housewares – Page 6

on the sidelines.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

We also had three broken arms in two weeks!

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

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

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

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

He was pretty adorable, too.

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

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

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

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

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

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

😳😳😳

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

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

new wheels.

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

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

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

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

And now, they’ve gifted us their car!

This is a photo of us with their family.

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

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

And let me tell you, it’s an upgrade.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

baking bread, chasing goats, & then some.

September 11, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house church, housewares, kelli, photos, playhouse Leave a Comment

Some seasons are just too full for too many words. But I do still love the photos!

We have been baking so much bread as of late! Flour & Flowers continues to grow at amazing rates. Most weeks we are baking over twenty loaves of bread and rolling out 140+ tortillas. They are also getting particularly stunning at rolling out beautiful, round, huge tortillas.

We sell cinnamon rolls once a month; and in just our fourth month, sold 20 pans! So many friends, neighbors, and organizations in Mae Sot have been so supportive to purchase, and we are loving seeing it grow. We are also really excited to see a savings account growing for all the staff to split at the end of the year.

We are constantly working to keep the littles away from the hot ovens, particularly as they both mirrors.

Some of our neighbors recently purchased goats. And since we live very communally, if they have new goats, so do we! There are at least three spend most of their time in our yard. In some ways it is a free lawn service; in other ways it is a liability for bread business!

Last week I had cinnamon roll pans out on every table and bench, then turned around to find three goats half way into our house and making their way toward bread! They may be our biggest challenge for leaving our doors open all day.

Our Open House hours through the week are still such fun. This week the kids starting making snowflakes, which quickly turned into crowns–perhaps since they don’t know what snowflakes are?

I love our street in the evenings. The sun sets so beautifully on the horizon of the mountains and the community comes out to buy roti and play games and climb on motorbikes and unwind from the day. Its like block party–every night.

This particular night we had given out photos: a few times a year we print copies of the photos we’ve taken of the community. If there are three kids in a photo, we make four copies–one for each child to have in his house, and then one for our community photo albums. We group them all together and give each household a stack of photos to paste on their walls–y’know, next to the old photos of us in college or of our families that we threw away!

It always fun to see them cherish the photos so much!

Zen Yaw goes to church with us every Sunday afternoon and most Sunday evenings. Despite falling asleep in my lap nearly every time, he loves it. He asks most days if we’re going today (as we’re still sorting out which days are which).

He came back from a different church last week–another local church had picked the kids up for a Saturday program–and exclaimed, “Kelli, you didn’t come to church!” I told him I went to a different church, but we’d go together on Sunday. Did he like it? Yes. What did you learn? We ate snacks! 😂

The best is that he’s learning to pray, and instantly folds his hands into mine and ends with the most adorable Amen I’ve ever heard! So sometimes I try to sneak a photo of his little praying fingers.

And then this morning we had one last little homework help session–with the littles giving high fives on the side– before we left for vacation. While I’m so thankful to be walking on the beach, I’m also thankful we have all of this to go home to.

folders.

August 22, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli Leave a Comment

Four of us are attending the sewing training every Wednesday: myself, NuNu, San Aye & Ma Kai Oo. We’ve hired Ma Kai Oos’ mother to cook a meal for us to take with us so that we don’t have to head to a restaurant, saving both time & money. Instead, she packs it in the stackable lunch boxes that we have here, and we unstack them in the hallway of our sewing class. We each get a bowl of rice, and there are three curries to share.

The past few weeks when Ma Kai Oo brings our basket of lunch, I’ve noticed a coffee bag inside. It’s a bulk bag, which might have 30 packets of coffee, but mostly empty. The first week I was curious if she might make coffee in the afternoon; perhaps her mom sent some with lunch? On the third week of her bringing a coffee bag without any of us drinking coffee, I paid more attention and realized it was her notes–all her sewing notes and worksheets, nicely kept inside of a coffee bag as a folder.

So this week when she was over at our house, I offered her a plastic folder for her sewing notes. If she wanted to value them that much, I’d love to support that. She was so excited; much too excited, really, for it being a folder. And her sister, sitting there, as well, asked if I might have an extra she could use at school.

I smiled and gave her one: partially because I had bought them in bulk for the summer program and still have a number left over; and partially because I just love their little A-type selves. Both of these girls are just so neat and clean: they always come perfectly put together, perfectly clean and in perfectly ironed clothes. They both love hand sanitizer. They like folders and all things neat and organized. And all of these are so difficult living in poverty and in mud! But it’s endearing how hard they work. And if folders will make their week? Why, yes, I’ve got two folders to spare!

_____________

Later that same evening, Ma Kai Oo had gone to the market and had her bicycle stolen. We were really sad: it’s always hard to know what to do. We can’t simply buy her another one, but there just isn’t justice: as an illegal, she can do nothing, really. Bicycles are some of the more prized possessions in this community, so it’s heartbreaking to see them try to figure out how to make ends meet and find another one. Either way, we gave our consolations with little else we could do.

The next week, Ma Kai Oo was over again. She was trying to ask me something about her bicycle, but I was having trouble understanding. After a bit, I finally got it: When her bicycle was stolen, she had lost her folder. Could she please have another folder?

Again, certainly. I can’t give you back your bicycle, but if this folder will mean so much to you: by all means. If a folder will make your week–for a second time!–after you’ve lost your only form of transportation: by all means.

Sometimes I’m amazed how much it’s the little things: the little gifts, the little glimpses of hope. We can’t solve the big problems. We can’t even begin to acquire legal papers and create jobs and absolve debts and find decent housing; we can’t solve hunger and poverty and abuse. But we can show them that they are seen, even in the small, folder-sized things.

sew exciting.

August 15, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli, photos Leave a Comment

See what I did there?

We’ve just starting a sewing training, and I’m loving it!

An organization in town offers sewing trainings, and I was interested in having a few neighbor women learn. It sounded like a fun thing to do with them–with all of us as learners. I’ve also mentioned Adam & NuNu, another couple in town that we are friends with; Nu was interested in the training, too. In the end, there are four of us: me, Nu, and two women from the community. Ma Kai Oo is recently married and 22; and San Aye is around 30 and is due in September with her second baby. Her son, Na Le Ton, is five and attending school during the day.

The plan is for us to attend training once a week for four hours; going for nearly 10 weeks. We’ll take a break in the middle when San Aye has her baby; and then resume. We will learn four or five major projects alongside the skills and techniques of sewing. It’s nearly all in Burmese, so that they all understand and I do my best to follow along. Our teacher knows English, too, and Nu helps out when there’s miscommunications or I’m simply lost.

The two women in the community have been promised one day of work a week after the training is complete. We’ll have machines in our house for them to work on a few different projects–either to share among friends in the States or potentially in partnering with a local organization here. If we can find them more full-time roles with their skills, that is great; but either way we wanted to take the opportunity to spend time with them and learn a skill together. Even one day a week is a great way for them to make a well-paying salary (minimum wage, but that is hard to come by without papers) and be able to bring their babes with them, nurse as needed, and be near to home.

_______________

I have loved getting to spend the time with them. I used to visit the market weekly with San Aye, first for our tea shop visits and later just to shop with her. She would buy items for small pork stand she ran outside of her home, and she’d help me buy food for Aung Moe each week. Now that she no longer has the shop due to police crackdowns, I have missed that time with her and love getting to see her regularly again. She’s a dear friend.

Ma Kai Oo is Thida’s oldest; and Thida is the lovely woman managing our community hours. We love their whole family, but Ma Kai Oo has been the hardest to get to know, partially because she’s quiet and partially because she’s always been working. I have loved working alongside her and getting to know her.

And NuNu: she’s a life-saver. She’s such a dear friend of mine, and just makes life better. She is so wonderful at loving people well, and just eases right into the community. Everyone loves her. She is such a beautiful representation of Christ to them, and I love that they get to see Jesus in their own culture. She always keeps me laughing, and can help me out of any language pickle: by teaching, by translating, or both.

_______________

We’re headed into our third class this week, and last week completed our first project!

I have loved re-learning sewing after about twenty years. I haven’t sewn since summers with grandma or small projects with my mom as a kid. While I’m still not very particular despite being an adult, it’s quite fun.

Our first task was to each make a pair of shorts. We had a pattern to work off of, but we could make them longer and other small adjustments. I kept mine short, as they were intended as sleep shorts. But since most of our neighbors don’t have separate “sleep clothes”–they added length to make them more wear-able in public. Somewhere in the midst of it, it was lost in translation that I would be sleeping in mine. San Aye was looking at my completed project and commented, “I don’t think you’ll be able to sit down in these…” Which is really code for, “These are kind of inappropriate…” I assured her they were for sleeping only!

While this another project on the docket, I am enjoying that this isn’t up to me to organize or create; I simply learn and attend! I also really love working on things alongside friends. Hopeful for where this could lead–for me and for the community.

sons & daughters.

July 11, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli Leave a Comment

During Flour & Flower deliveries on Friday, we were discussing how Kelvin & Laura have just had their firstborn baby back in Canada this week. They were asking the weight and comparing her to their babies’ weight. And they were obviously over-the-moon that she was a little girl.

So I asked, “Are girls or boys ‘good’?” (Note: I am asking two women the car with me. One has six sons, ranging from about 10 to 35, and the other has two sons, 2 months and 4 years.)

Daw Ma Oo: Girls.
Me: Pyo Pyo?
Pyo Pyo: Girls.
Me: What about all Burmese people? What do most people think?
Daw Ma Oo & Pyo Pyo: Girls.
Me: Why?
Pyo Pyo: Girls are better behaved; calm-hearted. Boys are naughty.
Me: But, Daw Ma Oo, don’t you have SIX boys?!”
Daw Ma Oo: Yes. Daw Ma Oo is TIRED.

the community we love.

June 30, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli, photos, playhouse 1 Comment

In the midst of life going by, we–mostly Stephen–capture some amazing photos of this community we love so much, especially the littlest members!
This little friend was in the hospital for nearly two weeks with severe malnourishment. While we waited on couple other friends to see the doctor one day, we spent a couple hours with his mom and others in the malnourishment area. His mom told us how he always goes right to the white doctor when she comes to see him!

This is what dinnertime looks like in the community. There is usually one adult or older child in charge of feeding all the littles, so they go in turns taking a bite. Sometimes while sitting on tires or playing in the street.

Two girls showing off their new pillowcases dresses donated from a local org!

The more the women take on bread baking on their own, the more I am in charge of the three littles. It’s a good gig.

rolling out.

June 6, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli, photos 1 Comment

So this week was our first cinnamon roll week with Flour & Flowers! And it was SO much fun.

We are only offering cinnamon rolls on the first Friday of every month for a couple reasons: it’s ambitious, as you will soon read; and we can sell them at a cheaper price when we make them in large amounts rather than divided over every week.

And our first week we made 102 cinnamon rolls with cream cheese icing. That is in addition to baking ten loaves of bread and rolling out 140 tortillas, all before 2pm.

We then trekked around town, selling all of these in addition to ten bouquets of flowers!

Win, win, win.

The women really enjoyed making the cinnamon rolls. I think it felt a little more artistic than the bread; a little more messy and different. They also loved that it was my grandmother’s recipe that I had learned as a child.

Pyo Pyo’s four-year-old son, Pyint Soe, now makes deliveries with us after school and loves to help carry items in to customers and collect money. He happily handed over the cinnamon rolls at each house; he hadn’t even questioned it since he hadn’t tried one and didn’t know what he was giving away so easily! But after about ten of the houses, he broke down in the car. I was trying to understand: did he want water? A snack?

He wanted the cinnamon rolls. (And they did smell good!) We couldn’t give him any of the ones we had in the car, which was quite upsetting to him. But he was promised one when we got home. Everyone got to try one when we got back, which they loved.

And then they got to take home a bonus, about 30% more of their weekly salary; which hopefully we’ll be able to do on the first week of every month.

We’re pretty excited for a success on every front!

the trio.

May 30, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli, photos 1 Comment

We live in consistent inconsistency, so don’t worry if this is completely confusing.

In short: we had two ladies baking for Flour & Flowers–Pyo Pyo & Nyein Nyein; plus one organizing flowers–Daw Ma Oo. One of the baking ladies, Nyein Nyein, went back to Burma to see her mother, who was sick and hadn’t met Nyein Nyein’s son yet. She was planning to be gone a week, but that turned into three months. We added another young mother, Pwe Pyu Hey, who has been helping for a few months.

Nyein Nyein is now back, as of this week! We’re thankful to have her, her husband, and little Nyein Htet Zaw back in our lives.

As Pwe Pyu Hey has been such a great help and good addition to the group, we’re keeping all three! Pwe Pyu Hey has asked a couple times over the past month if she would have to stop when Nyein Nyein returned. She really enjoys the work and was delighted when I told her we’d try to keep her on. We had hoped to grow to three employees for bread this year, and here we are!

Thankfully, with the additional bread items we recently added, we should be able to make enough most weeks, and use any overflow to make sure they get a consistent salary each week. And hopefully we’ll continue to grow!

As Stephen and I chatted in the kitchen on Friday, we smiled at our three dear friends. This is a great group and a lovely collection of women and families. They are three great moms, all young and now able to work where their babies can be nearby. They can continue to nurse, they can take a minute to get them to sleep, and they have a nanny teaching the babes English! (That’s me.) It’s so fun to chat with them, laugh with them, and just see healthy families growing. They are married to three good men with four children between them.

And now that we have three skilled women working in the kitchen, including Pyo Pyo as manager, I’m mostly there to oversee! I step in when someone is nursing, and otherwise I’m the nanny of three infants, particularly as of this week when the older kids are off to school!

We’ve had Yaminoo stepping in to help over the summer, which has been so helpful.

We’re so thankful for this trio of ladies and their babes filling our home every week!

a project that needs tweaking.

May 16, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli 1 Comment

I’m in the process of re-working a few aspects of Flour & Flowers. We’re adding a couple items, making some pricing and system changes, promoting someone to manager.

Really, we’re always making little tweaks.

Because I have no idea what I’m doing.

I put together a letter to our customers this week, to inform them, to thank them, and ultimately to say, Please, please don’t give up on us. I’m sorry I don’t know what I’m doing, but this is helping these families so much. So many beautiful things are coming out of these friendships. You buying their products is putting gorgeous smiles on their faces and hope in their step. Please, please like these products; please, please think they are a good deal; and please, please keep making this possible week after week. Heaven only knows we can’t eat $30 worth of bread every week or buy $20 worth of flowers; we need you!

And meanwhile, I’m telling these women: please keep working with us. Be patient with my Burmese. Be patient when I stop to chat with the foreigners. Be patient with our little car. Can you see how much I love you to do this with you every week? Can you see how much Jesus loves you and your family to bring us here to sell $30 of bread and $20 of flowers?

There have been some discouragements as of late; some challenges. There have been tears. There have been a lot of prayers that we can only do this with grace and miracles and that we need Him!

You see, I know it isn’t huge. We’re reaching about three families and getting them about $10 a week, with some business skills mixed in.

Meanwhile, I know business isn’t me. I calculate the costs, and recalculate them; they’re probably still inaccurate. I want the women to win; I want them to make money. But I also want the customers–my friends–to be happy, to love what they are getting. And business is not for people pleasers.

But beyond business, I’ve been realizing lately that this is more draining than just that. For a language-learning introvert, going door to door visiting foreigners with three Burmese in tow is no piece of cake. Working in a kitchen reaching over 115 degrees, with two ovens running and a stove top flame cooking tortillas is not for the faint of heart. Neither is rolling out 120 tortillas and baking multiple loaves of bread before noon. And for that matter, doing it in another language and simultaneously discussing domestic abuse, school schedules, when we’ll play Bingo, who is in the latest crisis, and how much my shirt cost me can wear you out, too.

For some reason it took me a number of months to realize why Thursdays & Fridays have worn me out. I only just noticed that it stretches me mentally, physically, relationally, spiritually, and psychologically. I only just realized that we are taking the longest, most challenging road possible to give these families a small sum of income.

It would be so much easier to just give them the money.

But I wouldn’t know Pyo Pyo the way I do. We wouldn’t have been able to ensure they get a good meal of meat and vegetables once a week. We wouldn’t be able to talk about all the hard things we talk about. We wouldn’t be able to talk about savings and budgets and costs and profit. They wouldn’t be picking up English and I wouldn’t know as much Burmese. I wouldn’t get to see their elated faces when someone gives them a 10 baht tip. They wouldn’t be able to see Stephen and I interact, to see me make him coffee and hear him say thank you. They wouldn’t hear us tell each other we love each other or see us help each other out. I woudn’t have been able to learn different Burmese dishes we cook over lunch or how to cut the pumpkin most wasteless-ly.

The list is endless. In short, if we just gave them the money, we wouldn’t be friends.

Instead, we are just tired after a long day of being friends and doing life together {in a place that is sometimes difficult to do life}.

So Flour & Flowers keeps growing and took a couple big leaps this week. We added two new recipes and we’ll now be baking and delivering on the same day! I’m passing over tasks to our new manager, to equip her and ease the work on me. We hope to add more young moms and families soon.

I keep telling Stephen I don’t know what I’m doing; he keeps telling me it doesn’t matter–it’s working! So here’s to things working 🙂