kelli – Page 38

a recap, for when life comes at you fast.

June 4, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, on the house, photos, playhouse Leave a Comment

Things have just gone so fast in the community recently. We are nearing the end of a three-month summer…I don’t really know how to describe it, except to just say that our yard & house are the daycare plan, and it’s exhausting. There are so many kids around our house, all day and every day.

But they started school on Tuesday, and we are kind of excited about that.

We can now go outside in the morning and catch smiles and goodbyes, and then enjoy a semi-quiet day, with adults or just two or three children outside . Our evenings are then more community-centered, where we have the energy still left in us to play with the kids and talk with the adults.

The summer chaos and summer heat has been tiring, but we have had a lot of little things that have gone well.

Tea shop visits have been going so well recently. We have a small, constant group we take each week and get to talk with. It is so fun to see these relationships growing. A few weeks back, one of the girls’ zippers split on her side, and she was quite embarrassed. We came up with a quick solution and she wore my purse to sit right on top of the split. It was so cute to see everyone work together, to see the growth of relationships, and just to see trust grow. It amazes me how much time it takes to really know someone and call them friends, particularly with language limitations and challenges; it takes living life together. It takes week after week of little conversations, little memories, and getting to know their quirks and habits.

Two of the girls also came over last Friday to bake dozens of cookies for the team we met in Bangkok. It was fun to see them make themselves at home in the kitchen, and we are dreaming of ways to expand this..

This little guy, Lay Ta Oo, is still around and still absolutely adorable. He loves Stephen and really wants to be just like him—he tries to play instruments, to wear his hat, and really do anything he sees Stephen doing!

Zen Yaw is nearing two, and has really taken to us recently. He learned to say Stephen’s name since we got back from America, and it might be my favorite thing to hear. He loves to call our names and lights up just to have us respond. And since we can understand his level of Burmese, we have great little conversations.

He also heard Stephen practicing songs for church the other day and kept calling and calling his name. I took him in to listen, to which he tried to “la-la-la” along and clapped. It so fun to see him grow & learn.

On a semi-related note, Stephen was asked by someone at Burmese church on Sunday if they could come visit our orphanage. When Stephen looked confused, she said someone else told her we have an orphanage. This kind of made us laugh.

Last week, a young couple, Kyaw Htet & Nyein Nyein, came to bring us a gift. It is probably one of the sweetest gifts we have received from the community! Kyaw Htet works in construction, but mostly does windows and doors; he has actually fixed our windows and doors from child-destruction before! With broken pieces of windows he presumably found from work, he made me a vase!

They know I love flowers and buy them from Daw Ma Oo each Friday, so this was a really sweet, thoughtful gift. I’m not sure I can even explain how much it means to me! We really love this couple, and are really excited they’ll be welcoming their first little babe this winter.

We had our first Bingo night a few weekends ago, and it was such a success!

We hosted it with a small team in town to see how it went…we weren’t sure how much chaos there would be. We had the kids outside playing Bingo with basic English words and playing for snacks, pencils, erasers, and pencil sharpeners.We invited the adults inside the house to play with traditional Bingo cards, since this would not require literacy and was easy to translate into multiple languages since we know our numbers in English, Burmese, Karen, & Thai! It felt the most inclusive. We also had somewhat practical prizes mixed in: snacks, toothpaste, toothbrushes, laundry detergent, soap, baby powder, and dish soap.

They were so excited for the hygiene prizes! It was fun to see everyone get so excited and have fun together. We have a lot of difficulty getting men to participate in activities, but we had a mixed group, which we were so excited about. We hope this is the beginning of a very fun, participatory community activity!

And my last, perhaps weirdest little anecdote, is on hair color. The kids love to color. The love the princess coloring books and often color them to be Caucasian or light-skinned, with blonde or brown hair, even if it’s a generic princess (not Cinderella, for example, who they might be coloring as she is in the movie). It saddens me that they usually don’t color to fit their own beauty. One week during the sermon at church, I gave the kids coloring pages of a little girl praying. Each one color her hair black!

I was really excited, and I can’t even tell you why. Is it because they could actually see themselves as a little girl praying, rather than as an elaborate princess which feels too distant from their lives? Did all of my coloring girls with brown skin and black hair finally convince them that is beautiful? I have no idea, but it gave me great joy. I hope they can see themselves as beautiful, just as God made them!

And so that’s a wrap: it feels like the past couple weeks have really turned a corner into goodness and seeing growth in relationships. Praying that continues and blossoms!

bangkok, again: highs & lows.

June 1, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos Leave a Comment

We found ourselves back in Bangkok this weekend, this time to meet a team that brought us two fifty-pound bags of treasures! Here are the highs & lows of our little jaunt.

Low: Our lives here require us to travel often, whether it is for paperwork, rest, medical, visiting “home”, teaching; the list goes on. Travel, in and of itself, is a low.

High: We made it to the airport before the team did! We also found all 36 of them.

High: We got two huge bags of goodies! This includes two studio monitors that Stephen bought with a grant for a new project coming soon—more on that later, but just know that this is a dream long in the making, and we are really excited to see it coming together tangibly.

Low: As the team was splitting into four teams to go in different directions, it was discovered that they had picked up an extra bag that wasn’t theirs. Since they had to go catch a flight, Stephen & I offered to turn it in for them. This was a bad idea.

Low: I was tempted to just leave it, but we decided we should do the right thing and return it. This was a bad idea.

Low: When we went to the desk, they were very concerned that we had a bag that wasn’t ours and we didn’t have a boarding pass. Ultimately, I’ll just say they took Stephen back behind security and ended up charging us $15 for the whole scenario. It is scary to have people suspicious of you in an airport.

Low: Once we finally left the airport, we realized that two huge bags of fifty pounds each plus a backpack of our clothes for this trip is a lot to get on the subway. For an hour.

Low: Two huge bags of fifty pounds each plus a backpack is a lot to get to the hotel just one kilometer from the subway station. The wheels also happened to not be great quality and quit on us at the airport, leaving us to drag all hundred pounds of goodies as a dead weight down the street in the blazing sun.

Low: We arrived very, very sweaty.

Low: We couldn’t find the hotel, but were greeted by a security worker asking us very rapidly if we were staying at C U Inn Bangkok, which we were. He then smiled and pointed down this creepy alleyway.We drug our bags down said alleyway, muttering something to each other about possibly being robbed but hoping it might reveal this really lovely hotel we saw online. We were not robbed, nor did we find a beautiful hotel entrance. He led us to an unmarked door with glazed glass and we ridiculously followed him inside, muttering something to each other about the new possibility of dying.

High: It was the hotel! And it was beautiful! A great deal, a great experience, and named C U Inn Bangkok, which is a pretty impressive play on words for someone’s second language. We might comment on Agoda that they should not lead people in through the alley…

High: The amazing bag of goodies revealed things well worth the kilometer walk of death!

High: We rested. This is so difficult in Mae Sot, let alone when our house is our ministry. It was so nice to sleep in a comfortable bed with an oh-so-soft comforter around me in paid-for aircon (which means Stephen has it low). I can’t tell you how nice it was to sleep and not wake up to children outside the window! While I love the children outside the window, the screaming games are a brutal wake up call. So are the street dog fights in the middle of the night. …It was just really nice to sleep really well.

High: This guy. He’s the best travel companion. We have fun together and we laugh.

High: We went to purchase a used item for Stephen’s big we-will-announce-it-soon project, and the store owner had forgotten we were coming. It was not packed nor ready for us, but he offered to ship it to us in Mae Sot for free! This is one less thing to get on the bus with us and one step closer to this project happening, so that’s a win.

Low: Chatachuk Park. I really don’t like this place. First, let me tell you this: Chatachuk Park is right by the bus station we arrive into in Bangkok. On the other side of it is a subway station to the rest of the city, including the airport. Three or four times in the past, we have attempted to walk from the bus station through Chatachuk Park to the subway station to save money on a taxi. Every time we have failed. The park is a maze, with very, very few entrances and exits. Sometimes, we couldn’t figure out how to get in the park, and ended up walking many kilometers around it. Other times we got in but then couldn’t get out. After multiple “adventures” of walking, sweating, carrying huge amounts of luggage, and ultimately failing, we usually end up in a taxi. Or back where we started. (As you can tell, the walking, sweating, & carrying luggage is a very common theme to our Bangkok trips.) We have since agreed together that we will never try to walk through Chatachuk Park, but we will pay the taxi whatever he would like. Despite what Google maps tells us, this is not a good short-cut plan.
This trip, our hotel is near to the bus station and Chatachuk Park. We thought we’d head out this morning and enjoy a run in the park in the middle of the city. The park begins approximately 40 meters outside of our hotel, but it is gated, so we started to walk along the fence to find an entrance. It should be close, right? They want you to be able to get in, right? Or maybe not. We had to walk 1 kilometer along the park fence, eyeing the park from the outside, before we could get in. We also couldn’t even climb the fence because there is a moat around the park. A gated, moated park? Who is trying to get in here that it requires this much protection?So I’m done with Chatachuk.

High: Pala Pizza, a little stop just off of the subway, where we had an amazing little dinner! We loved the brie & speck pizza, plus a five-cheese that included brie & gorgonzola. So delicious.

High: We made buttons at a kids activity table Ford had sponsored!

Low: We tried all weekend to contact a friend from the community who is now living in Bangkok, hoping to meet her for dinner. We called Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday, plus text messages and attempts to send her money to her phone in case she couldn’t call us back. We didn’t hear anything until early Sunday morning, at which point we had multiple miscommunications and couldn’t determine where in Bangkok she lived—in the actually city, or just within an hour? “Bangkok” is a very loose term in our neighborhood. Anyway, it didn’t work. This was a pretty big disappointment.

High:

High: We went to Chinatown on our last morning in search of two odd little electronic pieces Stephen needs for his project. It was such a fun adventure to spend two hours wondering around Chinatown, asking store after store if they carried this random, tiny little piece. They often said no, but go ____. So we went ____ and they said to go _____. We did this many, many times, and then we found this guy. He understood exactly what we wanted and knew exactly where it was in his very full, very oddly organized store. It was a great morning.

Low: Our bus ride back was probably the worst we’ve had in nearly five years. Cockroaches were crawling out of the hardware in front of us and at our feet, but after killing three within five minutes we decided it was a lost cause. We also had the worst driver yet, which made sleeping very difficult for both fear and generally feeling like you were tipping repeatedly. We both arrived to Mae Sot exhausted and nauseous.

High: A morning nap when you are really, truly exhausted is really rewarding, so we enjoyed that before diving back into life by taking someone to the hospital and welcoming the kids into our home!

he is so good, friends.

May 22, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house church, kelli Leave a Comment

There is so much to be said and so often I don’t know where to start.

This is a crazy road we are walking. It is really odd to have your life and work and home be rolled into one, in another country. And then throw more people into it to work with you.

We are always learning, always being stretched, always asking questions, and always risking. Flexibility isn’t even a word we use any more; it just is. It is simply a requirement; it’s our current glasses that just aren’t so rose-colored.

That brings us to yesterday, which was just a rough day in many ways. It was full and chaotic, with some kids acting up horribly and some women pushing some boundaries. It is complicated.

It involved tears and prayers and questions. I was being stretched and learning and risking. I was flexing.

See? It was just a Thursday.

In the early evening we gathered the kids together for a few Bingo games and then sent them off to gather parents and friends and families for the bible story.

The good news? People came! We had sixteen adults, nearly all women; and we had thirty-two kids! It was a pretty full little community space.

More good news? It worked! The kids were exceptionally good; the adults listened; our translators were amazing; the adults knew the answers to the questions; they participated! We asked for prayer requests, and they gave them!

It was good.

We sent them off with a snack of warm, fresh soy milk that we will be purchasing each week from a local migrant school. It’s reasonably priced and full of protein & nutrients, but also liked! We also gave out fruit and encouraged everyone to tell their friends to come next week.

It just worked. We put out a sign and reminded everyone through the day, and they came. They listened! I just keep rejoicing.

And, as we keep praying, hopefully it will happen next week and many weeks following!

Afterward, a man in the community asked for a ride to the hospital to visit his sister. It was a complicated situation, but in the end, Stephen headed off with him on the motorbike.

And yet again, we watched God simply orchestrate things. They ended up seeing the woman’s husband, so all three got Gatorade at 7/11 and sat around chatting and conversing (in Burmese! Yay, Stephen!). Meanwhile, he caught sight of another friend from the community–a young teenage girl that works in Bangkok and is part of a whole different, complicated story. She was on her way back to Bangkok and happened to run into this 7/11 right then for a water before getting on the bus. Stephen was able to get her & her sister’s phone number, and we hope to try to catch up with them on an upcoming quick trip to Bangkok.

I don’t know how to explain the details, except to say this: it was orchestrated. Last night answered so many prayers, not only for the bible study, but in the conversations with the two men and in seeing this young teenage girl before she left town.

In all the complications and all the personal stories, I don’t know how to explain them on the blog. I don’t know how to tell the stories of pain and heartache and loss, or the times we just don’t know what to do. But for every time we just don’t know, or every time we take a risk, or every time we just hurt for a situation: God shows up. He orchestrates our lives and intertwines us into this community. He allows His name to be praised. He shows us the perfect space to ask if we have been brought here for such a time as this! (Esther 4:13-14)

In all the complications, chaos, learning, risking, and stretching–he is so good, friends. He is so good.

vulnerable.

May 20, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house church, kelli, on the house, photos Leave a Comment

Last week at our community meal, we told the neighbors about a new weekly event: we’re going to have a bible story, discussion, & prayer each Thursday evening. Our hope is that it will create space for communication, asking questions, and knowing each other better.

This has come out of multiple things, and in some ways is something we’ve wanted to do for a long time. We have been attempting to connect with a local Burmese church each Sunday, but it is more often than not kids coming along with us, and we become the children’s coordinators–or children-quieters. We have had some adults come along, but this involves us trying to help them find the right passages and songs in Burmese. Usually, by the time we find John chapter 4 in five Bibles in another language, the passage has long been read aloud, and everyone else has moved onto the Psalms.

While it felt like it wasn’t ideal–including the fact that we can only fit so many in our little Zuk–we weren’t sure what to do next. But some time in the last year, we felt like God gave us the idea to share the Bible as smaller stories that are part of a larger story. We also felt like it was another opportunity to open up our home, which allows many more to come.

And as our own story here has unfolded, it brought us to this week, and we’ll be hosting the first one.

It feels really scary.

We have put so much of our lives into this community. We have put so much of our hearts into praying for them and opening up our lives to them. And somehow, this feels really risky. I feel vulnerable.

What if no one comes?

What if no one cares?

Per usual, I don’t know.

I just know that we are praying. I know that we have prayed over the words and passages, we have prayed over the translators, we have prayed over the homes and individuals that surround us. We have prayed for our home and this space. We are praying, praying, praying.

And to be honest–I still don’t know what that means. On Saturday at our community meal, we prayed that God would multiply the food so that there would be enough for everyone. I don’t know for sure, but it doesn’t really seem like he chose to answer that; or it didn’t feel like it when we drove around from shop to shop finding curries to deliver to houses.

I don’t know why that is. So we just prayed that he would be glorified in us delivering these curries; that somehow these families would feel more loved and see more of God in the way things played out.

And I guess that’s what we’re looking at for tomorrow. We are praying, and we don’t know how God will answer it.

In case you haven’t put the pieces together from this blog: we don’t know what we’re doing. This is beyond us–beyond our comfort zones, beyond our capacity, and beyond our imaginations. But we serve a God that is far beyond this, and he is good. We believe he is working in the families and homes around us; we believe he is in these relationships.

And we believe that whatever it may look like, He will be here tomorrow in our vulnerability and in this community. Please pray with us!

languages schlanguages: the hardest working student.

May 20, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos Leave a Comment

We’re still studying language. Have we mentioned that? It’s a big part of our lives.

I read a quote this week, “The best language learners are those who continue on no matter how discouraging their experience.”

I think that might be talking about us.

Even if language really doesn’t come too naturally to you, but you just keep going and going, you are the best! …I think it’s kind of a lie, but it somehow keeps me studying day after day, so that’s okay.

Here are some updates on our language learning experience.

I have recently switched to studying Burmese, so I try to study my Karen for a little while every week or so, and then I use it with friends or neighbors a few times a week at least. The rest of the time I am studying Burmese and trying to use that with other neighbors and in the market.

I have found one thing very encouraging: my brain is incredibly capable. Not me, mind you–but my brain. It does a really incredible job of separating the concepts and alphabets. Once I truly have Burmese memorized and “catalogued” if you will, I can quite easily pick out the right phrase and just the right time, or choose to read it in the correct language. I feel like I am truly not forgetting the Karen I need to know, but rather adding to it.

I can see why people say their third language is much easier to learn. When I was first trying to learn Karen, it was like I was being given all this information day after day, but I didn’t know where to put it. It didn’t fit into my pre-existing categories, if you will, because I suppose I never got that far or truly tried with French in high school. For Burmese, I am finding that my brain naturally knows exactly where to put it, like I now have a bookshelf for languages in my brain. It goes there, it stays there, and it is very, very well organized. The human brain is incredible. And this gives me hope that with many, many hours and years of hard work, it is possible!

Meanwhile, Stephen continues to study Burmese, just a few miles ahead of me. He is really great at reading and is getting braver and braver to use new phrases and communicate an idea to our neighbors, or in the market, or at a restaurant. It is fun to see people discover he can read and begin to understand.

It may seem simple to say he can read and write, but let me tell you this: the Burmese alphabet is one of the craziest I’ve ever seen or encountered. Our teacher is an extremely highly-educated guy. He is truly incredible on a lot fronts–we actually just found him in a book in Bangkok last week! He is a writer, so he knows Burmese language. He teaches us the correct way for publishing, for common writing, and for colloquial speaking. And when we don’t understand the idea, he teaches us the English grammar first and then teaches us the parallel in Burmese. Truly. He gives us English lessons in addition to our Burmese. He is an astoundingly smart guy.

And he still has trouble teaching all the elements of the Burmese alphabet. He has trouble explaining certain pieces, or we’ll “discover” a new letter…months later. Stephen will come home with a new letter that didn’t fit into the four alphabets: consonants, vowels & tones, final consonants, and combined symbols. Oh, and the list of literary-specific letters and styles. And then the newly-discovered “this is a rarely used letter” that we have to sort where to put that in our notes and brain library.

That said, Stephen is a great student. His teacher has declared him “his hardest working student!” And that is absolutely no lie. Stephen works so hard to understand and utilize something that really doesn’t come naturally to him. He even makes files like these:

Seriously? It is super helpful for me, as I come down the same road behind him, and it also just makes me proud to see him work so hard! I am praying that God blesses this abundantly, and brings so many good conversations and great relationships through this language.

After he makes all of his notes and flash cards and who-knows-what, he has our teacher go over all of it to make sure it is correct. Last week, after seeing the newest collection and extensive note-taking, he asked if Stephen was planning on publishing a book!

So we’re still studying. But that means we’re also still hopeful!

good days, & then those last thirty minutes.

May 19, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, on the house, photos Leave a Comment

After completing a two week training in a village, we returned to Mae Sot on Thursday night. After a selling flowers on Friday and a few meetings, we woke up early Saturday for a community day!

We try to have community meals somewhat regularly, but it always depends on the situation. We decided to have one Saturday to officially introduce Kelvin & Laura to the community and to tell everyone about our bible story class starting this Thursday. We also hadn’t done one since Christmas, so it seemed a good opportunity to pull everyone together.

We made the rounds to tell everyone on Friday night, and headed to the market around 8am on Saturday. It was Stephen & I, Kelvin & Laura with Thida & San Aye, who coordinated the meal. Daw Ma Oo, who sells flowers in the market, came along for a ride into the market and grabbed some tea with us first before starting her day of selling.

We spent nearly three hours in the market gathering rice, potatoes, onions, garlic, chicken, spices, bowls, cups, and watermelon. Since we still had to fit six adults and a child in the car on the way home, we loaded up the trunk with “clean” food and put the rest on top of the car–this included 30 kilos of raw chicken, a huge bag of potatoes, and a mysterious red sauce with one bottle broken open.

As we drove through the market for the last few stops, a bloody-watery mix from the chickens began running down the front of the car, streaking the windshield. It was pretty disgusting.

It was about this time that San Aye handed out a piece of watermelon to each of us to eat in the car. Something about the blood running down the windshield, sweat running down our backs, and watermelon juice running down our arms…it was a rough few minutes. Stephen nearly lost it.

After a shower and scrub of the car, we started cooking! It was a fun afternoon while everyone gathered around to chop vegetables and chat while the kids played.

As they started to stir the curry, they asked me for a big spoon. I brought out the two biggest & strongest I had, to which they laughed. I was kind of confused, until they came back with this one…I think we were looking for the word “paddle.” I realized why my two offerings–both out of my kitchen drawer–were clearly ridiculous!

Laura & Kelvin work with a nearby children’s home, and a few of the staff came to help us translate. They’ll also be helping us translate the bible story class each week, which we are so thankful for! They did a great job and it gave us a chance to chat about a few things around the community and just bring everyone together.

The whole day and serving up the food went really smoothly…until the last thirty minutes. By nature of our community moving into surrounding communities, we had waaaaaay more people come to join us! We filled up 200 bowls of food and pretty quickly ran out. This left us to running to buy a few extra curries for the remaining families and the students helping us from the children’s home, which we felt bad for.

So besides the last thirty minutes of chaos and a small food shortage, it was a pretty great day.

We managed to find dinner for ourselves, sweep, mop, and crash into bed by 10:45pm.

Sundays are our usually busy days, so we were up and ready to go to the tea shop by 7:30am. We headed out with a larger-than-usual crew, managed to get a little babe to the clinic and get breakfast.

We usually come back from the tea shop just in time to head off to Burmese church. Because of our busy day on Saturday, we thought we might take a week off.

But things never go as you planned. We had three adults waiting to go with us, and a few kids that aren’t usually permitted to go…so we jumped in the car and went for it.

And it was such a good day! After the songs at the beginning, I usually go off to the side with the kids to play during the sermon. It went really well this Sunday–just giving the kids space to play and having a chance to really love on a few of them as they learn new skills. The kids are always learning, and it is such a privilege to be able to speak life into them and tell them how smart they really are and what they are capable of.

All thirteen of us were in line for our rice & curry after the church service just as the littlest–a 1 1/2 year old I’d been holding for most of the day–decided he was sick and vomited all over both of us.

I tell you, it’s those last thirty minutes. We were doing so well!

It was a good weekend: so many good moments with so many people we love, while we welcome Kelvin & Laura into this lovely mess! We just need to work on those last thirty minutes 🙂

birthday in bangkok!

May 10, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos Leave a Comment

After a few years of celebrating birthdays in Mae Sot, it seemed a good opportunity to try something new! So for my golden birthday this year, we headed off to a few days in Bangkok. {And I’m now able to post about it being back from the village for a few days over the weekend!} We’ve only really experienced in the city in passing, usually because we’re there for medical reasons or traveling through.

But we decided to explore the bits and bobs of the city, and really loved it.

We stayed at hotel right on the public transit system, so it was easy to get around and stay relatively cool in the insane April heat of Bangkok. Our hotel also had a little golf cart that offered you a ride to the station just down the road, and since Stephen quoted the golf cart bit from his favorite Parks & Recreation episode “Park Safety” every time we rode, I looked forward this little jaunt. If you haven’t seen this episode, you probably should go find it on Netflix.

We took public transit to some of our favorite sorts of places.

The best used bookstore we’ve found in Thailand yet! Three floors of used English books, sorted by genre and alphabetized by author. And you probably aren’t reading that sentence with the excitement I am writing it with! We found a hoard of books, including a book on Burma with our Burmese teacher & neighbor in it!

Stephen got to visit this store, a chain of music & recording stores in Bangkok. He has stalked their website since we landed in Thailand, and he certainly loved both of our visits while we were in town. 🙂

Stephen did some research and found a little candy factory–really a kiosk in a mall, but a factory to me! They make the candy on-site so you can watch. My family has an odd quirk of visiting more factories than I could name, so I grew up loving seeing where things come from. This was a highlight of the trip for me!

{mixing in colors and flavors}

{shaping and layering int into a giant design}

{rolling it out into a small rope, then chopping it into bites}

{and sharing with the crowd!}

We also enjoyed good coffee over books while we could!

One day we visited the Bangkok Art & Culture Center and loved it! I don’t have any pictures, but we really enjoyed seeing a few exhibits of photographs all over Thailand done by local artists. We also visited a number of shops selling the work of local artists.

And we visited a few malls, because so much of the good food in the city is in malls. Not a great atmosphere, but we really did enjoy our Western food…and this surprisingly life-like wax figure of Tom.

Our two favorite restaurants were not in malls and a little difficult to track down. They included an eclair speciality shop with an incredible French chef, and a cute little Mediterranean restaurant.

We discovered board game cafe–perhaps a new rising trend you’ve heard of?–and decided to try it out! For about $5 each we could stay as long as we liked and try out a wall of board games!

Our last big adventure was a bicycle tour of the city.

It was a night ride, so we met at the shop at 5:30pm and then returned at 10pm. In the meantime, we bicycled along the river and crossed by ferry. We visited two temples, including the largest in Bangkok, and the 24-hour flower market.

Now selling flowers every Friday and loving them, I really loved the flower market! It was just block after block of beautiful flowers and gorgeous colors, all at the most incredible prices. These bunches of roses–four or five dozen–sold for just $1.50! This is mind boggling to me.

The temples were different styles than those we’ve seen in Chiang Mai and Mae Sot, as they are all from different time periods and historical influences. It is always so intriguing to see the details and culture, but also nice to be there at night, while they were mostly empty. We were free to observe without intruding.

As always, it is such fun to explore a little more of where we live and take advantage of the crazy fact that we do live here! So thankful for a hubs that took the time to help coordinate and plan, was willing to ride a night bus to the city, and always pushes us to more fun 🙂

fresh eyes.

May 5, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli Leave a Comment

I want to say it’s been a hard season. But sometimes I’m not sure if the hard season ever ends; perhaps this is just what we chose & what God had for us in living here and learning community here.

Recently it has felt like each day holds a new wave of challenges or pain or hurt–sometimes just stressful water woes and sometimes rooted, broken situations. New waves of tears usually come with it, and sometimes new waves of questions. We are trying to do marriage and live in a foreign culture and still learn more languages, while we wipe up blood and tears and try to bring hope to the brokenness around us.

To say it’s messy seems the understatement of the year.

I have been asking questions lately of what we are doing and why we are here. We have had “failures” recently–kids we felt we couldn’t help, situations we couldn’t change, tears that just had to be cried while prayers were said because our hands were tied. And then we have the “successes”–good conversations, encouraging words, and a chance to care for someone–Daw Ma Oo telling me that flowers really helped their family this week because they were out of a money, or little two-year-old that can say “Stephen” and runs to his arms for a hug.

But sometimes I begin to wonder if the successes outweigh the losses. I turn questions over in head and struggle to trust that God is good, that He is here and meeting with all of us. He is in our home and our dreams and our hopes and our fears. I struggle to trust that He is answering prayers that we feel go unanswered for days and weeks and months and years.

I believe, but, oh Lord, help my unbelief.

Today I read a blog that Kelvin wrote while we were away in Bangkok for my birthday. It made me cry, because it gave me fresh eyes. He said that he sees them caring for us, just as we have cared for them.

Sometimes I lose sight of both: that we do care for them. Sometimes I wonder if I do nothing or that what I do does nothing. But God has given us ways and open doors to care and love our neighbors, every day in fact!

I also forget that they do care for us and look out for us, and it is really beautiful. The neighbors cleaned up our yard and took care of all the wood they had been storing there; it looks much nicer, cleaner, and more welcoming!

And Pyo Pyo has brought us three meals this week. She has recently realized that I am a vegetarian, so she has brought us Burmese salad, a tofu dish, and noodles–all without meat in it. This is epic, after being served meal after meal of meat and sometimes receiving a bag of fresh, bloody meat. It really means so much to me to see her know this. Or at the tea shop, I’ll order in Burmese, and then someone will specify that I don’t eat meat and to put the peppers on the side. They are really working hard to care for us.

We have invested, and God is bringing a return. I have to believe this. I have to hope for this! And sometimes he sends a reminder, on days when I just can’t see it because my doubts blind me.

water is life; and maybe death…

May 5, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli Leave a Comment

This week, water has threatened to take us out.

We returned from our trip to Bangkok on Wednesday evening, and while I’d like to be posting on that, we’re currently in a village with pretty slow internet access and uploading the many photos we took would likely take the entire week.

So first I’ll share my water woes.

Let me first explain: we receive water from the city most every night. This goes into a 1200 liter reserve tank outside that we use through the day for showering, dishes, and laundry. We also have a reserve tub in the bathroom that we use for flushing the toilet and cold showering, and as a backup if the city water is off for a day or two and we run out. This isn’t uncommon, but since it usually comes on within a night or two, it isn’t much of an interruption.

Oh, and then we have separate, purchased drinking water bottles—20 liter bottles that we pop on top of a water cooler, similar to a business in America.

When we returned on Wednesday night and swung back into life, we unpacked and washed clothes per usual. Since we had been gone & our reserve tank should have had plenty of water, we didn’t think much about our city water supply. However, somewhere either during our trip to Bangkok or in the days following, the city decided to shut off water to our part of the city, likely because of a shortage during the hot season. We don’t live in the popular or up-and-coming part of town if you will, so we aren’t first on the priority list.

On Friday night, as I was doing our dinner dishes, we ran out of water in our reserve tank. The unfinished dishes were piled into the sink and we showered with our bucket reserve in the bathroom. For now, this tub of water was the last of our good city water.

We went to sleep with high hopes of the water being turned back on overnight and catching up in the morning.

High hopes indeed.

We waited to shower as long as we could on Saturday, since we had just a small amount in our reserve tub and needed that for flushing the toilet. During this very hot hot hot season, we are regularly showering three times a day, so not showering is actually a significant challenge.

By Saturday evening, we weren’t really sure what to do. We decided to hook up our well to the reserve tank and see what we had.

Well, we had brown water.

Still hopeful, we thought we could load some into the tank and let it sit for an hour while the dirt settled to the bottom. We could throw some bleach in for the bacteria, and then have “clean” water to at least shower that night.

One hour later, the dirt did not settle. It was just brown water, presumably from the minerals.

But what we were to do?

So we showered in it.

And I did the dishes in it, just setting them aside so I could re-wash them all later.

If that doesn’t feel like wasted time, I don’t know what does, but I had to keep the ants from invading…

Again Saturday night, we were hopeful water would come over night.

Hopes were dashed, yet again. We woke up Sunday, went through the same routine of putting well water & bleach in, and then showering while we pretend it’s clean water. And keeping our mouths closed.

A few days into this water shortage, having just returning from one trip and needing to prepare for the next, I really needed to do laundry. This time of year, with the whole hot hot hot weather and showering three times a day because you are sweating through your clothes…you just don’t want to wait too long with clothes in a basket. I try to do at least a load every day or other day to keep from smelling and to keep the drying rack cycling through.

Sometimes I think living here is an art.

I decided to try a load of laundry in the bleach water. The question was, darks or lights? For darks, the water wouldn’t stain it. But the bleach might. And for lights, just the opposite.

I went for darks, but threw in a white tea towel as a test for the next load. The darks seemed to come out okay and smelled decent since I threw in some extra scent, and the towel did okay.

I went for a light load. This was a bad idea.

Every single one of Stephen’s white shirts came out brown.

And then I showered in dirty water, again.

By Sunday night, we were kind of tired of these shenanigans. Every night we were letting all the extra well water out and cleaning out the tank in hopes of city water coming (we couldn’t give up hope!). And every morning, we put more well water back in. And every day we showered pretending the water was crystal clear.

Thankfully, we did still have drinking water all this time, and Stephen flipped a new bottle onto the water cooler on Sunday night.

We woke up Monday morning, kind of ready to get out of town. We planned to leave about 10am, but still hoped for clean city water to shower.

As I walked into the kitchen at 6am, I nearly slipped to my face. The entire kitchen—it’s lowered into our house—was flooded with water.

There had been a tiny, unseen crack in the clean water bottle. So once flipped, it didn’t seal and keep the water in the cooler, but slowly dripped and leaked all through the night. All over our kitchen floor.

There was so much water—clean, drinkable water!—all over our floor.

But in the water tank? Still none. Absolutely none.

So we swept clean water out the door while we let dirty brown water fill our tank yet again.

It was almost heartbreaking.

Just as icing on the cake, as we went to go later that morning, we learned that our radiator was leaking. When we took our car to the shop to get the alternator fixed last week, well…they didn’t fix the alternator, but they re-wired it, which they think will solve the problem? But then broke the radiator in the process. This isn’t uncommon—fix one thing but break another, or don’t fix the thing you were fixing…

We had water, just in all the wrong places.

Thankful for the simplicity of living in a village for a few days, where they have water!

statistics.

April 22, 2015 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli Leave a Comment

A few years ago, I wrote a political development curriculum for the particular area and situation we are working in. After teaching it for a couple years, we are now taking a different road toward community development and it doesn’t get used very often.

But occasionally, an opportunity arises and I pull out the curriculum. Every time I am reminded how much I did love teaching this.

This week I have been working on updating the curriculum. We study the statistics of about sixty countries, comparing their development politically, economically, and socially; and then do a more in-depth case study on four. The statistics could use some updating after three years or so, so I research the latest data and sort through Excel chart after Excel chart.

It is encouraging to see the growth: to see Burma’s educational levels increased and their infant mortality rate shrink. I watched Thailand’s freedom rating (FreedomHouse.org) take a hit following recent political events.

I find it ridiculously interesting to see numbers paint a picture of the world I live in and know with faces.

But I have so many mixed feelings. I see the United States, soaring with high numbers: the story of health and wealth and education and privilege. Without even living there, these numbers fit most of my life and story.

Then I see the numbers for Thailand, where I reside, and Burma, which I love. The longer we live here, the more those numbers will be written into our story. I found this question rolling through my mind: which side of the statistics are you on?

For the kids outside my door, the statistics are stacked against them: in education levels, in the food they will eat; the health they will sustain and the jobs they will work; the number of miscarriages they will have and children they will lose; the money they will live on; the water they will drink.

Somedays this seems more evident.

When we woke up to shouting ten months ago and watched all of our friends taken away on army vehicles, it was more obvious that the statistics stand against them. Their tired faces and the numbers written on their arms when they returned reminded us of this even further.

When the young fourteen-year-old girl that we’ve been praying for and investing in went to Bangkok, it was more evident that the statistics were stacked against her. It was more evident that prostitution loomed on her doorstep, and we now lost our connection to her.

Today, a ten-year-old orphan in the community was sent off to Burma with a new family. And, again, I was reminded of how close the statistics are and what we are up against.

I cried many tears today. Because it was one of the days where I just don’t know what we have accomplished in this little girl’s life or what we could possibly have done or do differently. How do we keep her from becoming one of those statistics?

HOW DO WE KEEP HER FROM BECOMING ONE OF THOSE STATISTICS?

I cried to Stephen that I didn’t know what we had done. We have known her for over four years, and now she is out of our reach, with just memories of puzzles and English classes and community dinners and hugs on the front porch. How does that change her story? Are we just hoping that these little measly things will change these statistics?

But my husband is very, very wise.

He said that no, we aren’t hoping that puzzles and hugs and Band-Aids will change the statistics. We are hoping that God will change the statistics.

And that’s when I realized something perhaps I should have recognized ages ago.

Our whole life here rests in faith. The truth we know and the hope we carry is the only thing that makes this worth anything. And to be honest, without it, we are wasting our time and lives. Every single moment–the good ones, the bloody ones, the tearful goodbyes at the airport, the tears for a little ten-year-old girl–is resting on this auspicious faith that God is good. That He is real enough and loves us enough and is good enough to show up in the tea shops and puzzles and Band-Aids and make them into miracles. And that it is these miracles that will change the statistics and rewrite the stories.

“For I know that the Lord is great, and that our Lord is above all gods.”
Psalm 135:5