The House Collective

little wins.

by Filed Under: housewares, kelli, schoolhouse 1 Comment

The recent season has held quite a few unknowns, as Thailand cracks down on illegal labor nationwide (read: our best friends) and makes international visas more difficult (read: our futures) and lends very little information about the adoption process we wait in (read: no idea when or if baby bunny will come).

Unknowns, to say the least. Even more than there always have been, so…

And while we continue to try to keep a community center running, keep six women in jobs, sell bread and flowers once a week, continue praying and hoping for one woman in chemotherapy and ensure her family is cared for, and make sure the blind man doesn’t have tuberculosis but is cared for while he’s in isolation…

Sometimes we spend so much time just staying on top of every day life, I forget how great some of the things are that we see and experience.

But there are just two little side stories of this month that I don’t want to ever forget.

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First, this little boy. He’s been spending day after day at our house, where he is “watched” by his grandparents who live across the street. He mostly spends time by himself on our porch, asking multiple times a day if we’ll be playing at 4pm.

There’s definitely an opportunity for him to go to school in the area, but we weren’t really sure why he had slipped through the cracks. We talked to his parents and asked if he could go to school; it seemed money was the issue, and perhaps disorganization and disinterest. We asked the little boy if he was interested, and he was beyond keen.

So then we asked Thida to help, and asked her to check with the teachers to see if he could join late and what grade he’d be in; what costs would be. She got us the information and we “hired” her to help coordinate it all–she’s the best gift of a community help we could have asked for. At the cost of $59, the little boy was enrolled in a year of school, was given three uniform sets, new shoes, and a backpack. And Thida made $6 of that for her help in enrolling him and purchasing all the uniforms.

Thida’s kids attend the same school, so a few days in, they reported back that he didn’t have lunch with him each day. The family helped educate the parents on sending him with a lunch pail each day, so he could eat lunch there. The teacher reports back to Thida that he’s incredibly well-behaved and is just so excited to be learning everything and anything.

Fast-forward a week, when we’ve recovered from dengue and he’s situated into school. He arrives at our door in the afternoon, in an adorable uniform and shiny black shoes, wearing a backpack on and a proud smile.

Are you attending school? Do you like it? What are you learning?

He tells me he’s learning the Burmese alphabet and his Burmese numbers; he says he teacher told him they’ll learn English, too. And he tells me he’s writing it all in his book. He goes on about how his mom walks him to school and he walks home by himself, and how his friend Jor Lay is in the same class. And that he loves his teacher.

…Oh, and are we playing at 4pm today? He asks again.

And just like that, he’s in school. He has a piece of stability in his life, friendships, and new role models. He’s learning and growing, and he’ll be joining us for breakfast each morning starting next week, on his way down the street to school.

I don’t want to forget that. It’s a small, but so well-spent $59. Worth every penny.

_______________________

And second, this girl. Thida’s daughter, Mwei Mwei, has officially started sewing in our home three days a week and helping us with childcare during Flour & Flowers on Friday mornings. She’ll also be going to the market with me each week to help purchase food for the blind man in the community, purchase bread baking supplies, and purchase ingredients for The Breakfast Club that starts next Monday! She’s back from Bangkok, living with her family, and has a job in a safe environment.

She’s fourteen, and we’d rather her be in school. But if the family is going to take her out of school, we’d rather her be in a safe work environment that values her age and vulnerability, and gives her the opportunity to keep learning. So that’s us–finding a way to do that!

She was able to do six weeks of sewing training at a nearby organization where her sister also works. She is now sewing new items each week to expand her skills. And for about an hour a day, she also takes lessons from us. We have set her up on a computer with math lessons and typing lessons, while we work with her on spoken English, as well as reading, writing, and typing basic English.

And once a week, we’re also having her spend time reading a Burmese book, which I’ll also be reading in English. After each book, she’ll be writing a short paper or two in Burmese, which we’ll go over with a Burmese teacher, so that she can further her Burmese grammar and language skills. I’m excited that we’ve already found I am Malala and some Charles Dickens’ classics online in Burmese; and I’m on the hunt for a copy of To Kill a Mockingbird that is supposedly translated out there somewhere. I’m hoping it promotes some interesting conversations in Burmese between us, too!

And again, just something not to be forgotten. It’s a little success, a budding relationship, a few hours of study. But she’s safe. We get to watch her with her siblings each day. She gets to be told she’s doing a great job and oh-so-clever on a regular basis. And that’s a win.

Here’s to the little wins that just must not be overlooked in the unknowns 😊

all things in common.

by Filed Under: house church, housewares, kelli, stephen 1 Comment

Thida and her family are such dear friends of ours. She reminds me regularly that I need to open a restaurant to sell bread, cakes, and all the meals they’ve ever tasted. She says she’ll be the kitchen manager and it will be so successful. She even tells me often that they’ll move their whole family to Burma with us if we’d prefer to open a business there!

Her husband built them a beautiful new house about three months–it sits back across a river, so you cross a handmade bamboo bridge to get into a shaded piece of ground, surrounded by trees. The house is beautiful, with three small rooms, a living area, and a kitchen. It’s the most elaborate shack I’ve encountered, with a collection of materials pieced creatively together. After building, they didn’t have electricity at their house, but would have to pay to have the government wire it out to them, particularly being Burmese. So they waited a few months without electricity, coming to our house each afternoon with a selection of flashlights and phones to recharge for their family of 12.

And just weeks ago, they got electricity to their new place. They they bought a refrigerator.

This is where she came to me: they had bought a large fridge for about $75, used from somewhere. She said her husband had told her last night: Stephen & Kelli use their fridge much more, making bread & cakes and such; and they have a smaller fridge. Why don’t we just trade? They could use the big fridge and we would be fine with the small one.

This pretty much melted my heart. For her family of twelve, she wants to trade me for my 4 foot fridge, so that we can have a larger one for all our baking?  The sweetest.

At this point, we’ve declined–I feel like I could just go buy one out of savings, but we’re making do! It doesn’t feel like a necessity yet. And she does have a family of 12!

And more than anything, I’m just honored that we do life together, with a willingness to swap appliances. She has been such a picture of Christ to me, even as I don’t know exactly where she’d say she is on her faith journey. We’re just having lots of conversations, and ultimately, I think she grasps the idea the church and the love of Jesus more than many of us.

“And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need.”
Acts 2:44-45

rejoice with me!

by Filed Under: house church, housewares, kelli, on the house 3 Comments

Since we returned to Mae Sot, it’s been a dark season. I’m not sure I can even put my finger on it, or words to it, except to say that I’ve wanted to move back more than ever before. I’ve questioned if anything is coming of this; if it is worth the heartache and challenges. If it is worth the mountain that constantly seems to lie in front of us.

While we were stateside, one of the ideas gnawing on me was this: I don’t just want to do good here. Good is, well, it’s innately good; but it’s so temporary. Take Flour & Flowers: I love it. It kills me every week, but I love it. I love that I can see the women learning new skills, building their confidence, and seeing their families better off. There are clear successes and clear results, which is unique in this work, and rewarding.

However, if we’re honest, it’s so minimal. They are still paperless; they are still poor. They are only slightly more comfortable and stable; and what happens when we go? Or people stop buying bread & flowers? It feels like you are working so hard for, well, a Band-Aid. A temporary relief of pain, while we’re all still stirring around in the same pot of brokenness.

{I told you this was a dark season, and I am wrestling with my own dark season. But I promise this post ends in great rejoicing. Get excited, and don’t give up on me!}

So I’ve been praying through this: how do we communicate hope in Christ? And how do we even continue to walk in it, broken situation after broken situation?

I’ve been praying through many prayers, wrestling through many questions, and crying many tears. Because I just feel like God hasn’t said to leave yet, but sometimes I’m not sure why we stay.

But this past week we have had some beautiful news.

And I’m simply going to report it in the order it came in, because really, where do you start? Apparently beginnings & conclusions aren’t my speciality. I’m just in for the long, long road in the middle.

First, two years ago in July 2015, we loaned a young couple a large sum of money. It was around $700, to help them pay off a loan they had taken with a loan shark & had a horrible interest rate–30% monthly if I recall correctly. Their plan to pay it off was to split up, with her moving to Burma pregnant & him staying behind to work it off. We offered a plan for them to pay it off in four months to us interest-free.

Two years later, it’s quite clear four months didn’t happen! After the first few $60 payments, they bailed for awhile. We then asked them to give her Flour & Flowers salary each week, about $9. And in $9 increments, for well over a year, they paid off the entire loan last week.

{Insert all the shock and awe and pride you can imagine.}

And then it gets even better: she told us last week that they now want to save with us! She’s going to continue giving us the $9 per week to save for their family!

{Internet writing is not equipped to express the emotions needed for this post, and even more is yet to come!}

And in another success story: Mwei Mwei is attending a sewing training here in town at a Christian organization, and she is loving it. We’ve “hired” her to do this training, and in just a couple weeks she’ll be sewing at our house five days a week. This will keep her with her family, out of a Bangkok job, and she’ll be able to study one hour a day.

She’s confident & smiling now; she’s excelling as a seamstress. Her mom tells me every week that she is so happy, and we couldn’t be happier.

I read a [horribly depressing] article this week on Al Jazeera about the loan business and prostitution that is all over Burma now. It talked about those at risk–taking loans, often from neighbors and friends, at ridiculous interest rates and ending up in endless debt. It talked about how many people are turning to prostitution to pay debts and survive. It talked about the young girls, dropping out of school at 13, and taking jobs for the family–sometimes in factories and sometimes in prostitution, but either way leaving them vulnerable for such situations in the future.

But while I read this, these weren’t vague stories: these were my best friends.

While I didn’t love the messy conversations about money or the ridiculousness of keeping track of $9 per week; while I don’t love hiring a 15-year-old and it isn’t easy to line up tutoring for her every day–it’s all worth it.

Because it’s keeping them from much worse, and it’s investing in dear, dear friends.

And now, the true jaw-dropper, friends.

For a long time, we’ve been attending church every week with one family–a couple with three boys–and then a whole lot of kids. We recently added a grandmother and a young girl with mental disabilities. And we always, always have lots of kids.

We’ve been inviting friends and telling them about our faith for years in the best language we can muster, and really, it’s been evident evangelism isn’t our gifting. We’re planters and waterers in this community.  But this family going with us: they are evangelizers. And so are our pastor & his wife.

And as of this week, six people from around our community are in a baptism class, and they’ll be baptized this Saturday at the local reservoir!

I don’t even begin to have the words or descriptions for this. One of them is our sweet little Yaminoo, who we’ve loved for so many years and prayed so many prayers for. And her dad–I don’t have the words.

All I know is that faith, hope, and love remain. All I know is that even if they are stirred in the pot of brokenness forever on this earth, faith, hope, and love will set their lives apart. All I know is that “he calls together his friends and neighbors, saying to them, ‘Rejoice with me!'” (Luke 15:6,9)

Rejoice with us, friends. Because this is all worth something.

So if our adoption falls to pieces, or our social skills, or even our sanity: if we have jumped in this pot of brokenness with them and can only come home with more disorders and messes than we can ever deal with, it was all worth it. Because faith, hope, and love will remain.

Rejoice with us!

the community carries on.

by Filed Under: housewares, kelli, photos, schoolhouse 1 Comment

Upon returning to Mae Sot, we jumped head-first into renovations on our new addition: we are now renting the two houses of our duplex, and we’re working to make them one cohesive space for our family & the community. We’re also racing to have this all finished before we go to Bangkok for our adoption class, so that our case worker can see photos of our new space.

But while we tear down & build & paint, the community carries on. Life doesn’t stop!

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Our friend, Mwei Mwei, is back from Bangkok! Her whole family is here and so dear to us, and we have been so sad to have her be in Bangkok over the past year. She returned just a week after us, as her mom said it was just too hard on her and them. It has been a sticky situation all along: they are like family to us. Mwei Mwei is like a little sister, and her mom, Thida, is one of my closest friends. We had so many conversations about our concerns with her being there: the risk of her job, if it was above board, the dangers in Bangkok for 14-year-old girls without papers or family!  We told her many times we’d find her a job here if that’s what it took.

So we are! We are working on a sewing project for her to start in our home alongside San Aye, and possibly some childcare options in the community. While we aren’t a big fan of hiring a 14-year-old, we recognize the alternatives and want to make sure those don’t happen. We are also trying to determine how to help her continue some education even if she isn’t enrolled in school. Pray for wisdom as we maneuver this in the coming weeks.

And upon her return, we really wanted her to feel celebrated! We made a cake for the family and snapped a photo when most of them were at our house for Playhouse. (We are still working on smiling during photos!) Mwei Mwei is in red on the right.

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Flour & Flowers continues each week, even in the construction zone! We are baking bread and still keep growing! Daw Ma Oo is still in Yangon, receiving chemotherapy & radiation for her cancer, and possibly a surgery this week, as well. In the mean time, her family is working together to continue the flower sales in a few local markets and with our deliveries.

We know they are having a hard time making ends meet: for all of them to eat, to pay for her treatment, and to get her youngest two sons registered for school. We decided we wanted to find a way to have our Flour & Flower customers get involved. The first week of May, we did a Flowers Fundraiser for her family: we bought all the flowers that week, so that any bouquets purchased gave 100% of sales to her family.  We told everyone in town and had a great response! We were able to give over 3,000 baht (around $100) to her family to help with medical expenses and immediate needs as they function without their main breadwinner.  Even amidst the sadness of her cancer diagnosis, it has been encouraging to see the Burmese community and expat community support her in anyway they can, whether it be financial gifts, buying flowers, making meals, and everything in between.

 And this little friend, whose mom is one of the bread bakers, is always keeping us on our toes! He’s cuter than ever, starting to talk, and loves small spaces, some of which he gets stuck in.

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Last Monday around 8:30pm, San Aye came to our door asking if we could take her to the market. I was a little confused–as most of Mae Sot is closed by that time–as to where and why we’d be going. She said there was a “big, cheap market” in town that had school uniforms for just $1 per shirt, which is less than half of what you’d usually pay. She wanted to get uniforms for her son and her nephews, Daw Ma Oo’s sons. Since we are always looking to support the kids staying in school and are looking for ways to help Daw Ma Oo’s family, this seemed a great opportunity.

Three of us climbed on the motorbike and headed out. I tried to clarify that it was definitely open at such a late hour and where this market might be. Was it in town for a holiday?

Turns out it’s Tesco. The big, cheap market.

San Aye had never been, so it was so interesting to see her response. There is an escalator going up, and she paused, scared to get on. She grabbed my arm for dear life as I tried to tell her when to step and where. It was very Elf-like in the end!  As we left, her sister-in-law and I were in front, headed down the escalator again. Forgetting her fear earlier, we climbed on, only to leave her screaming at the top! I had to turn around and race back up the escalator to help her get on!

The uniforms were some pretty incredible prices: $1 shirts, $1.50 for skirts and shorts, and $3 for the younger kids shoes. We decided it might help others in the community, so I went to some houses and asked if they’d like me to get any for them and they could pay us back.

A week later, I’ve been seven times to Tesco and bought hundreds of dollars worth of uniforms in small $2-$10 loans!

At one point, San Aye realized the shoes she got for her son didn’t actually match each other–they were the same size but different styles. I tried to exchange them for her, but they were sold out in that size. I returned home later and found that I had actually bought the other set in that size that was mismatched, so we could swap them out! I guess that’s what happens when you’re buying most of the inventory! 😂

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Oh, and They They built Paris for us. 😁

six days.

by Filed Under: house calls, housewares, kelli, on the house 2 Comments

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.

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

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.

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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!

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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.

flour & dough.

by Filed Under: housewares, kelli, photos Leave a Comment

So, we have this small business, Flour & Flowers.

It started with just flowers in July of 2014. We simply connected with one of the ladies in our neighborhood who sells flowers in the market, and opened her up to new markets—primarily expats interested in buying beautifully arranged & delivered bouquets every week for $3.

In July 2015, we added in bread.  We started with two types of bread and two young mothers from the community. We have since added two more types of bread, tortillas, and once-a-month cinnamon rolls. We added another young mother in March of this year.

We don’t much say into the flower side of business: she manages all the finances, buying, and selling. We simply provide the connection to a new market and provide a ride around town. We sometimes advise on “what foreigners like” to help advise her; but to be honest, with her being in her fifties with six boys in a hierarchical society, unless we can pull the “foreigner card,” we don’t have much authority! That said, she respects our opinions, and has done so well observing what people like, asking questions, and making improvements. I’ll let her know that around February, people are interested in pinks and reds. In October and November, pinks aren’t popular, unless there is some orange and yellow put in. And the week of Christmas, we shouldn’t see any pink at all. We need some reds!

For the flour side of things, we operate more as managers, with hiring and purchasing and oversight. We have delegated management of production & finances to the oldest of the three, and that is going so well. She has a lower-level of education, so that when we started it was a challenge for her to recall writing, reading, and math from school. She’s getting better as time goes by and she’s reading & writing each week, counting money and sorting it. She keeps all our records and figures the profits each week.

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In the simplest way, and said in the most awe I can muster: It’s working.

We are making profits. We are growing and into markets we didn’t even know. It used to just be a group of our friends, perhaps just ordering in kindness. It’s spreading to people we don’t know; strangers writing us to find out how to get the great bread and fresh flowers to their door. In a small town like this, people love it: local business where a woman and her five-year-old walk to your door to bring you fresh market flowers and warm bread just baked that morning?

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In the photo above, the woman to the far right is Daw Ma Oo, who sells flowers. From left to right, is Pyo Pyo, our manager and mother of 2 boys; Nyein Nyein, sister-in-law to Pyo Pyo and mother of a one-year-old son; and Pwe Pyo Hey, daughter-in-law to Daw Ma Oo and mother of a one-year-old girl.

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For the bread, we started just dividing profits each week. We’d count up the money, they’d pay back cost to us, and then we’d divide it between the employees. We started to see that some weeks they’d make a small salary, while other weeks they’d get a couple days’ worth of pay in one moment. No matter what, they’d head off to the snack shop first thing.

In May of 2016, we decided to change our model. We set salaries for each of the women—the manager makes 500 baht, or $15. That’s over 150% of minimum wage for legal workers, which she isn’t; it’s a good rate, to say it simply. She does do a bit extra—she comes on Thursday evenings to start some of the loaves; she manages the kitchen and finances; & she comes along for deliveries, meaning she could work from 6am to 7pm on a long week. The other two ladies make 300 baht, or $9. This is minimum wage for an 8 hour day, again for those with papers. One of the ladies previously had a job working 12 hours for $4, so it’s a pretty epic deal for her.

All of them can bring their kids with them, if they want. They can also take breaks to nurse as needed, or to get an order child off to school.

it’s a pretty sweet deal for them, even on a weekly basis. To top it, on cinnamon roll weeks they work extra hard and start a bit earlier, so they make an extra $3 each.

In addition to this pay, we started taking all extra profits and setting it aside as a savings plan. We explained it to them, and they watched it grow. They knew if they stayed with us through the year, they’d get a savings bonus.

In the simplest way, and said in the most awe I can muster: It grew. 

Our first goal was to just be in the black. As we watched it working, we started hoping maybe they could get $30 each at the end of the year.

At the beginning of January, we counted out our extra profits, including nearly $30 in change.  We were able to give each of the women 3000 bah each—$100 in savings.

(!!!!!)

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I think we both just stare in awe of what God’s done. He took a little idea and made it grow. He’s made it successful. He’s built relationships—we know these women, these kids, and these families well.

Honestly? I think we also sort of stare at each other in awe of how much easier it would have been to just write three checks for $100.

Or even if we wanted to include all three salaries for the entire year and the savings: about $1800. It would have been a whole lot easier to just write a check for that, too.

It isn’t easy to open up your home every week at 6 or 7am to three women and their kids—with different cleaning standards and no diapers on. It isn’t easy to drive around town and chat with foreigners for a few hours every week. It isn’t easy to balance business and friendship. It isn’t easy to teach someone who doesn’t eat bread how to bake it, in another language. It isn’t easy to explain how important it is to wash hands; how we can’t use flour that has bugs in it, but must—gasp!—throw it out; how we can’t wash Teflon with a scrubber.  It isn’t easy to wait a few minutes longer for someone to count the money, again, because she just isn’t used to dealing with large money or counting.

One of the women and her husband took out a loan from us nearly two years ago. After a police raid, they were forced to move and had taken out a loan, from a loan shark, for $120.  In just a few months it had grown to $700 and they were fading fast. She was pregnant with their first; they were looking to split and figure out how to pay it.

Long story short, we gave it to them interest-free. It hasn’t been an easy road, and ultimately, it let to us taking most of her salary each week, and we were then given back most of her savings. It has been a challenging road and has complicated the friendship. But I also think they’ve seen the love of Christ; they’ve learned the diligence of paying off a loan and working hard. And they’ve paid back over $500. We anticipate it all being paid back by June of this year.

It isn’t easy to share debt and suffering and life with people. It isn’t easy to talk about feelings and awkwardness and God’s love in another language.

Heck, it just isn’t so easy to live here and all that comes with it. It costs so much more–for us, for our supporters, for our families–than $1800.

It wasn’t easy, and it won’t be any time in the near future.

But…

In the simplest way, and said in the most awe I can muster: It is good.

We are so thankful it’s working, it’s growing, and it’s good.

another epic christmas: part 3.

by Filed Under: housewares, kelli, on the house, onehouse, photos, stephen 2 Comments

{Whew, part 1 & 2 were all in one day. Epic might not be a strong enough word!}

On Friday, 23 December, we had our usual Flour & Flowers day. We did make it a little extra-epic by adding a special cinnamon roll week, so that customers could order cinnamon rolls to have Christmas Eve or Christmas morning with their families. This was a HUGE hit, and we sold 24 pans of cinnamon rolls with cream cheese icing!

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We also gave out Christmas cookies to all of our customers that week to say thank you for their kindness and support.

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And then it was just a huge week all around! We baked from 6am to 1:30pm, and then came back together about 2:30 to load up the car. We also had some special Christmas gifts for the Flour & Flower ladies.

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For the bakers, we had some coordinating aprons made for them. For the woman who delivers flowers, we bought her a new bag. It was quite similar to her favorite, but in a nice leather and much higher quality. She was thrilled, and loaded it up right then to take with us.

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And then we snapped a photo of all of us. So thankful we get to continue building relationships with all these women & help each of their families.

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On Christmas Eve, amidst packing more and more presents, we also had OneHouse worship that evening. This month we met out at a friend’s house for a candlelight service in the rice fields. It was beautiful with just starlight and candlelight.

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We let some of the neighbors come along, and we had the carols & Scriptures available in English, Burmese & Thai. {So much work for Stephen! He’s got some amazing projects going with worship music in multiple languages. It’s slow-going and usually in the background of medical emergencies and chaos, but it’s incredible. It’s so unifying to hear the same song sung in many languages.}

The kids did so well and made us proud. They sang along as best they could, and sang so loudly when we got to Hark! The Herald Angels Sing and Joy to the World, which they had sung for their parents on Thursday.

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We also had zero fire emergencies in our crew, which is notable! I was holding Zen Yaw, and trying to help him keep his candle upright and lit. When the wind would blow, I’d use my hand to protect his flame. After a few times, he learned what I was doing and he’d do the same for my candle. So adorable. 😍 He’s been doing so good recently at sitting through church, and comes with us usually. Most every day he comes by the house and asks if we’re going to church today. Honestly, I think it’s because he knows he’ll be held for a couple of hours, but I’m okay with that!

For Christmas Day, we celebrated on our own for most of the morning.

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We had a number of gifts from the community to open, which included:

img_3419A shirt (Smile Star), perfume (or cologne? It’s hard to say), a blue fuzzy scrunchi, a school notebook, and two handmade scarves (with yarn we’d been giving out in the community). I also feel like you need a close up of the description on the perfume/cologne:

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Tempting, eh? 😂

I was also given a beautiful sarong, too, but it was already worn and in the wash!

For the afternoon and evening on Christmas, we went to the Fetter’s house, who graciously let us pretend to be a part of their family! Their two oldest girls are visiting from university over the holidays, and it was just so fun to have their whole family together again, and us pretending to be a part of it!

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We also got to put Stephen’s new selfie-stick to good use! #coolestgadgetever

It was a quiet Christmas with no hospital visits, only a few wounds to change or bandage, and overall, fairly peaceful. That was a huge gift.

And that is precisely why we decided to give out gifts on the 26th. It is a bit overwhelming to hand out gifts to over 300 people, and that is also why we don’t have many photos of this. Once you come out with bags in hand, it’s herds and crowds and chaos.

But we survived another year!

And gifts this year were so much fun. It gets more and more fun each year as we know people better. We were brave enough to buy clothes and shoes this year, feeling like we could even guess sizes pretty well.

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Six years in, I also realized why I like Christmas gifts in the community so much: it’s one chance to give so freely, and no one asks again. For so much of the year we are surrounded by poverty: kids without shoes, clothes with gaping holes, kids playing with broken toys. We watch our neighbors join us for church in clothes that no longer fit: I saw one man with us wearing pants that were well past fitting–he just had them open in the front, tied with a belt/string, and then pulled his shirt down over it. I see our neighbors embarrassed when they aren’t dressed as well as others. I see kids off to school barefoot.

And yet every decision has to be weighed–if I give them a new shirt, how many more will come? If we buy him shoes, how many more will we need?

But Christmas is different. For the neighbors, it’s this crazy American holiday where people give gifts! Its the one day we get away with just giving ridiculously.

“Ridiculously”–We usually have a budget of 100 baht per person, or $3. This year, I sent Stephen a text from the market: Is our budget still 100/person? I think it should be 200…All the good stuff is expensive. To which he replied, Yes to 250 per person!

So we were a little more flexible for our closest friends this year. Each person got a loose budget of a couple hundred baht, plus soap, toothbrushes, and toothpaste. For the families we don’t know well, we have “family presents”– a nice blanket, baby powder, soap, toothpaste, & toothbrushes. We found some incredible deals this year, which made it so fun. We found some football jerseys for just $1 each, and kids’ fleece pants for just 80 cents! I found women’s sarongs for just $2!  We found some footballs for about $5, so we gave those to a few of the older boys, particularly after watching them play football in the street with a shoe and a bowl over the past few weeks. We found stuffed animals, simple jewelry, small purses, and superhero figurines for the kids; watches, shoes, and longyis for the men; sarongs, shirts, and shoes for the women.

We also included special gifts for the youth that have been joining us at church each week–we got the girls new dresses and the boys button-up shirts. For the three families that don’t have electricity, we got them rechargeable lanterns, and let them know they can send them with their kids to recharge them at our house while the kids play in the afternoon.

Like I said, Christmas is such a great opportunity to fill the needs you’ve been seeing for months, and you finally get to try to alleviate them, if even for a moment.

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This year, we packed up all the gifts at a friend’s house down the road, where we “rented” their guest room for the month. It gave us a secret place to wrap presents and store them, which was beyond helpful!

On the 26th, we loaded up the car for one “area” of the neighborhood at a time. Our car would look like this:

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We’d deliver them all, and then re-fill! It took about 5 carloads and three hours.

It was so fun to see the kids delighted–trying on new clothes, oohing and aahing over each new item they pulled out of their bag. Two of the kids came by the house later and I asked if they were happy, to which the older girl said, No, I’m VERY happy! 😍

temporary-3Here’s ZuZu in her new kitty cat pants, and Win Moe in her cozy little outfit (with ears!).

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And then we headed out of town! It can get a little crazy, so we had things packed up to camp and left for a few days in the mountains. It was very cold and we were very tired, so we spent three days mostly sleeping and reading. Here we are very happy and rested, but perhaps still sleeping a little.

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You’d think that by the 31st “Christmas” would be be coming to close, but not yet. This part of the world just loves celebrations. Part 4 still to come 😀

captured.

by Filed Under: housewares, kelli, on the house, stephen 2 Comments

It is really difficult to capture what we do and why we live here. Sometimes I’m not sure I know the answers to those questions, which just complicates putting them into words for others, or perhaps into words in other languages.

Recently, following a heartbreaking domestic abuse situation, one of our close friends was left with a swollen face, a newborn baby girl, and without a front tooth.  She was discouraged for so many reasons, not withstanding the affair that led to this; that her husband refused to hold her new baby girl, he was refusing to feed her and the two kids, and she was feeling like she couldn’t get a job without a tooth and being illiterate.

So we have visited her and sat with her often over the past few weeks, attempting to both mourn with her and ensure her physical needs were met by sneaking her money for food.

Somewhere along the way, Stephen and I started talking about getting her tooth replaced: what the expenses would be, as well as the aftermath–how many people would know how much we spent on it? How it would affect community hierarchies and friendships? When do we say yes and when do we say no?

In the end, we decided to say yes to this one. It required two trips to a dentist that lived out in the middle of nowhere but did speak Burmese. It required me to be the dental assistant for the first trip, a three-hour visit of grinding down teeth that wasn’t my favorite. It felt a little outside of the norm for us–not an obvious need, but a felt need all the same.

As we left the second visit, she seemed unsure. It looked far better than I could have ever imagined, but even as I gushed over how beautiful she looked, she seemed skeptical.

I started to wonder if it was worth it–the money, the time, the effects in the community; even the discomfort of having water (and who knows what else) sprayed all over me from the dentist’s chair!

But the next day, I saw her standing outside in the road–she was holding her baby, dressed in all yellow. She looked gorgeous, laughing with her friends and chatting. When I approached, she smiled broader than I have seen since…well, since her world fell apart. She was the San Aye I remember–so confident and friendly.

Her two friends were complimenting how beautiful she looked, and I have heard that many times this week. Not one person has asked us how much it cost or why we helped her. She has been around nearly every day–outside and chatting with friends, where I’ve previously only found her at home, hiding inside.

I really couldn’t be happier. I’m not sure we could have spent that money better. I feel like she got a glimpse of love–that she is seen and known and loved, even when it feels like everything is falling apart. Someone is putting the pieces back together.

We’ve told her that our church and friends from church give us the money to do things like this. When she tells me she is ashamed for us to help because its so expensive, I tell her not to be ashamed to us–it’s a gift from my friends! It’s a gift from the church!

It’s because Jesus sees you and loves you.

I asked her later if Stephen could take a photo of her so we could show the “friends who bought her tooth” how beautiful she looked. That’s mostly all of you, collectively, making our lives here possible, the purchase of this tooth possible, and even her food over these challenging weeks.

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And at this photo, I think it’s captured. In some ways it is just some money for rice and a new tooth. But in other ways, this is so much of what we hope for–everything that her smile says.

We also caught a photo at the end of our sewing training, just a week later. She is the one with the biggest smile! There is so much for her to be proud of.

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