The House Collective

the collective christmas 2019: christmas eve.

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Christmas Eve was really beautiful. We had a worship service outside, where two of the girls from our church came to help Stephen lead a few carols in Burmese. This is particularly special for a few reasons–one of the girls is Yaminoo, who we’ve known and loved for nearly ten years now, and is a young woman learning more and more about her walk with Christ every day. Also, Stephen sang and led entirely in Burmese, which is beautiful in its own way.

The Reinforcers ran sound, our church came to support and participate; I ran Powerpoint with Oak on my lap.

Really beautiful in more ways than one: so many of our favorite things; so much of our heart, sweating around candles on a balmy Christmas Eve on this street.


Then Stephen shared why Christmas is important to our faith, and invited everyone to a Bible class we’re going to offer in a few months. As you read this, take a moment to pray for this class that we’ll be hosting in March.

Following our Christmas Eve carols, we opened our Christmas pajamas as a family. This is also when Oak discovered all those packages under the tree had good things inside for him!

And while we had all the community gifts and Oak’s wrapped by Christmas Eve, we hadn’t finished wrapping for one another. So Stephen and I sat on either side of this door, wrapping presents while we watched a Christmas movie!

the collective christmas 2019: family dinner.

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Our first big event was our last Family Dinner of the year: our Christmas party!

We had a lovely meal together, and then I shared a bit of our hearts for them. This was one of the times I really felt God was asking me to be direct with our closest friends about how much we love them, as well as how much we are praying that they will see the truth of Christ.

Sometimes just saying what you really feel & hope for is very freeing, and I feel that even looking at this photo.

We then followed it with gifts, which was easily one of the highlights of the year. This group of friends are our closest friends in the community, and we know them well. I felt like I knew exactly what they’d want, and we picked out individual gifts for each person. Watching them open, exclaiming in joy; shouts of, “Thats just what I wanted!” We found affordable, locally-made cajons for the two students learning cajon with Stephen, and they were both so excited and surprised. We bought a suki set for Thida that she had been eyeing at the store each week we went together; the week before I’d actually talked her out of buying it because I already had it wrapped for her! It was just so, so much fun.

And then we played games!

We played Pin the Star on the Tree, a Jingle Bell Toss, and a jar guessing game. Really, it was just so very much fun!

the mundanity of today.

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It’s been a long minute since I’ve written here.

I wasn’t sure how this space would shift once we became a family of three, and apparently silence here might be a big part of it. I am using many more words a day and find myself ending days craving alone time, rather than a public space.

But today, there were just a few moments I don’t want to forget, more for the mundanity of it than anything else. This is what life is now: community and family very messily rolled into one.

We woke early and heard the motorbike show up outside, announcing their wares. They come every day, so Oak knows the words and goes running.

The Reinforcers came to prepare for church; the Flour ladies came to sort weekly finances.

I took Oak outside to ride his balance bike. The weather was beautiful, and he visited the neighborhood pig that we currently visit many, many times a day. Unfortunately, this is also where a few men had gathered before going to work for early morning shots, and I was left trying to convince my pajama-clad two-year-old we’d visit the pig another time. It was a dance of cultures and ages, while I tried to casually drag a two-year-old wearing slip on shoes with a balance bike through the mud away from his favorite pig.

My life is very much a dance, and I am no dancer.

We went to church today, with our car loaded with kids. Some of them shared snacks on the way and other shared snacks during church. Some of them are in very difficult places in life: one family of kids is watching their grandmother (and primary caregiver) slowly die from cancer. Another little girl acting out in school due to some challenges at home. Another little girl just removed from one home and pushed into another due to family drama.

Our church got a new LED board today, which now sits on stage with prayer requests glowing and flashing. I really have no words for this, but it is my life.

As we sang, Oak spotted Yaminoo, and began wriggling and jumping to go see her. So we sang songs over near her, as he tugged on her shirt and danced. He ran to her after the service and sat next to her at lunch. And somehow, despite only seeing her once or twice a week, it’s as though he can sense how much we love her.

And I watched her sing along to songs she now knows among a community that is loving her so well, holding my son; and a mile-long list of tear-jerking gratitude wells up in my soul.

This afternoon as Oak slept, we forfeited our usually restful Sunday afternoons to sit alongside our younger sister, Phway Phway. She hopes to attend university later this year, and just received a letter last week inviting her to register. She registers next week to study a major they decided for her and must pay an amount they haven’t told her yet. So we are working through the plans and options for her. We talked over numbers and estimates, we crossed many cultural messes, and tried to consider our options.

She’s the first in her family to graduate high school, even to make it past sixth grade. And if we can somehow manage it, we’d love to see her be the first to graduate university.

We ambled through family photos that a friend oh-so-graciously took for us this week. A whole slew of photos of the three of us, a family.

After Oak woke up, he and I went for a bike ride while daddy played guitar. I listened to my audiobook in one ear while he commented on the airport as we went by—“Grandpa!” since it’s where we picked up grandpa a few weeks ago–and held up his toy plane. He pointed out cement trucks and goats and chickens and ducks and elephant [statues] and suitcases—all of his favorites–in a mix of Burmese & English. And maybe some Thai, since I’m not sure! And I’m really pushing those colors, so we talked the blue skies and the green grass and how we’d wait at this red light until it turned green.

We had dinner as a family at our little table while we listened to street dogs fighting outside, trying to assuage this new fear.

And then we watched our weekly Mister Rogers, cuddled on the couch on Sunday nights before bed. Oak leaned against his dad and gave kisses every few minutes, because he loves this part of every week.

And now I’m left just mulling over the day: the mundanity of it.

But also the miracles buried within it. The miracles buried in Yaminoo and in Oak. The miracles buried in Oak’s bumbling words. The miracles buried in a family photo shoot. The miracles buried in a car (that runs!) and drives a carload of kids to a church we love. The miracles buried in Phway’s graduation from high school, passing her matriculation; the miracles that just might be buried in her future at university. The miracles buried in a street with pigs and ducks and bicycle rides and sunshine.

beautiful things.

by Filed Under: house church, kelli, on the house, photos, playhouse, schoolhouse 1 Comment

It has been quite a month.

We really love living here, and we love this community. But I’ll be honest–and I have been here for years, so you know this already–we’re often in over our heads. And this has been true for nearly a decade now.

And then we adopted a toddler–who can run and shout and touch hot things!–but isn’t able to say much and is doing his best to grasp at English, Burmese, and remnants of Thai.

And so I’m looking through all the photos and realizing just how much there is to say: so many great things! And even I say them, I know they are each too amazing and too great to have waited this long!

But other things won out in priority–mostly keeping our little community center running and hiring eleven people, while keeping a toddler fed and rested and as minimally injured as possible.

First, baptisms! Our church celebrated three baptisms in the past month, including one of the teenagers in our community! He’s an English and guitar student, and his family attends our church regularly. So thankful to celebrate this with them!

Also we just generally love our church: baptisms by the reservoir, big hats and umbrellas.

Our church also hosted a three-day discipleship training, which Stephen and The Reinforcers managed sound and PowerPoint for.

This week after church they gave out free umbrellas for the children and students who are walking to school every day during rainy season. We love their intentionality in the community! We also love that umbrellas are legitimately something everyone gets excited about, kids and teenagers alike.

One of my best girls, Yaminoo, which many of you remember, now lives at the church with a few other young women. She still attends school with many of her friends in the community and she comes to our house after school and through the summer for English classes.

And, after she and I both waiting patently week after week, seeing Oak only on Sundays and Tuesdays, he decided he liked her. So while this photo isn’t all that amazing, it was a milestone. It felt like he just decided to like his big sister!

We are still doing Family Dinner, but we now host it once per month. We all gather around the colorful, delicious meals that Thida cooks up. Then we have a teacher come and attend a Life Skills class together.

Over the past few months, every Family Dinner has held a big announcement: in April we had just received Oak’s photo and shared it with them; in May we announced we’d be leaving the next week to pick him up! Then he joined us for June.

Our sweet sister Phway Phway also came with great news: she passed her Grade 10 matriculation! For those outside of Burma, this won’t mean much: but it’s incredible. Only about 1/3 of the population passes, and she received high marks. She’ll be able to attend university in December if she can determining a funding plan.

Her mom, Thida, was SO PROUD. We were all just beaming for her!

She returned from a year studying in Burma in March, shortly after we visited her. We have connected her and subsidized a position for her at a local organization–the same organization that provides our language classes and self-defense course; also our Life Skills class and previously our sewing training! There, she is working with other Christians, getting more comfortable in her English, and learning basic office and management skills.

She’s planning to work there until December, when she’s hoping to be off to university!

Sojourn Studio is still present in our home a few days a week, and the ladies are working hard on new designs.

They are just releasing three new stud designs, which will soon be available on Etsy under Sojourn Studio. Our neighbor ladies make great models!

Our Schoolhouse classes have been restructured now that there is a toddler to be looked after, but they are still happening! I am now teaching English on Tuesday, twice on Thursday, Friday, and then twice on Saturday. Stephen is still teaching guitar twice and cajon twice through the week, and recently started a coding class. One student is really doing well with coding and learning some great problem-solving skills.

Our house is still a playhouse five days a week in the afternoon!

This is Oak’s favorite friend. They are always up for a hug.

Her mom told us today that she asked about going to English class–Toddler Schoolhouse. Her daughter said she didn’t want to go this week, until she heard Oak was back from Bangkok and then decided to join! 😍

Sometimes, when family disputes happen, our house becomes a playhouse much later into the evening. Thankfully, we always have snacks and toys and, now, a playmate!

We’re also still celebrating community birthdays, sometimes with cake and sometimes with something extra special! The newest Reinforcer just turned fifteen this month, so we had a small party with his friends.

See how beautiful it is? Our church is growing and thriving. Our friends are producing beautiful work and accomplishing great things! Our neighbors are coming to play and rest. And now there’s always a toddler in the middle of it!

safety.

by Filed Under: house calls, house church, housewares, kelli, on the house, photos, stephen 1 Comment

We got a new lock for our front door.

This might not seem significant, but I love what it represents. For years we have had the same lock on our front door, and we’ve slowly been sharing keys. I’m not sure how many we’ve printed now: too many to count. Not only do all our employees have keys, but we also have provided keys to women in challenging domestic situations so that they are able to leave and find a safe place when necessary. Because of this, we also lock it from the outside every night, ensuring people can get in even if we’re asleep or away.

As we worked through our self-defense class earlier this year and dealt with a few different situations, Stephen wasn’t sure it was a great plan, though. It’s hard to flee a situation and remember to grab your key and papers; it’s also fairly easy to take a key from someone or lose it. There were times some friends didn’t have access to a key and thus didn’t come when we were away.

So Stephen started researching. As he loves technology anyway, it was a new challenge. Within a few months, he found a new lock technology that reads fingerprints, storing up to fifty. It also connects to our phones, telling us when the door is both unlocked and locked.

And so, this week we replaced the old lock with this new one, fully equipped with a number of fingers: the bread ladies, The Reinforcers, the jewelry & sewing ladies, the Sojourn Studio staff, our house manager, the girls in our self-defense class, & the two teenagers who are responsible for the community soccer ball! Stephen made sure all the fingerprints were saved and working; everyone was duly impressed.

And best of all, women can escape to our house without finding a key first. They always have their finger with them, and it’s ready and waiting. It’s also helpful that we know a bit of what’s going on when we’re away, seeing as people come and go. If anything goes wrong, we can even remote-access open it, which just blows my mind.

We were pretty excited about this for many reasons.

And then we headed off to Bangkok. It opened one night pretty late, and we wondered a bit about the kids putting the ball away so late and made a note to follow up with them. (We had told them it needed to be in by 9pm, it was a bit after that.)

But instead it was one of our staff members, a dear friend. She told us she and her son had stayed at the house two nights while we were away because of some problems with she & her husband.

And while this isn’t great to hear, it also is. It’s times like this we are thankful we are here, or at least our house is: for such a time as this! And we’re thankful for a place we can share with friends freely, for work and play and safety.

So a new lock is sort of a big deal around here.

a few firsts.

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These are a few of our favorite firsts over the past few weeks!


The first time the hostess asked, “Party of three?” We both melted.


Our first week at church as a family, when our pastors and elders and friends joined to pray for us and Oak!


Oak’s first time to wear thanaka powder.


Our first trip to the Pad Thai Shop, mom’s favorite restaurant!


His first puzzle!

when easter looks different, too.

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It has taken some time to see, or maybe just to accept: holidays look different here. So many holidays and traditions are based around family, and we just don’t have that.

So many others can be replicated, but should they? And are they worth it? Take for instance EVERY TRADITIONAL HOLIDAY FOOD FOR EVERY HOLIDAY. I could spend the entire month of December trying to recreate flavors from scratch, that in the end taste vaguely “different” and you aren’t sure why. And rather than cherishing traditions, you’ve really just sweat your way through the month in the kitchen.

And Easter, too—it just looks different. And each year I accept that a little bit more, and I’ve even begun to love it. It makes me laugh, at how we’re just so close and yet. so. far.

{I’ll tell you, those Instagram posts of cute families in front of clean front doors with their hair blowing in the spring breeze: we’re so very, very far from that.}

So this, THIS was our 2019 Easter. In all it’s chaos and glory.

I left at 7am to pick up Thida to go to the market, because we usually go early on Sunday morning, and we couldn’t do last week because of the nationwide water flight. And next week I’ll be away. So Easter it is! I went ahead and just wore my Easter dress to the market, and walked right on through who-knows-what. And then we went to our version of Costco or Sams, which is also my least favorite place in Mae Sot. Really, my LEAST favorite.

Also at 7am, Stephen met with the two Reinforcers. (Yes, two! We hired another Reinforcer, and Easter was his first week because…I’m not sure why.) They worked together to make PowerPoint slides for church, and then we had a quick meeting with them at 8:30, as we unloaded the car of community groceries and reloaded it with the community!

Stephen left for church with the Reinforcers and the first load of attendees. I finished gathering things for Sunday school.

By 10am, we were all gathered in church for the service. It was just crossing over 100 degrees Farenheit outside, and we were inside, with doors closed to not upset the neighbors with the loud music. It was indescribably hot. I have only two ways to describe it to you: I stood there in my Easter dress, which has been my Easter dress for three years running because that isn’t really a thing here, and sweat is running down…everything. Quite literally every person in the church had sweat spots on their shirts, and we’re all wiping our brows. It was unbelievably and indescribably hot.

Halfway through the singing, one of the toddlers fell out of his chair. He had fallen asleep sitting up and just tipped over. Whoops. I picked him up and tried to get him back to sleep on my shoulder, at which point our two combined body heats were about to put me over the top. I stepped outside, and responded with relief.

Let me just tell you, when temperatures over 100 degrees and a blaring sun feel like a cool relief to you, you might be on the verge of dying.

After singing, I slipped out with the kids and Pwin Pyu Hey, who I’d ask to come help me with reading the verses. We did a life-size gift-wrapped version of Resurrection Eggs, including an attempted crown of thorns I’d made that morning & left me with a lovely little jar of roses.

And then we made tombs.

We built tombs out of chocolate wafers and rolled a chocolate Oreo in front of it. Then we looked in and said, “Is Jesus in there?”…”NOPE! He’s not here!” 😂

After the service, they handed out hard-boiled eggs.

(It’s the beginning of American traditions making their way here, but just not quite arriving yet. So we just eat hard-boiled eggs together.)

And then we ate lunch together, and I can honestly say I have no idea what it was. It had coagulated blood in it, some sort of fish flubber that translates literally to “fish oil,” and what Stephen & I both thought were noodles but turned out to be bamboo shoot.

And then we had ice cream for an Easter special! Strawberry, lime sherbet, and rainbow. We still live in Asia!

We made it home with everyone dropped off by about 1:30pm, and showered before the kids arrived at 2pm to play.

We played with trains and the new dollhouse; we played CandyLand and Monopoly Junior. And we made Easter bunnies.

And then Stephen and I went for dinner when everything finally wrapped up for the day. We finished the day working on our current puzzle and sharing some seashell-shaped chocolate, because egg-shaped chocolate didn’t make these shelves.

That’s Easter, folks. We didn’t embrace traditions; but we did love embracing this community and our church home. And we still hold the same truth of the Resurrection, the same hope of new life; and we just often find ourselves on the untraditional side of those truths!

epic moments.

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We have had many epic moments recently: moments we have waited years for. 

I can’t tell you all of them, really. For some I don’t feel the details or intricacies are mine to share, for some I don’t think it’s worthy of being public. Some I just want to hold closer, for them to be mine and not the world’s. 

Writing here gets harder and harder, and I nearly quit so often these days. I am afraid of not representing my friends well, not representing myself well, not representing my faith or my beliefs well. The internet is just a messy place, and I’m not sure I want to be a part of it anymore. 

But I also want to celebrate, because we don’t always have so much to celebrate. I also want to write, because while we live here without kids and without careers and often with more questions than answers, somehow year after year we still remain here: for the kids that we love like they are ours anyway, for the job skills we see our friends learning, for the aunties and brothers and sisters that we see floating on hope, for the answers we are finding in people and relationships.

So while I’m terrified to write, I also sometimes can’t seem not to. Here’s to a few thousand words.

________________

Rewind to about three years ago, when I had the opportunity to take a sewing class. I had a Burmese friend that wanted to learn some sewing skills; we had another friend with a promised job if she could sew. I wanted to touch up skills I’d learned from mom & grandmother and attend the class as well, but we were left with one spot to spare. 

Stephen & I had the idea of finding a woman in a challenging life situation, so that after the training she might be able to work in a sewing factory nearby. But as we prayed about who, our friend San Aye continually came to mind. For months on end, we felt like this was who God brought to mind. 

At the time, it didn’t seem very logical. She was seven or eight months pregnant with her second child, and she’d have the baby in the middle of the training, requiring us to take a break in the middle for a short maternity leave. It was also unlikely she’d get a job at a local factory once the baby arrived. From our perspective, their family was also in a more stable financial position, and it seemed the training would be a better opportunity for a different family. 

But alas, we couldn’t shake it. I went to ask if she’d like to do the training and she agreed. She had the baby halfway through, and a number of other family challenges came her way. By the end of the training, it was clear she needed steady work in a safe environment, and we were looking for how to make that happen. And as God so often does in our little neighborhood, things fell into place quickly: a local shop asked if we had any friends able to sew for a product they wanted to outsource, and we became that outsource. Within a month of the training, San Aye was sewing in our home a few days a week with her newborn beside her. 

Fast forward to today, when she continues to sew two days a week with us, and also makes jewelry three days a week in our house, through our partnership with Sojourn Studios.

In many ways, we’ve known God orchestrated this from the beginning, as He has with each of our eight House Collective “employees.” It’s a random conglomerate, but we can see his orchestration of each one, and we’ve told them that. It doesn’t have to make sense; it’s obedience.

Last week, as we sat around a cup of tea with the jewelry ladies, we were discussing our greatest achievements: what accomplishment are we most proud of? San Aye shared that it is her ability to sew. She said as a child she always wanted to learn to sew and set it as a sort of goal in her life, and she’s proud that now she can. 

I was a bit shocked, since I thought it was a more random skill. The training was offered, the job was needed…it all happened in such quick succession from my perspective. So I asked, What did you think when I showed up to your house asking if you wanted to do a sewing training?

She said she was “joyful,” but didn’t really know how to tell me how excited she was. She said my Burmese wasn’t as good then, so she just said yes, but really she was so excited. She’d previously tried a few days of training that were offered for free in the market—the top “students” were given jobs at factories, so it was sort of like an interview or exam to see who could pick up the skills fastest. But she wasn’t chosen, so she wasn’t sure how she’d learn. 

While I’ve told her before why we asked her and a bit of our side of the story, I told her again. I told her how much God had told us over and over, and I just wasn’t sure why. But not only did He know the challenges she’d be facing in just a few months, he also knew her dreams, her goals. He knew her! He knows her. 

And he loves her so much to tell us over and over, to create a training, to send a shop in town with a bag design and a job, to provide a sewing machine in our home. We’ve now moved through three or four other sewing projects. She’s learned to make beautiful porcelain jewelry. I can’t even really begin to share all the ways we’ve seen her personally thriving in the past two years. She’s meeting life goals and we’re witnessing it all right from our little house and over sweet cups of tea.  

________________

We’ve known Pyint Soe since he was nine, and he celebrated his 18th birthday this month. It felt so epic, and I’m unable capture quite why. 

We have so many hopes for him, and we’ve invested so much of ourselves into him. Recently, we’ve had some hard conversations, we’ve asked big things. We feel such pride and concern and love for him, like he’s our little brother. And now he’s 18!

Stephen’s spent so many hours with Pyint Soe in recent years, and he’s learned so many things. We’ve been watching him learn so many unique skills: to type in Burmese, to use a Mac easily, to run Powerpoint for church, to run live sound for a variety of different events, to do the basics of sound editing, to speak and write English more fluently. This week we’re anxiously awaiting his exam results, praying he is able to enter grade 10 in June, praying he’ll be the first to graduate in his family.

________________

The love I have for this young woman is scares me. She’s meant so much to me over the years, and she is one of God’s good gifts to me. 

We sat over coffee recently and had my favorite conversation to date. It wasn’t easy by any stretch, but it was one of the most beautiful, epic moments in it’s own way. 

I’m thanking God again for her, for our nine years here, and for the woman she’s become. 

________________

This young woman on the right turned seventeen this month, too—another epic moment! In some ways it was another day: we had a jewelry meeting that morning before she worked in the afternoon. We all slipped out for a special birthday lunch and snapped this photo.

But it was epic to me, because I realized just how much I love her and pray for her.

________________

This is still the year of conversations; conversations we’ve been waiting years to have. Or friendships and relationships we’ve waited years to hold the stories and history and memories they do.

I can’t help but feel a sense arrival; some sort of peace. Our house is crazy folks, and so many days are just one jumble after another. But these friends we wanted to love so well; we were reaching to love them. And then we fell in love with them. They became family. We don’t have to reach anymore, but just be. It happened.

We’re watching the years go by together and having conversations wondering how this unlikely friendship became so normal for all of us. And there’s something very epic about that.

conversations.

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It’s become a trend to choose a word for the year in January. I didn’t join this trend; I just made a few old-fashioned goals.

And then I find myself in February, and it seems a word has picked us. This, my friends, is the year of conversations.

We still have a bread business; ladies are still sewing and making jewelry. The kids still come to play. Stephen is still recording and working with Pyint Soe. English classes are meeting and the new musicians are getting better.

But these are just actions; items on the calendar. Our days are built around conversations. They are difficult, real, and seemingly endless. Sometimes I’m grasping for a specific word I can’t remember the translation; others where I’m grasping for words at all.

In some conversations I know we’ve broken Burmese culture; while in others I know we’ve broken American culture. Most the time I think we’ve abandoned both, and we’re just moving into this no-mans land of a multicultural friendship in some very messy situations.

Over family dinner, we’ve discussed if you’d rather be able to fly or to make yourself invisible. We’ve also talked about the culture of how you wash your clothes, what our values are for our children, and who decides what we watch on television in our homes. We’ve talked about if we should treat everyone equal: if they ask for rice, if we serve them dinner. We’ve talked about alcohol and how we treat animals and gender roles.

Over tea and jewelry and lunch and in the car, we’ve talked about abuse. The self-defense classes we’re attending were specifically offered to some women in difficult situations, and we’ve dealt with them very personally in the past few weeks. Conversations have turned to parents that passed away, stepmothers that abused, family they don’t have. We’ve talked about husbands that beat, the pain of alcoholism, the shame from mother-in-laws, the fear of surviving. We’ve talked about fathers that don’t remember their actions the next day. We’ve talked about safety plans. I talked to one woman about her own self worth, desperately telling her how much I’d miss her if she disappeared, even as she mourned that no one would.

We’ve also talked about how couples met years ago, when certain family members went to Bangkok and when they returned. We’ve talked about one-year goals and five-year goals; dreams and what we’d do with one million baht.

This is all since January. Because this is the year of conversations.

There have been some really beautiful conversations. Moments I couldn’t have created if I tried. Our friends are trusting us in ways they never have, and we’re trusting them, too, with some our fears and challenges; the hopes we have and the things that break our hearts.

I’m thankful for the tea and rice and car rides and muffins and coffees that make these conversations happen.

I’m also overwhelmed at the teas, coffees, and rice still on the schedule for this week. Plus the unplanned ones I can’t currently see coming. Will I have the words? Will I seize the moment? How do I really love this girl right now in this moment, knowing all the pain she carries? What do we say to this man, to love him and challenge him and welcome him in, after we’ve just seen the bruises on his wife?

I’m still overwhelmed by the conversations that have already gone by, reveling in how to pray for them, how to hope for them, and what to do now. Did I say the right word? Did they even understand?  Should I have said something more? 

I don’t know most of these things. I know we’ve been building bridges for years and years, and we hope they are strong enough to continue to hold very honest|painful|hopeful conversations.

It’s only February, and I already know this is the year of conversations.

family dinner.

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We started Family Dinner this month. Every Friday, we invite all of our “employees” and their families to join us for dinner and a class.

Family is a broad word. There are usually between fifteen and thirty of us. It could grow to forty if “everyone” comes; maybe fifty. Family is a broad word around here.

We explained the first week that we were doing this because it’s what we do as Americans, as Christians: we eat together. We talk and get to know one another better.

In Burmese culture, or at least in our neighborhood Burmese culture, it’s quite uncommon for every one to eat together or to talk much while they eat. So we bring “ice breaker” questions. Never mind that we already know the history of your family and marriage and when you hope to have your next child; let’s discuss:
– Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible?
Invisible, so I could steal things everywhere! 🤦🏼‍♀️
– If you could be any animal, what would you be?
A snake so I could kill people. 😳
A dragon. 🧐
A lion so I could get any food I want.
– Which snack are you most like, and why? (Then you get to keep the snack from the basket.)
I’m like these fish snacks because they are long and skinny.
I’m like this bag of chips because it’s fat.
I’m like this snack because my wife likes it and she likes me. 😍

And then we’re having a class together, where we learn together and try to get to know each other even more. The past weeks we’ve been talking about beliefs, core values, ethics, & morals.

We’ve talked about who feeds the kids in the house and why–what decides that? What do we want most in our kids and spouses: intelligence, beauty, wealth, independence, or kindness? Is it okay to hit animals? If we were stranded on a boat with only enough food for five people, how should we decide who lives?

Soon we’ll move on to goals, and what our plans are for this year and the next five. Later, we’ll discuss budgets and time management.

Each week, we have a teacher coming to lead the discussion and teach, so that we can participate like everyone else. She’s a Burmese Christian, so she’s helping us to connect our faith into why we do what we do: why we treat everyone equally, why we live here, why we’ve created jobs for each of them, why we spend our money the way we do, why we have the goals we have.

It’s brought some great, difficult, personal, messy conversations. But that seems to be the theme of the year, so we’re just settling in for the ride.

And even beyond the conversations, we pretty much love it.

It’s most of our closest friends, gathered around delicious food that Thida makes. It’s probably the best meal they’ll have all week, packed with meat and vegetables. I love hearing everyone laugh together, and learning more and more about some of the quieter husbands.

We have two of the teenagers provide childcare for the kids during our lesson, which gives them some spending money and keeps us all sane. I love hearing the kids laugh and call their auntie and uncle over, “When you finish, come plaaayyy!”

I love that we pray together, even if it’s the simplest prayer we can pray in Burmese. Last week, three-year-old Win Moe sat down and said, “Stephen, Kelli, let’s pray!” She said she was hungry.