This has been one of our busiest seasons in awhile, in the midst of the hottest summer we’ve had here, so there is much that has gone unsaid. I’m working on it, though, because amidst the chaos, there are some great things blooming.

You see, the summer program has worked! And that is worth noting.

The kids are coming and they are anxious to learn. The students helping are amazing and completely making it possible. We’ve practiced English and we’ve practiced math; we had a geography day and learned about continents, oceans, and countries. We have a money day coming this week to learn about counting and spending and saving.

I taught this little guy to add using Legos. It was amazing.

He made two little piles of 4 and 5, then added them up to 9. And then we did it over and over again with each problem.

I taught another young girl and little boy how to carry when they add. We learned about the different value places and added three digits with three digits.

We learned about families and who lives in their families. We learned how to describe people {and encouraged words other than “big” and “fat”}.

We sang songs and danced together.

They listened to stories with such intensity and learned about being nice to people that are different than us, picking up trash that can hurt the earth and animals, and how we all have something to offer.

We successfully wore the kids out for two hours, making them more sane the other hours of the day!

And summer just flew by us. We finish the summer program this week!

We are in the midst of a busy, challenging, hard season. The weather doesn’t help–it’s the middle of hot season and well over 100 every day. The evenings cool down to the 90s, but that is little respite. It is also summer, so the kids are out of school and, well, like every kid you know on summer break! They get a little stir crazy. They tend to be more destructive, more demanding, and more overwhelming for us.

To help curb this, we thought it would be helpful to have something for them to do–to keep them busy and to wear them out. I talked with the sweet woman I used to take Karen lessons from, who lives near our house and has a small children’s home. They have about seven teenagers in their home and love Jesus, so we thought they’d be great help to love on our community of kids. Actually, they are far more than a great help! They are spectacular teachers.

Every Tuesday & Wednesday from 10-12am, we have about 25 kids in the house. We try to keep the doors open and fans going: 110 degrees with thirty people in a small space is beyond hot.

We take attendance–as there is a prize promised to anyone who attends all 10 classes over five weeks–and then start with English.

Each student has their own work folder, with an English packet and math packet for their level. They work through it on their own or in groups and ask for help when they need it. Its very counter-cultural, since we don’t have a teacher in the front and it isn’t rote learning.

We usually do about 40 minutes of English and then switch to math for about 20 minutes, simply because I have to grade it all and they are much faster at math! Over the weekends I look over all of them and circle what is incorrect, which they then re-do. This is also very counter-cultural, so we’re stretching them in every direction!

A little after 11, we sing songs. I picked out eight songs for us to learn over the five weeks. One is a version of “If You’re Happy & You Know It,” but goes through happy, angry, scared, and sleepy. We also sing a song for the days of the week, one for colors about God coloring the world, and “The Lord is Good to Me.” The last four are from The Verses Project, so they are directly from the ESV Bible. It seemed a great way for them to learn Bible verses in English, so we are memorizing Galatians 5:22-23, John 14:6, Proverbs 15:1, and 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

After we sing through some of the songs, we have “story time.” I found a set of Burmese children’s books in town, and Stephen & I have been reading them in our Burmese classes. They each teach a lesson about caring for others, taking care of the environment, having confidence, etc. I gave them to the older students who are helping us teach, thinking they could read them aloud to the younger students. I’m not sure where the miscommunications occurred or what “story time” generally looks like locally, but it usually means they re-tell the story book in their own way and words. Or sometimes they just tell their own stories–perhaps with a moral, perhaps funny; it’s hard to say because I can only understand bits of it!

Either way, we have stories of some kind.

Once the kids in the community head home, we walk to one of the family’s shops to have lunch with the student helpers.

So far, we’re two weeks in and the kids love it. It is amazing to see them so excited to come and learn, even just to do worksheets on their own. It has also made summer much more bearable for Stephen & I, despite the stacks of papers to check over the weekend. I love the opportunity to encourage the kids and tell them how great they’re doing. Two weeks in, I’m both thankful we decided to do it and that we decided on only five weeks 🙂

We know our lives are far from normal when we spend our Saturday night hosting a community meeting and then laugh for hours with other people’s kids. But, this was our Saturday night.

Part 1: The community meeting went better than we could have expected! We had over thirty adults show and everyone was very responsive. We told them about the summer program for the kids we are starting this week–every Tuesday & Wednesday for six weeks we are going to have what we’re calling a “summer program” from 10am-12pm. We’ll have English practice, math practice, English songs, and Burmese story books. We’re trying to reach four to sixteen year olds, in our house, in the hottest part of the year–so we’ll see how that goes!

We also had to have some difficult conversations about immigration and police changes in Mae Sot, and some ways we can no longer help due to the risk. We also had to address some “abuse” of the system. It gave us a chance to share our heart to help, our heart to be here and to love, but also that we are humans and we have limits. And since thirty of them showed up, they all have huge families, and we are two people–the math is simple enough. With time, we’re working on developing mutual respect.

As everyone left about 8pm, we were hoping to sit down to dinner.

Part 2: John called on FaceTime. We’ve been trying to cross paths with John where he could talk to some of the kids after visiting a few weeks ago. Since everyone had just left from the meeting, Stephen went over to Musana & Zen Yaw’s house to see if they could come talk to him. Musana was eating and said she’d come when she finished, but within a few seconds was running after Stephen. “Did you finish eating already?” we asked.  “No. I’ll eat later!”

She was really excited.

With limited communication, we thought it’d be a shorter call, but the kids were all hooked. Right away they could see that it was day behind him, so we had a little lesson on what side of the Earth we’re each on and how the Earth moves around the sun. With each new kid that joined, the first thing they’d say is, “We’re calling America! It’s morning! It’s 9 o’clock! The SUN is out!”

There were seven us there by the end, and we’d toured John’s entire house. We explained how a house can have three floors, and how a basement can be in the ground. We saw the front of his house and the back, and tried to explain–extensively–why our house in America isn’t on his street. We saw his oven and dishwasher (a very good machine, they declared) and saw his fireplace light with a button. We saw what was in his fridge and identified different foods in English. We saw what his bathroom looks like and looked at American money.

To John’s credit, he was spectacular at making things interesting that, well, aren’t. The kids were amazed at the whole thing–every turn and discovery. Minds were blown, repeatedly!

They played Rock, Paper, Scissors and gave high-fives over the screen. There is also this game the kids taught us while he was here–they say different words in English and you have to do them, so it’s quite simple. But so is their vocabulary, so it’s mostly:

Walking. Walking. Walking, Sitting. Walking. Walking. RUNNING! Sitting. Standing. Walking. Jumping! Jumping!

Also, they like to combine them, like Sitting-Walking and Sitting-Jumping, which is just as hilarious as it sounds. So John did a few examples of those for us.

Part 3: When John had to go it was already nearing ten, but Stephen had the great idea of pulling out Photo Booth. Excuse how small these photos are and cherish the hilarious faces and egregious laughter!

I haven’t heard the kids laugh this hard. Ever.

As they went home and we went off to cook and eat dinner, Musana asked, “Can we do this again tomorrow!?”