kelli – Page 30

beyond me.

April 10, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli 1 Comment

I was sitting in church last week and feeling overwhelmed. As I thought through my list for the week, the coming month, and the goals for the year, I realized something: they are all beyond me. They all, each and every one, require significant miracles.

To name a few:

We’re still learning language to understand this church service and communicate more with all our friends. We’re still studying daily. We are learning daily. And there is still so much to learn.

We are managing a business to sell products to an expat community, while communication is limited, my business experience is zilch, and were working with illegals and running the risks involved therein. We are also trying to really know these people and do life with them, so we are also dealing with debts and savings, domestic situations, child-rearing, and deep-seated poverty week in and week out. Oh, and I have to drive a car for three to four hours every Friday, while communicating in multiple languages and trying to maintain relationships with both the Burmese workers with me and the expat homes we are visiting. I then go back to home to sort the finances of it all, which is just the most complicated way to split about $30. This entire practice every Friday is beyond me each and every week, and a complete miracle when it is done successfully.

We’re sharing the gospel with this community every Thursday. We are often shouting above the noise and trying to ignore one child hanging on our legs, another playing magnets despite warnings, and yet another eating Mama noodles impossibly loud. We want them to hear this and know this, but we can’t make them. We can get them here. We can speak truth. We can help truth be translated. And while even this is a monstrous task each week, it is stil left in the hands of He who makes things grow.

Stephen is building a drum set to begin a recording project to hopefully create worship music translated into multiple languages. Building anything in this country is a product of many hours, multiple failures, and intense heat. Meanwhile, he is motivated by this huge dream that is far beyond him, but has to start somewhere.

And then we have our side projects, which we know are so good and yet take precious time. We are working with a local organization that provides green energy all along the border to provide a video this month and recreate two websites. Stephen is creating a database for an amazing woman in town that serves hundreds of migrants around our area, places just like our neighborhood. He’s helping her and two local staff move from notebooks containing ten years of chaotic notes to a syncing system on iPads, which is no small task. I am doing research on the side for a local political organization to help teach leaders headed into political dialogues. It’s all bigger than us.

Recent events in Mae Sot have caused to us to begin to ask how long we can be here doing this without getting into trouble ourselves. We have had to question each trip out and about and each police check. This makes us ask what is next: do we stay here? Do we attempt to move into Burma with some of our friends here? What would that entail–financially, with visas, work, and such? Do we go back to America? What would we do there? Do we want children? Where would we want to have them? And perhaps at the root of it all, how long do we want to do this? As this moves from a season in Mae Sot, to well, a longer season–what does this mean for the still longer season of our lives? Yet again, so many questions and so many prayers, and so many things beyond us.

So I was overwhelmed, to say the least.

We chatted over Skype with one of our strategic mentors this week. He was discussing our goals and vision with us, saying this is right where we want to be: where we need God to carry it out.

There is a deep-seated pessimism in me–that perhaps might be growing since we arrived in this lovely town– and my thought was this: but what if he doesn’t?

If it all depends on Him showing up and he chooses not to–which as the sovereign God he is, I believe he can–what then? Then it’s just us, floating in this random little border town, failing at this entire list and then some.

Erwin McManus wrote a book and often spoke on “The Barbaric Way” of faith. He shared the idea that we had made Christianity safe and weren’t willing to risk for Christ. We have one of these talks on our iPhones, and I listen to it often enough and have mentioned it here many a time. One of the passages he considers is Matthew 11, where John writes to Jesus from prison and asks, “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?” Jesus replies to the disciples, “Go and tell John what you hear and see: the blind receive their sight and the lame walk, lepers are cleansed and the deaf hear, and the dead are raised up, and the poor have good news preached to them. And blessed is the one who is not offended by me.”

McManus says and emphasizes it this way, “[John asks,] If Jesus was the One, why wasn’t he helping him out? Where was Jesus for him? Why wasn’t Jesus coming to rescue him? …If he was following God and doing God’s will and if he was the forerunner to the Messiah, where was the Messiah for him? And Jesus sends back a report to his disciples…Jesus sends back this amazing resume, right? The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the dead are raised, & the good news is preached to the poor. Now that’s pretty spectacular, but there’s nothing there that John didn’t know. And then Jesus adds this odd statement, ‘Blessed is the man who does not fall away on account of me.’ How many people do you know that fall away from God because God’s doing too much? … What Jesus was saying to John was, ‘This is what I’m doing. I have the power, the authority, the capacity, and I’m doing it. I’m making the blind see, the lame walk, lepers cleansed. I’m raising the dead, but John, you are going die.’”

I’ve wondered this often about our lives here. For one, I have wondered if we are going to die here. I have also wondered if we will just never be the same–if I will forever struggle with depression or nightmares or fears because of what I’ve seen and experienced. What if Jesus were to say of our time in this community, The lame walk, the blind see, the dead are raised, but Kelli, for you this is going to be a hard road. It is going to hurt you.

I started wondering this years ago and praying through this. I’m selfish enough that it wasn’t a quick agreement. But God is also good enough and has given us a deep love for this community, so that I came to accept this possibility. What if I am ruined for the sake of these friends knowing Christ?

But if I think any further, this suddenly becomes not the sacrificial way, but the ideal.

God is sovereign. He is great and He is good in a way I cannot comprehend. So what if he is also saying, The lame walk, the blind see, the dead are raised–and I am good; but your friends, they are going to die.

Because this could also be true. There are stories of His goodness all around the world, and what if they aren’t in my neighborhood? Does that change the character of God?

I know I need to say no to that. But this is where I am faltering. It is obvious that there are miracles God chooses to perform and miracles he chooses not to: from one healed of cancer to another whose life is ended to soon; from the person who prays for a parking spot and receives it, while another prays for a friends soul and is left wanting; from unspeakably cruel murders by ISIS to me asking for my neighborhood to know the love of Jesus.

There are times he chooses to answer and there are times he doesn’t. What if my life is where he doesn’t? And really, what is actually far scarier for me–what if my neighbors’ lives are where he chooses not to answer these prayers?

In so many ways, he has already come for me. He has shown me his love in more ways than I can comprehend. He has given me miracles and spoken truth to me. And while he may be silent now or for the rest of my life even, he has shown himself.

What if this is all he is going to show to my neighbors? What if this is their chance? What if our prayers for them are the ones that go unanswered?

The first thing I realize is that this doesn’t really change anything for me. I love and follow God because of who He is, not because I understand him.

It doesn’t change my life here, because I am called to be here by the God I’ve chosen to serve. But it does make it harder to reconcile the pain and suffering. It makes me pray and beg for Him to be present here and to show up in all these miracles: may language come, so they can know the truth. May business succeed, so they can see the Father’s love and care for their every need. May they hear the truth, so they can be changed by it. May drum sets work and songs be translated, so they may worship His name. May we serve others in Mae Sot, so they may all see the body of Christ working together in unity. And may God lead us and direct us every step of the way, for His kingdom and not our plans.

I find myself praying big prayers, weeping for Him to hear them, and hoping, hoping, hoping.

Psalm 86:1-13
Incline your ear, O Lord, and answer me, for I am poor & needy. Preserve my life, for I am godly; save your servant, who trusts in you–you are my God. Be gracious to me, O Lord, for to you do I cry all the day. Gladden the soul of your servant, for to you, O Lord, do I lift up my soul. For you, O Lord, are good and forgiving, abounding in steadfast love to all who call upon you. Give ear, O Lord, to my prayer; listen to my plea for grace. In the day of my trouble I call upon you, for you answer me. There is none like you among the gods, O Lord, nor are there any works like yours. All the nations you have made shall come and worship before you, O Lord, and shall glorify your name. For you are great and do wondrous things; you alone are God. Teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth; unite my heart to fear your name. I give thanks to you, O Lord, my God, with my whole heart, and I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love toward me; you have delivered my soul from the depths of Sheol.

watching clothes wash.

April 8, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos, playhouse 1 Comment

When a couple of the kids asked about the washing machine last week, I didn’t think much of it when I let them climb on top and have a look.

I was surprised when they spent the next twenty minutes watching it do what it does best–wash clothes. It sounds similar to watching paint dry.

I was even more surprised when Zen Yaw came in days later and ran straight to the washer. “Kelli! Kelli! Come, come! Water! Water! Go!”

He started banging on the side of the washer. I told him I didn’t need to wash clothes–I’d just finished a load, and we’re still so-so on the water situation. I didn’t want to push it.

“We’re not washing clothes right now.”
“YES! WATER! GO!”
“No, we’ll wash tomorrow.”
“No. Now.”
“Tomorrow.”
“No.”
“…Tomorrow.”
“No.”

I let him turn it off and on a few times, “On, off, on off…”; open and close the lid, “Open, close, open, close.” We had a little language practice for both of us, but no clothes were washed.

Until this morning, when he arrived at the door to say hello and I asked if he wanted to wash clothes.

“WASH! WATER, WATER, WATER!”

His older cousin wasn’t quite as excited, but enough to join him and spend thirty minutes of summer watching the clothes spin. I talked them through how to start it, where I put the soap, and what buttons to push. We got out a snack of fish, a headlamp, and then we watched the clothes spin.

For thirty minutes.

It’s probably the cutest thing I’ve seen in a long time. Each time the cycle changed, it made a sing-song noise, or anything changed, he’d give a loud, “Oh?” with big eyes. He loved watching it spin and telling me when water was coming in.

Towards the end I had to go make Flour & Flower deliveries. He left begrudgingly, took of the headlamp begrudgingly, but accepted the fish as a peace offering. When I returned four hours later, he ran in the house and went straight to the washer.

“Water! Water!”
“It’s finished. The water is gone!”
“It’s not finished.”
“Yes, it is. Finished washing.”
“It’s not finished.”

So that’s the newest thing on the block! My neighbors are the cutest.

we call this home.

April 3, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos, playhouse Leave a Comment

We had a friend in town visiting this week, which is always just a fresh perspective. While this is foreign to them and I watch them adjust and explore, I find myself thinking over and over again: I live here. This is home. Sometimes that is amazing: beautiful kids and laughter and Bingo games to win laundry detergent. Sometimes its exotic and we enjoy fresh pineapple and avocado smoothies before we visit a waterfall. And sometimes it is poverty, and the kids play in our trash and stay at our house to avoid drunken fathers and we hear fighting in the street.

All of these are true, for better or for worse. But it is still home! So here are some pictures of the beautiful parts of it.

John was a huge hit with the kids.

We bake bread on Thursdays with young moms. One of the little babes is 7 months, which is just enough to get around and out of reach. Yaminoo was recruited to babysit, which brings along her brother, Lay Tah Oo. And Pyo Pyo’s son, Pyint Soe, gets to play, too, since his mom bakes. My favorite is watching Yaminoo multitask as she reads an ABC book and keeps little Win Mo moving with her feet.

And then they decide they want to sing the baby to sleep–with blankets, in nearly 100 degree weather, with two ovens and stove top running. It’s official summertime, so many of our friends are heading back to Burma to visit family and friends! Here we were helping a family get to the border.

Bingo is a big thing. We recently expanded to “real” prizes, which include laundry detergent, toothpaste, toothbrushes, soap, sponges, and noodles. We hope to help meet more practical needs in a fun way, and it draws in more adults. We are also finding that most kids over 6 will choose laundry detergent over candy, so it seems its meeting a known need. We visited a few waterfalls while John was here. And even during the driest part of the year, there is fun to be had!

Isn’t she just beautiful? And its so fun to have the littles grow up with us and not be afraid of white skin and beards! She loves to have Stephen throw her up in the air.And some days, we sit on the washer and watch the clothes wash. For the older kids, we talked about what each button means and how it all works and watch the countdown until it finishes. For the littles, they exclaim over and over, “Water coming!” and “Whoa! Fast!” Instead of Saturday morning cartoons, we have thirty minutes of technology exposure!And this–this will be a photo I cherish forever. This house has so many stories in it. So many smiles, so many shaved heads, so much tanaka powder, and so many friends

celebrating well.

April 2, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house church, kelli, onehouse, photos Leave a Comment

At the beginning of this year, Stephen and I were praying over James 4:13-15, “Come now, you who say, ‘Today or tomorrow we will go into such and such a town and spend a year there and trade and make a profit’— yet you do not know what tomorrow will bring. What is your life? For you are a mist that appears for a little time and then vanishes. Instead you ought to say, ‘If the Lord wills, we will live and do this or that.'” We created a “goals” list for 2016 which is on our bedroom wall under the title If the Lord wills we will live & do.

Honestly, we set relatively low goals. Most days we are just trying to maintain status quo and love well in this community. And as we watch our families’ lives march on, conquering multiple jobs, selling and buying and building houses, starting business, having (more!) babies…I’ve struggled with my list. It’s small. It’s just living and loving this little community that someday we’ll walk away from, unsure of what seeds have taken root from all the planting and watering.

Even so, we wanted to just vocalize the dreams we feel like God has put before us. And one of the simple goals we set is this: celebrate Easter well, as a couple & as a community.

Honestly, I feel like we’ve really fallen in love with Christmas here. And even fallen into a sync with it. We are able to share the Christmas story each year, we are able to get gifts for hundreds of our dear friends, we have a huge community meal, we have carolers from local churches coming night after night. We had a candlelit carols night and a worship night; we had a Christmas movie night. We had time as a couple. We walked through an Advent together. It felt meaningful, generous, & full.

But Easter–Easter still lacks some flair. I feel like it often gets overlooked somewhat by many of the communities around us. We build up the birth of Christ, but we miss his death and resurrection.

So this year, we set out to celebrate well: between the two of us; in this little neighborhood that surrounds us; and in the expat community of Mae Sot.

In House Church, we have been walking through the Gospels since Christmas, and just shared Jesus’ washing the disciples feet the week before Easter. For Easter week, we had church outside, where we could use a sound system and hopefully keep the kids’ attention & encourage additional ears to listen in. We adapted the idea of Resurrection Eggs into bags for the kids to help open. We had a cup & crackers for the Passover meal, money for the betrayal, flowers for the Garden of Gethsemane, a “whip” (a fake leather belt) and “crown of thorns” (thorny rose stems jumbled together), three nails, a white cloth, stones (pieces of concrete from the yard; we were thinking creatively!); and the last bag was empty, to represent the empty tomb. The kids really enjoyed opening the bags, and since they got to keep what was inside, the little girl who got the money was pretty excited!

We finished with a special snack of sausage & cucumbers for the whole community. After the arrest of Daw Ma Oo last week, her daughter-in-law, San Aye, was nervous to sell at her pork shop. Since she wouldn’t have any business for the week, we asked her to cook sausages for House Church. It was fun to see the community functioning holistically, and despite the fishy smell that filled our house that evening…It felt special, and that was the goal!

On Saturday night, we had our monthly OneHouse worship night for the expat community. We then woke up early Sunday morning and headed out to the local reservoir with a host of fresh-baked cinnamon rolls and coffee. We had invited the expat community to join us for a “sunrise” service at 7:30.

Stephen did such a great job throughout the weekend leading everyone, and it was such a great way to celebrate Easter. We also had our friend John visiting from the US, and he was so kind to come along despite all that we had filled the weekend with!

So while I look at our list, the goals are simple. But I’m so thankful for the opportunity to see the Easter story resounding in our neighborhood.

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.

learning verses.

March 18, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house church, kelli Leave a Comment

It is pretty amazing to see how God works things out, and his fingerprints have been all over our little House Church.

Let me first admit this: it is the most chaotic hour of the week. It’s mostly kids, save a few adults that will drop in, stand outside, or meander. There are kids coming in and out constantly. There is usually at least one child peeing on the floor. There are snacks being eaten and games being played. There are kids talking and trying to play with the magnets.

It’s absolute chaos.

BUT the kids are remembering things. They are remembering the stories. They remember the applications. They tell me about them through the week. And even in the middle of it, most of what they are talking about is the story being told.

In many ways, this is showing us a whole new side of the culture. It reminds me of when I found the child writing on the wall and snapped at him, suddenly realizing by his face he didn’t mean it that way and truly had no idea that my wall was any different than his own, which bears phone numbers and drawings and random bits of words. Likewise, sometimes the kids actions aren’t necessarily meant to be disrespectful, even if it feels that way.

It is also showing me a new side of patience.

And of hope. I find great hope in Isaiah 55:10-11, “For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it.” We have a room of children hearing Scripture presented in their own language, and it will not return empty. The Scripture is alive and active, sharper than any double-edged sword (Hebrews 4:12), and it will accomplish the purpose that God has put before it.

So we will speak it above the hum of crunched Mama noodles and crying siblings and chatter.

In many ways, seeing His fingerprints all over is deep in my soul and not necessarily in the midst of a sweaty, loud bible study. It was pretty spectacular how we worked our way through the stories and the Christmas story fell nearly perfectly on Christmas Eve. We did have to work in one extra story into the book we are working through, but it was such fun to act out the Christmas story on Christmas Eve in our front yard.

And now, as we are nearing Easter, we are working our way toward the story of the crucifixion and resurrection, which will be on Maundy Thursday. We’ll do it outside again, but we’re working out the details for other creative presentations, so as not to have a skit of the crucifixion for obvious reasons.

Last week, Stephen took a week to present theology to the kids. From the beginning, every week has been connected to the Prince that was coming to save us. (If you aren’t familiar with The Jesus Storybook Bible, look it up. It’s such a beautiful presentation of the Bible for kids and adults alike.) And now as we walk through the stories of The Prince in the New Testament, we wanted to try to tie it all together. So first, we needed to attempt to explain the Trinity. We also needed to explain what the Prince came to save us from, and why the Prince was necessary.

Stephen did a stellar job, and it was one of the more {obviously} successful weeks ever. As a part of it, we encouraged the kids to memorize a verse, John 14:6, by this coming week, and safid we’d have prizes. Some of them knew it right away, as they’ve learned it at the Saturday church program they attend. Even so, we went all out with the prizes, and they were nearly to Christmas present level at about $2 per prize, which is also about half their parents’ daily wages. We had about fifteen kids say the verse perfectly!

We also went to work learning it in Burmese. I’ll admit I only got halfway through: I memorized the first three sentences, which break down into, Jesus said, “I am the way. I am also the truth. I am also the life.”

But Stephen did awesome! He learned it all and recited it for the kids. There was one little mistake in the middle, where also is very, very near to the derogatory slang word for the male reproductive organ–like so close that it’s the same spelling, but different pronunciation. At least it gathered a laugh in the middle.

(Side note, it’s also very similar to part of the color orange. So last week I mispronounced orange, to which the little girl giggled and said with big eyes, “No, Kelli! Orange!”)

In the midst of all this verse memorization, I took the verse to our teacher to ask a few questions about how it breaks down grammatically and what words are chosen. Many of our neighbors aren’t literate, so the children are only partially literate. In addition to that, written and colloquial Burmese are different, and the Bible is in the literary form, which not everyone knows. So while some are literate enough to read spoken Burmese, they can’t necessarily read written, formal Burmese.

As we broke down the verse, it was so interesting to see how it translates. The word for “Christ” is literally “master.” Burmese is structured differently than English. English is subject-verb-object, but Burmese is subject-object verb. So it makes the sentence “No one comes to the Father except through me” to be translated directly as: “Me without depending no one father to arrive can.” (See why language learning is so dang hard?!) But there are a couple things I really love about this. First, I love the use of the word translating most like “depend.” It seems so much more explanatory than coming through Jesus. Instead, we must depend on Jesus.

And what I love most is the word they use for father. It isn’t just what you call your dad, formal or informal. When my teacher, who is Buddhist, read it, he laughed. He said, “Oh! They use the word for the King. Like a prince or princess calls their father.” He thought this was quite funny to choose such high language, but I loved it. In this one verse, and really in every instance of Father, it inherently implies our role as heirs. It make us princes and princesses. I am amazed how much theology is buried in the language–in any language–and thus how pivotal it all is.

Either way, the kids took to memorizing so strongly, we’re doing it again this week! May the Scripture not return empty.

uneven stephen.

March 9, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, stephen Leave a Comment

Our lives have always been uneven.

We have papers to grant us an official birth, country, and legality; our neighbors often do not.
We were born to well-fed mothers; most of them were born into an outrageously high infant mortality rate.
We have a house with concrete walls and strong ceilings; they have a collection of bamboo, wood, tin, old signs, and tarp.
We have water and electricity that runs into our house {most days}; they have one light bulb and a communal well.
We have a house above floodwater; they have mud and rising waters.
We have locking doors; they have diary locks.
We have an amazing machine to throw our dirty clothes into; they wash them by hand each and every day.
We shower in private; they shower publicly.
We drive a motorbike or car or bicycle; they bicycle as a family or walk.
We sleep on a mattress raised above the rats and creatures; they have cardboard or mats resting on the ground.
We throw out the trash; they collect it from us.

I could go on. But it’s an easy point to see and has been since we arrived: it’s uneven.

And yet today, I finally woke to my third alarm at 6:45, which is yet another uneven: the cell phone, the alarm, the fact that I slept past daylight. Stephen rolled over, put his arm around me and kissed the back of my hair. He told me he loved me.

Not only is that a very good way to wake, but it was stark reminder of another uneven. After the night we had last night, I am very aware of what some women are going to sleep with and waking up to.

Instead, I’m waking up next to an uneven Stephen: one of the greatest gifts I’ve been given.

Which one of you, if his son asks him for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a serpent? If you then, who are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father who is in heaven give good things to those who ask him!
Matthew 7:9-11

today is international women’s day.

March 8, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, kelli Leave a Comment

It’s International Women’s Day, and we were heading out to a local organization where they were playing He Named Me Malala. Stephen was pulling around the motorbike when we heard shouting. I saw a woman running away from the community with her husband running behind her, with a machete-like knife raised over his head.

I remember shouting her name to Stephen, “It’s {name}! GO!” She’s been attacked before, and we spent a horrible evening at the hospital getting her head stitched up and helping her get the blood out of everything.

Stephen leapt off the motorbike and ran into the street, straight for the husband. I was right behind him, and as I exited the gate I saw her running, baby in arms, as he ran behind her and lifted the knife above her head. I screamed oh-so-loudly in a not-very-culturally-accceptable fashion.

Stephen grabbed him, pushed him back, and argued with him to go home, which he refused. I tried to corral all the women and children involved–two women, three children–further away. We made it in the gate and I managed to sit her down on a chair. Stephen pulled the gate shut with the husband outside.

He then dented our gate and shook it furiously while he stared over it at us.

And since it isn’t that much of a gate, we convinced them all to come inside. We shut the door behind us.

Seven of us sat inside. The young mother and her little one-year-old girl began to cry. The grandmother who lives next door had perhaps tried to help and ended up here, too, with her ten-year-old granddaughter and three-year-old grandson.

We cleaned up the wounds, which were very, very minor for what we’ve seen him do before; and for that I am thankful.

He was still shouting outside of the gate, and then made his way in to the door. We soon decided we needed something louder than the awkward silence and louder than him: enter The Lion King.

She went home later by choice. We’ve told her she could stay all night or she can come back any hour of the night, any day.

We missed He Named Me Malala, of course. We tried to crack jokes between ourselves of celebrating International Women’s Day in a much more grandiose fashion: We don’t need to watch Malala save the day when we live here!

But really, I want to cry. And I am.

This is why we have International Women’s Day. Because there are places, so many places around the world, where “just a little bit” of beating is okay. And one of those places is right here on our street.

______________

Earlier today I was talking with a friend in town about our work in the community. We’re over five years in and I’m still not sure how to say what we do. In some ways it’s a bit embarrassing: I feel like we do nothing. I feel like I don’t know how to put it into words.

We are present in the community, waiting for our presence to be needed.

That is an odd job description. I often feel I can’t defend it or tell you why I do it day after day.

Even tonight, as our presence was more needed than other nights, I feel a conflicting pull. A part of me wants to stay more than ever, because these are the homes that need love, presence, and hope. I am renewed in my resolve that this is worth it; this is why we’re here! Likewise, a part of me wants to throw in the towel even more now. I am suddenly aware of how small my presence truly is.

May His presence here be far greater than ours.

Praise the Lord! For it is good to sing praises to our God;
for it is pleasant, and a song of praise is fitting.
The Lord builds up Jerusalem; he gathers the outcasts of Israel.
He heals the brokenhearted and binds up their wounds.
He determines the number of the stars; he gives to all of them their names.
Great is our Lord, and abundant in power; his understanding is beyond measure.
Psalm 147:1-5

good things as of late.

March 7, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos, playhouse 1 Comment

While adults are often messy, these kids give us smiles and joy day after day. There are a few good things as of late that need not be forgotten.

There are a lot of babies in our lives right now, and six more on the way in the next seven months!

While calling Bingo every Thursday, I try to make sure there is a baby in my arms. While I look overly focused on calling numbers and maintaining my sanity–forty or so adults and children playing Bingo in a hot community space while the young kids shout in a tent and play trains in a bit chaotic, to say the least–look at this baby’s sweet face!

And with babies come older siblings with lots of responsibility. The newest tactic is to place the baby in a tire in our driveway, where they can’t escape, and then the sibling is left to play. I came outside one afternoon to three tires full of babies and no adult or older sibling in sight! They were off playing hide & go seek.

In this photo below, the top child is actually a baby, unable to get out of the tire. The child on the bottom is three and just climbed in to join the fun!

Sometimes it’s an adoring older cousin, too.

House Church has been fun lately as we’ve been going through the Gospels. We’ve tried to come up with ways to make the stories more tangible, including a snack of five loaves and two fish–

–and planting cilantro or flower seeds in good soil.
We also taught the story of Mary anointing Jesus’ feet with perfume last week and gave each person a small perfume bottle. Which was very popular with them, but less popular with our own noses. Whoa.

The kids have been asking to help more in the kitchen and house, so the past two Saturdays have found them chopping vegetables in the kitchen. The first week they helped me make a tomato-pumpkin pasta for the band at our OneHouse worship night.

The second we we made chicken pot pies for us to take to a family for dinner and drop a second one by a family with a newborn. They certainly love to help, and they don’t mind having to wash their hands when our soap smells like oranges. And I don’t mind having help to chop a pile of vegetables when their hands are clean 🙂 The littlest sibling doesn’t mind it either. Who wouldn’t want to come to the house where they let you stand on chairs to see what is going on?

Pretty thankful to practice language and love on kids in a way that makes us all smile!

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?!