housewares – Page 7

a new baby, but different.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

stephen & win mo.

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

Flour & Flowers has been challenging recently. We are down one staff member, Nyein Nyein, for baking bread, as she’s been in Burma for nearly a month. She went to see her mother who was sick and hadn’t met Nyein Nyein’s newborn son. She planned to be gone a week and we filled in with a friend, and since communication is limited in Burma, we’re not sure what happened after that. She’s coming back soon, they promise.

We’d been wanting to add another employee, and per usual–our lives push us in the direction we do want to move in, just far faster than we would have chosen! So we added another young mom, Pwe Pyu Hey, who has a seven-month-old, Win Mo. Pyo Pyo is still a faithful baker and has all the recipes now memorized, but is also now nine months pregnant. She is due next Friday, and we are just going week to week to see if she comes to work or goes into labor!

We like to keep things interesting.

This week as we baked four batches of bread and rolled out 120 tortillas, the young seven-month-old was crying and crying to be held. The mother just kept telling her, I have to work! I have to work! You are fine. After a bit, Stephen came into the kitchen, picked her up, and swept her away to his studio. She quieted down quickly and then fell asleep on his shoulder while he worked.

I loved the mothers’ reactions. Both of them were surprised, commenting among themselves how Stephen took her and helped while they worked. I loved seeing him hold this little girl and talk to her; seeing the little girl know and trust him. I always love watching how he loves our neighbors, in particular the children and mothers. Sometimes I think it is the biggest gift for them to see him love so well and look out for their good.This was last Thursday. It still makes me smile.

down-trodden.

March 23, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house church, housewares, kelli 1 Comment

Stephen asked how I slept this morning. I told him it was awful: I tossed and turned and woke up multiple times, either crying or screaming. He asked if I had nightmares.

Well, I don’t know. My dreams had simply re-lived the previous two days, so does that count as nightmares?

We waited out a community-wide fight on Sunday night. We then woke on Monday morning to learn that our sweet friend, Daw Ma Oo, had been arrested the night before in the market. Perhaps this is where the tensions started: fear.

Daw Ma Oo is our friend that sells flowers with us every Friday, so this was particularly heavy news, and we weren’t sure how to respond. I don’t know how much detail we can share publicly, but the attempts to pay a form of “bail” were not accepted. Nor will she be deported. Instead, she’ll be kept in prison for 45 days.

She is the primary breadwinner for her home. Her husband does some farming and raises some animals. She has six sons, three of which live with her, in addition to one daughter-in-law and a granddaughter. Two more sons and their wives and kids live in other houses in our little community.

Her fifteen-year-old son was with her when she was arrested, but he was left behind to return and tell the family the news. And so the days have now been full of trying to come up with solutions: how to keep the flower business going on Friday, how to incorporate the daughter-in-law into bread making for additional income, how to make sure Daw Ma Oo is fed and cared for in prison, how to make sure the family has rice today.

So in my dreams, our dear friend was in prison and we were trying to figure out all the details. And that is preciously what we’ve been doing.

We woke up Tuesday to a few visitors at our gate. A few high school students from a nearby home help translate for us every week at House Church. On Monday night, one of them went missing. His friends came looking for him at our house early Tuesday morning, and before long we joined the search. Thus went the next three hours of checking hospitals and locations all around town, praying for his safety. Honestly, suicide rates are high here among teenagers, and I was fearful.

Again, I’m not sure all I can say. It looks like now he went back to Burma, and it really isn’t in our hands, but we are hopeful he is safe. We are sad, though; he was a good friend and spending a few hours with him every week was special to us. He has been such a blessing to this community and has loved them with a servant heart.

So I also had dreams of us looking for our friend all around Mae Sot, which we did spend a good deal of time doing.

It has been a heavy week, and we are trying to pray through the next few days and what God has for us. We bake bread tomorrow, welcome a friend from the US in the afternoon, and share the resurrection story at House Church tomorrow night. We have two worship events we are hosting this weekend, in addition to delivering bread and flowers around town sans some staff and with heightened concerns.

Oh, and we have little sleep.

Per usual, I have no conclusions. I don’t know how to share the ups and downs of things here, particularly when it is some low lows. So rather than conclude, I’d just ask for prayer again. Pray for this community as we celebrate Easter here. Pray for Daw Ma Oo as she sits in prison, that God would meet with her. Pray for the down-trodden and broken-hearted–whether that be our friends or us!–that the hope of the resurrection would shine brilliantly.

it was the bunny.

March 7, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli Leave a Comment

Earlier this week, our water went out. We assumed that the water hadn’t come from the government overnight and our tank was empty.

Well, the water hadn’t come from the government and our tank was practically empty, but there was another problem.

Our water pump cord had been chewed through.

I’d like to pretend that maybe our bunny escaped, went outside to chew the cord, and then came back in. I don’t like to think about other rodent-like animals that might be spending time that close to our house.

It was just the bunny, right? RIGHT?

We were baking bread on Thursday and I picked up a flour bag with a large hole chewed in it. I panicked a bit, as Pyo Pyo & Nyein Nyein said the dreaded word in Burmese. Was it a rat? Stephen and I talked it over, this time I was really, really, really hoping it was the bunny. Surely he had just chewed through that bag of flour oh-so-quickly when he was out running around. I just wasn’t watching him closely enough.

Now I was pretty ready to give credit to a rat for the water pump, which now felt far enough away that it was okay. A rat outside chewing on things is suddenly a non-issue when I’m trying to determine what is eating my food in my kitchen.

Pyo Pyo & Nyein Nyein could see my discomfort as I tried to tell them we thought it was the bunny. I told them I was scared of rats and really didn’t want one in my house. To which Pyo Pyo replied, “It’s okay. We were watching TV and a huge rat crawled right by us.”

Hmm. As comforting as that is (!!), I’m going to definitely say this one was the bunny. RIGHT?!

a second gift.

January 26, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli Leave a Comment

So we have this little business we affectionately call Flour & Flowers, delivering fresh homemade bread and local flower bouquets door to door once a week. We’re small and we are making it up as we go.

We are definitely more about relationship than business, and we know that might get us into trouble someday, if it has’t already.

And there are many days I wonder why we thought this is something we could do.

Then there are other days, when I receive a text from a friend telling us that she’s giving us her oven as she leaves town. Her oven, a prized and coveted item in this little town: for free. She said she loves what we are doing with the ladies and feels like its an opportunity to support it as she goes.

That would be the second oven we’ve been gifted since starting this little business last July.

I have no words.

Both of these ovens were also gifted from Partners’ staff members long after we had resigned from the organization. What a testimony to the generous, gracious people we were able to work alongside!

The oven needs a little loving and minor repairs, which we’ll be working on as we dream about what this means: do we expand our options? Do we speed up our process? How do we best utilize the tools we’ve been given to bless this community?

We start by giving thanks–to the generous people who give and to God who orchestrates the giving and receiving in the ways I least expect.

Then we rearrange our kitchen a few times to decide how to arrange two ovens, bulk ingredients, and three people that our little business requires into our closet-sized kitchen!

a small thing.

January 20, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli, playhouse Leave a Comment

“Not all of us can do great things. But we can do small things with great love.”
Mother Teresa

The 1,740 math problems I just checked over didn’t feel like a small thing, but I know it is. It is a small thing, but we are seeking to do it with great love.

Since our neighbors were removed from their land in mid-2014, our definition of the word “neighbor” continues to grow. Each day we find more and more new friends coming to the door, kids who have heard about Bingo or the puzzles; adults who heard we would give them a bandage or a ride to the clinic when they are in labor.

Sometime in the last year, our community grew to include two young girls and their brothers. The whole families would come play in the evenings and community events, but the two girls, about 12 or 13, and the youngest little brothers, about 2 & 3, started spending nearly every day here.

We learned that the boys went to school, but the girls had to stop attending to watch their little siblings and help around the house. When there wasn’t laundry to be done or meals to be cooked, they meandered here, where there was at least a yard to explore, a playground to climb on, and even some games. Knowing they weren’t able to go to school, we tried to make it fun for them. I’d leave them matching games or toy cars to play with outside while we went to and fro.

It felt like something you read about in a book, as we watched these young girls unable to learn or go to school just because they were girls. So toward the end of last year, I had an idea.

We went into town and bought them a collection of books: a very basic English alphabet workbook, a basic English sentence workbook, an addition practice book, a subtraction practice book, a connect-the-dots coloring book. We bought them each a zipper pouch to put their workbooks in, as well as a couple pencils and pens and colored pencils. And then we bought a few cars and dinosaurs for the little boys.

We put it all together in a bag and hung it by the door. Just as all the kids trickled back into school last week after the Christmas holiday, I sat down one morning to explain it to them. I explained that it was theirs, and they could each choose the pouch they wanted, but they had to keep it at our house. Each day, when the kids are off to school, they can come to get it and play, do the worksheets, and have “school.” And before the kids come home from school, they have to pack it all up and put it back on the hook. I explained that we would have to come and go for work, but if they had any questions, they could ask for help.

I wasn’t really sure what they’d think.

We started with the easiest books, and it actually worked out just perfectly. It’s just simple enough for them to be confident, and then as it progresses they can ask for more help. For now, they are loving the math, but a little less excited about the alphabet practice. When I told them I had more workbooks, a little harder, for when they finished these, their eyes lit up and they gave a shy thank you.

For us, it’s a small thing. In many ways I wish I spent hours a day sitting down with them and teaching them new skills. Instead, we buy workbooks and I answer a few questions here and there and explain a new technique. I spend a few evenings each week going over their work and ensuring they still have pages left.

And of course I place a red smiley face at the top of each page, to both acknowledge their work and to send them all the “Attagirl”s I can muster into that little squiggle.

It’s a small thing, but we hope it shows them great love.

This year, my single goal was to maintain status quo: to not add more to my plate, to not say yes to more and more.

Instead, I’ve got two little students waiting in the mornings, and I just finished grading their work at 10pm. Instead, we were up into the wee hours of this morning creating a logo & Facebook page for our Flour & Flower deliveries. Instead, we’ve got a full day tomorrow as we add flour tortillas to our weekly deliveries, in an attempt to increase profits enough to hire & share the love with one more neighbor.

Because instead of just stopping where we are, we see more and more little cracks–cracks than can be filled! Crevices of opportunity. Fractures of individuals that have been overlooked. But God has put us here, for such a time as this, to see them and to love them in the very small things.

people always say change is a good thing…

January 13, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli, photos 1 Comment

Mae Sot is changing. In many ways it has been since we moved, as we are in the more “developing” part of the world. But the past year in particular has held some giant leaps.

They are paving paradise and putting up parking lots all over the place.

There is a part of me that believes development is good. Don’t we call this place “undeveloped” in a negative sense? Isn’t that so much of what I studied in school–how to bring development to the world? How to help people and communities discover the advantages of development?

And let me tell you, these new items are extra shiny to the eye. Not only do we now have chocolate chips and peanut butter available to us, but our newest concrete masterpiece offers Pepperidge Farm Goldfish! And a selection of cheese! (And they only ask for one retirement fund as payment…)

Really, it’s fun to suddenly have these things available. It was so fun to see Stephen so excited for a real ice cream shop, and this was only trumped by the joy of this shop putting mint chocolate chip on the menu! And now we have two movie theaters playing English movies on occasion, and he’s just on top of the world (and really, this saves us from a trip to the city to watch his favorites!). I was giddy for my stocking holding the aforementioned Goldfish and canned olives.

We also just got a Boots, which I’m just over the moon for. For the Americans among us, this is the world’s best version of a Walgreens, coming from England. It’s spectacular. They have all the great hair products and Qtips, makeup in shades that just might work for me, even tampons. And to top it all off, they have sales constantly to make these Western items affordable if you are patient. I’m absolutely thrilled about our latest Boots addition, and I won’t even hide it.

So it’s good, right?

But when you see it happening, it’s heartbreaking. The percentage of concrete increases daily and reaches toward the sky. The number of cars multiplies. And beyond that, an entire town becomes more “official” and pushes out those dearest to me, who are bit more “unofficial,” if you will.

How do we support the little guy, many of whom we love?

We don’t always go to the big shops. It’s tempting, I’ll tell you. It’s pretty easy to buy everything in fell swoop, right?

But I can’t. I can’t give up on the little market ladies that know us. I can’t pass on the little snippets of conversation in Burmese and they joy they get when I spend $6. I can’t give up on the ladies that ask if we are buying this for our blind friend. I can’t give up on the amazing pharmacist that has diagnosed me and helped me find the right medicine time and time again.

I can’t see their doors close.

So we go to the market each week. We struggle to park the car, we get our feet muddled in who-knows-what, and we buy from vendor after vendor. We go to the little shop to buy all of our bread ingredients from the man that is holding his little girl at the cash register. We buy our bread from our neighbors even after it was baked in our oven.

Sometimes we do go to enjoy delicious mint chocolate ice cream and find ourselves some cheese. Sometimes we watch Star Wars twice because its a $3 air-conditioned date. And let me tell you, I’ll be visiting Boots enough to know the sales. So change is a good thing, in some ways.

In other ways, I will pray more for our neighbors as they are pushed to the margins. I will knead bread alongside them as we try to hold onto the beauty of homemade! I will get outside of the concrete and soak up the mountains and sunsets over rice paddies.

countdown to christmas: wednesday.

December 27, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli, photos Leave a Comment

Having gone to bed so late, I woke up at 7:53am, two and half hours past my alarm and 7 minutes before Pyo Pyo was to arrive to bake bread! Stephen & I frantically ran around stuffing all the unwrapped presents into the studio and covering the other bags with blankets.

We then got to work baking 14 pans of rolls and 17 loaves of bread.

Since Nyein Nyein & Pyo Pyo are both pregnant, we worked out a maternity plan for each of them. We didn’t want them to miss pay, so I step in for them for three weeks after the baby and give them the money each week. Then they can come back to work with their babes in tow; and since they are both pregnant, they both get the blessing of three weeks paid leave. Really, God is just good and works out all the little details!

We still invite Nyein Nyein and her beautiful baby boy over to join us for lunch.

Anyway, all of this left Pyo Pyo & I to ourselves for a full day of baking, followed by a full night of wrapping presents. Although we only made it to 11pm this time.

countdown to christmas: tuesday.

December 27, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli, on the house, photos Leave a Comment

Now we really had to buckle down to getting presents sorted.

Unfortunately, there was a little three-hour detour to the clinic for a dog bite to the head of a five-year-old.

Our Flour & Flower deliveries usually happen on Friday, so for Christmas week we moved them up a day. And for a Christmas special, we offered the secret Spurlock roll for sale. I thought I could make them the night before, as needed, and they could help me shape & bake them the following day. It would be a fun expansion of something I’d be baking anyway, and allow Pyo Pyo & Nyein Nyein to make some extra money!This left me kneading a huge ball of dough that evening.It also exploded in our fridge and in Laura & Kelvin’s fridge!

We finished buying gifts and started wrapping about 6pm. I starting falling asleep over presents at 1:30am, just finishing all the gifts for the kids.

it’s a win.

November 16, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli Leave a Comment

I haven’t written much recently. I even currently on a plane around world to the United States and we haven’t really mentioned it. I’m not sure I’ve known what to say: about this or that, or anything in between.

The good stories have been muddy recently; the hope has been fogged. I’ve been searching, I promise, but the problems needing solutions and fractures threatening greater cracks have been glaring. There have been more losses than wins.

I’ve asked many, many questions about why we are here and what we are doing and if God is in this. I’ve cried many, many tears. We have prayed and prayed and prayed.

But there are little treasures there, and I don’t want to neglect them in search of the big answers and great triumphs.

A few weeks ago, we had a meeting with the two ladies who bake & sell bread and the one woman who sells flowers—our Flour & Flowers crew. It wasn’t the easiest little get-together and required some address of issues, using our best cultural approaches and wearing us thin as we try to love and give grace while we challenge and hold accountable.

Life is so messy.

But in the midst of this messy meeting and messy issues, one of the women asked us a favor. She asked if we might help her to save some money. She just found out she is pregnant with her second child, and she wanted to have money ready when the baby came. She asked if she could give us 200 baht every week for us to keep for her and save up until the baby comes.

As our previous banker role has always been as a lender, this is certainly something we were interested in!

In fact, it is one project we have long discussed starting, so we’ve been considering systems and solutions. That is mostly because God is good like that and {sometimes} just helps us to have some thinking time before He springs such opportunities on us.

But we have done our thinking, and we are so thrilled to encourage such a practice! Our little banking system has begun, and she’s saving 20-25% of her income from bread deliveries each week.

Savings!? 20-25%!?

And the development strategists go wild!

And her neighbors that love her and this growing family are absolutely thrilled. It’s a start; it’s a little treasure. It’s a win.