said, “Your house is so happy. I like it here.”

____________

I was baking bread to take to church with us and chatting with Thida in the kitchen. She was commenting on our two ovens—which have both been given to us—and that many of our friends give us so many nice things, which is very true. I agreed and told her that foreigners are often coming and going, and they are very kind to give us things.

She suddenly panicked, asking, “You’re not going to move back to America, are you? You can’t move back.”

“We will stay for a few more years at least, and then we don’t know. We like it here, but we aren’t sure. We talk about maybe moving to Burma someday…but not yet. We won’t leave Mae Sot yet.”

“Oh, you cannot go back. I will cry and cry and cry. You cannot go back. Where do you want to go in Burma?”

I told her a few places we’ve considered, and she said, “Oh, in a few years, your Burmese will be so good! I will come to Burma to visit you. I’ll look around and ask, Where are Stephen & Kelli? And all I will see is Burmese people! You will be Burmese!”

Yeah, something like that. I’m sure there is only thing that makes me stick out in a crowd around here 🙂

____________

This guy is always saying the most adorable things. If he hears the washer—spinning, water coming in, changing cycles—he comes running, shouting, “WATCH! WATCH! WATCH!” If I’m cooking, “Up! Up! Help! Help!” If I’m holding another child, he whines, “No, not (other child’s name). Hold me! Hold Zen Yaw!” If we’re singing, he knows, “Hallelujah!” And if we’re saying goodbyes, he has learned the English for, “See you tomorrow!”

Melt my heart.

eye clinic.

June 12, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, house church, kelli, photos Leave a Comment

Remember how we called in the professionals?

The pastors & leaders at our church scheduled an eye clinic for June 7, and it was an amazing success! They came early in the morning to set up shop in our yard, and we pulled out water & coffee to welcome people in.
Throughout the day they were able to examine fifty-three people, both Burmese & Thai within a kilometer or so of our house.

They were mostly older, as people don’t come to simply be checked; they came if they thought they couldn’t see. And they were right–of those 53 people, fifty needed glasses. The church provided free glasses all around!

It was pretty cute to see them all sitting in their new glasses, most trying to read!

In other amazing news, Aung Moe’s vision continues to improve! While it may be happening slower than we’d hoped, that prayer is being answered! When we first took him to the clinic about three years ago, his vision was 20/1000. Over the years, it improved to 20/200 at Christmas of last year. This week? It was at 20/50 without glasses and 20/30 with glasses! He still lacks nearly all peripheral and can only see directly in front of him, but it is improving all that same. It was incredible to see the entire community gathered around, asking him how many fingers they were holding up and who they were; then cheering when he got it right!

Our pastor, Ah Tee, is also who came to pray for Aung Moe when he was unconscious in the hospital three years ago. It was the day the doctors told us all that he would die; some of the men in the community were there and remember Ah Tee praying for Aung Moe’s healing. Ah Tee now comes to visit Aung Moe nearly weekly, talking with him and getting to know him, and now was the one to check his eyes and give him glasses. It is always amazing to see how God brings things full circle, and we are praying big things for every aspect of this.

We are hoping to schedule a second clinic for the kids in the future, mostly to ensure everyone can see in school. Until then, we just continue to give thanks for this lovely church loving on our community with us!

a new baby, but different.

April 30, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, housewares, kelli, photos Leave a Comment

Pyo Pyo, who I’ve been baking bread with for months now, was at her due date last Friday. She still baked bread all day Thursday, rolling out over 100 tortillas in over 100 degree heat. She then made deliveries per usual on Friday.

Unfortunately, Stephen & I headed to Bangkok for a few days this past weekend, and we didn’t know if she’d go into labor. We gave her the number of our pastor’s wife and sweet friend, who also helps in migrant communities around town. She is Burmese so that Pyo Pyo could communicate, and they have a car to get them to the clinic.

Tuesday morning at 1:30am we got a call in Bangkok from Go Tight, Pyo Pyo’s husband. They had called the pastor’s wife, but didn’t reach her and didn’t know what to do. We told them to wait a few minutes–don’t take a motorcycle taxi–and we’d sort it. I then woke up and called and called and called until we reached her. Pyo Pyo made it to the hospital and she had the baby by 4am.

We got another call at 4am, which apparently I answered but don’t remember. Then, another call about 8:30am, because they apparently could tell I wasn’t awake! They wanted to tell us it was a little boy and he was healthy. They wanted us to celebrate with them! I assured Pyo Pyo we’d be in to Mae Sot by noon as we were about to head to the airport, and I told her I’d go straight to the clinic to see her.

So we did! We saw her healthy, huge new baby–he was 4 1/2 kilos, they said, or about 9.9 pounds! Not only is this large for any baby, but for a Burmese baby born into a migrant home, this is just amazing! She was so proud.

Excuse how ridiculously hot we both look. It’s because we were ridiculously hot. While she has the excuse of having just birthed a child a few hours earlier, I just have the excuse that we are in the hottest recorded summer in Thailand ever–we’ve had weeks straight now with daily heat indexes of 110 or 111 degrees Fahrenheit. I am dying now as much as I look like I was then.

The next day she was able to go home, so Stephen went to get them and waited while they sorted the birth certificate and footprints. Note Pyo Pyo’s cozy coat, as it is cultural to keep the mother bundled up after giving birth. Also take note that this was another day feeling like 110 degrees.

She is now enjoying “maternity leave” from baking bread–she has three weeks off and is still paid, and then she’ll be back to join us in a managerial position. We’re going to teach her some of the books and finances of it and allow her to manage hand washing, delegating jobs, and managing the other employees.

I have to say, we welcome a lot of babies in this community. San San delivered just the week before–a beautiful little girl named Meh Oo. We still have one more woman due in about a month and two more in about five months, and another one just after that. It’s a revolving door and there are always new babes.

But there was something different about this one, and it was so fun. This was the first time we knew the family this well, seeing Pyo Pyo nearly every day and spending so much time with them over baking and deliveries and meals. We have helped them start a savings budget which they keep at our house, and we have watched them really improve their standard of living since adding a second job with Flour & Flowers into the family. They’ve added a new roof to their house that was a much needed improvement, and Go Tight added a second level loft in their little hut. And now they’ve birthed an incredibly healthy son!

And more than that, I realized that Pyo Pyo is probably my best friend here. We have an odd friendship to say the least, but we know each other well and look out for each other. I am really, truly excited for this little boy to be here, and she was so excited to tell us!

In all, we already love little baby Aung San. But it was fun to see how much this friendship has grown and how his mom has come to mean to me.

a clinic visit.

April 17, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, kelli Leave a Comment

We needed to go to the clinic this morning at 8am.

Since it was a Sunday, the free clinic for Burmese was closed. This left us the option to go to the public hospital, where it would cost us $3-$6 in treatment and a day or two of our lives. Or we could go to a clinic in town, one in particular where the doctor speaks Burmese, and pay $5-$10 and wait about 20 minutes.

We chose the clinic for what I feel like are obvious reasons. {It might be noted, too, that depending on the department and staff on duty at the public hospital, you might literally watch them flip through the stack, choose the Burmese patients and place them at the bottom. This is utterly discouraging to the soul and destroys the hope of the process moving quickly.}

This is how our clinic visit went today.

8:00am. We are signed in to the clinic and second in line. We sit down and pull out some keys for the baby to play with. It is already nearing 100 degrees.

8:15am. I note the doctors hours posted on the wall. He works today from 7:30am to 3:00pm, then again from 5:00pm to 8:00pm. I take a moment to feel sorry for the Thai doctors, who are required to work at the public hospital, but often also work at a private hospital and have their own clinic, so that most work from 7am to 8pm or so, seven days a week.

I then note that we are waiting on the doctor because he isn’t there yet and feel slightly less sorry for him. I assume he will come by 8:30.

9:00am. No one has been called yet, so being second in line isn’t helping us as much as I’d hoped. This is also three times as long as any other time I’ve been in the clinic. The doctor has still not arrived, so my second hope of him arriving at 9 is unlikely.

9:20am. The family I am with asks when the doctor will arrive. The nurse calmly replies 11am.

Much TOO CALMLY. You open at 7:30am for the doctor to arrive 3.5 hours later?! All the frustrations.

9:21am. We reconfirm that we all understand the ridiculousness that is occurring. I apologize and suggest we go home and perhaps come back this afternoon when it is less busy, and uh, the doctor is here.

2:00pm. We arrive back at the doctors office. They ask our name as if they don’t remember us. I am not fooled.

2:01pm. We see the doctor.

2:05pm. They receive medicine and we pay $5. I tell them that is more what I was expecting this morning and that I’m sorry.

2:10pm. We are back in the car. It is steaming hot and the pleather seats are hot, hot, hot. The mother is unsure how to sit on them, so she empties the contents of her purse and sits on it. Not on the purse, mind you, but the bottle, diaper, baby powder, medicine bottles–the actual contents of her purse.

I’m not sure about that one, but we drive home anyway.

today is international women’s day.

March 8, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, kelli Leave a Comment

It’s International Women’s Day, and we were heading out to a local organization where they were playing He Named Me Malala. Stephen was pulling around the motorbike when we heard shouting. I saw a woman running away from the community with her husband running behind her, with a machete-like knife raised over his head.

I remember shouting her name to Stephen, “It’s {name}! GO!” She’s been attacked before, and we spent a horrible evening at the hospital getting her head stitched up and helping her get the blood out of everything.

Stephen leapt off the motorbike and ran into the street, straight for the husband. I was right behind him, and as I exited the gate I saw her running, baby in arms, as he ran behind her and lifted the knife above her head. I screamed oh-so-loudly in a not-very-culturally-accceptable fashion.

Stephen grabbed him, pushed him back, and argued with him to go home, which he refused. I tried to corral all the women and children involved–two women, three children–further away. We made it in the gate and I managed to sit her down on a chair. Stephen pulled the gate shut with the husband outside.

He then dented our gate and shook it furiously while he stared over it at us.

And since it isn’t that much of a gate, we convinced them all to come inside. We shut the door behind us.

Seven of us sat inside. The young mother and her little one-year-old girl began to cry. The grandmother who lives next door had perhaps tried to help and ended up here, too, with her ten-year-old granddaughter and three-year-old grandson.

We cleaned up the wounds, which were very, very minor for what we’ve seen him do before; and for that I am thankful.

He was still shouting outside of the gate, and then made his way in to the door. We soon decided we needed something louder than the awkward silence and louder than him: enter The Lion King.

She went home later by choice. We’ve told her she could stay all night or she can come back any hour of the night, any day.

We missed He Named Me Malala, of course. We tried to crack jokes between ourselves of celebrating International Women’s Day in a much more grandiose fashion: We don’t need to watch Malala save the day when we live here!

But really, I want to cry. And I am.

This is why we have International Women’s Day. Because there are places, so many places around the world, where “just a little bit” of beating is okay. And one of those places is right here on our street.

______________

Earlier today I was talking with a friend in town about our work in the community. We’re over five years in and I’m still not sure how to say what we do. In some ways it’s a bit embarrassing: I feel like we do nothing. I feel like I don’t know how to put it into words.

We are present in the community, waiting for our presence to be needed.

That is an odd job description. I often feel I can’t defend it or tell you why I do it day after day.

Even tonight, as our presence was more needed than other nights, I feel a conflicting pull. A part of me wants to stay more than ever, because these are the homes that need love, presence, and hope. I am renewed in my resolve that this is worth it; this is why we’re here! Likewise, a part of me wants to throw in the towel even more now. I am suddenly aware of how small my presence truly is.

May His presence here be far greater than ours.

Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God;
for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting.
The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.
Psalm 147:1-5

sight for aung moe.

February 9, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, house church, kelli, on the house, photos, stephen Leave a Comment

This will require some back story for those who might not know Aung Moe.

Three years ago, Aung Moe was brought to our house unconscious, and we rushed him to the hospital. He was diagnosed with meningeal encephalitis, and the doctors were pretty certain he was going to die. They asked us to choose how he would have liked to be cremated.

We requested that we wait until he actually died. And then we called a pastor friend of ours, who came and prayed for him in the midst of all of his friends.

And Aung Moe got better! It was quite the recovery, both miraculous and difficult. We eventually picked him up from the hospital still unable to walk and unable to see, and with a bill we certainly didn’t have the ability to pay. The hospital was actually grateful to have him out of their responsibility since he required so much care, and accepted less than 5% of the bill.

We got him back to his house, where he lived alone. His friends helped him with basic tasks and we provided food and things that he needed. He was able to walk again and could care for himself more and more, and now we only buy his food and basic needs week to week. A friend still makes his meals for him and many different people in the community look after him.

We are constantly trying to find new ways to try to help him–we’ve just recently ordered him a crank radio so he can listen through the day; we try to anticipate his needs of clothing or blankets for changing weather. He has gotten braver to ask for specific things, and it all gets easier as we learn more and more Burmese.

He has been diagnosed with cortical blindness. His eyes are functioning normally, but aren’t properly connecting to his brain. This can heal over time, but usually does within the first few months to a year, which we have long past. In recent visits to the eye doctor, they have told us he’s done healing and this is as good as it will get.

However, it continues to improve. Even in the last six months, he has begun to be able to see long distances, but still is unable to see nearer to him. Recently, we started encouraging the kids to pray for Aung Moe and they have really begun to be excited about it. Someone mentions him every week when ask for prayer requests, and we are all praying for his sight to return, particularly his near-sight, so that he might be able to work again some day.

This has been surprisingly complicated. I find myself hesitant to “get the kids hopes up”–a fancy way to say I’m skeptical and struggling to believe. I want them so badly to see Jesus–to see that He loves them and sees them, this little community right here on Samaksuppakan Road.

More and more in our time here, I struggle to believe his goodness. There are so many things we have prayed for that he has chosen not to fulfill. Or perhaps he is another way we can’t see–but again, this is fancy way to say it doesn’t look like it.

I struggle to understand that just because he CAN heal Aung Moe, that he might choose not to.

And it’s true, he might choose not to.

But I think we’re still called to pray, and even to pray for big things. Perhaps we’ll be the little widow in Luke 18, and our Good King will give justice speedily.

So while we pray together here, we wanted to ask you to join us. Please pray for Aung Moe’s sight, and even for work for him. We have it posted on our wall, and maybe you’d post it on yours? Print this picture of him or write his name somewhere, and pray with us.

When the Son of Man comes, may he find faith on earth! (Luke 18:8)