I’ve been mulling this around for a few days, but the situation keeps changing, becoming more confusing and more complicated.

On Friday morning, we awoke to shouting outside. We made it outside to see one mother and her son taken away in the back of an army truck. We then looked around to see that they were the last bunch of around 140 people (of about 150) from our community that were arrested at 6am.

It was mostly women and children, with some men. Some of the men had left for the morning or went to run errands. The police have come in the past, often to arrest primarily men. When they were seen coming, some of the men went hide–thinking this was the best way to protect their families so they could continue to work–but returned to find their wives and kids arrested.

The ten or so remaining–because they had hid, been showering, or had papers–looked devastated.

We were devastated, too, and so confused. What were we supposed to do?

The kids who attend the migrant school down the road were released about five hours later with the help of the principal. They came back shaken up and with numbers on their arms. Most of the mothers and fathers weren’t released. Many were deported and then given passes to return, simply to pack up their things.

Our community is split into two pieces of land that meet at the corner of the street. One side, though arrested and deported, is now permitted to stay. The other half was told–by the army and then the deputy mayor–that they are required to be off the land in three days, at which point the army would return to burn down their homes.  It was later negotiated to five days, giving them until Tuesday or Wednesday, depending on when you start the counting.

We can’t really explain all the details, the political drama, or the entirety of the situation, particularly on social media. We can say that all the questions running through your mind are most likely running through ours, as well. We’re asking a lot of questions and praying a lot of prayers.

We’re trying to determine how to help. Friday night we had a community dinner, since after a stressful day with no one able to work, most were struggling to buy food. We cooked together and tried to celebrate the friendship that brought such an odd group together. We discussed a few options we could collectively pursue. Stephen & I let them know that we love them, we are praying for them, and we are so, so sad.

The days have been really somber. Everyone seems to feel helpless and hopeless, ourselves included. We really aren’t sure how to help. We’ve pursued a few options with little success. We aren’t really even sure if this is a short-term, small-scale problem, or long-term change to Mae Sot that ultimately will affect thousands of people on the border.

While we have been trying to sort out the details of finding homes and moving families in our immediate community, we learned this morning that another missionary family living here in Mae Sot was in a car accident last night. The husband, wife, and 12-year-old daughter were all killed. The husband was in a bible study with Stephen and they had breakfast together once a week; they were a part of our home church. It was more heartbreaking news.

And we just really aren’t sure what to think.

We aren’t sure what God is up to. After such a long year, we were so excited about the doors opening ahead of us. We have been trying to give thanks for the little things: the community was all able to return, so we are able to say goodbyes. Some will move close, and we’ll still be able to see them regularly. We are able to love on them while we load up truck after truck. We have seen God work in some miraculous ways in the details.

But there are also so many questions unanswered. We are suddenly praying over some big questions and attempting to process things much bigger than ourselves.

Will you simply pray with us? Please, please pray for our community. Pray for them to have a place to live. Pray for safety. Pray for peace. Pray for the trauma of  all that has occurred over the past couple days.

Pray for wisdom for Stephen & I. Please pray for us–our exhaustion, our confusion, our heartbreak, our questions.

I’m sure more stories and more thoughts and photos will continue to come. I just wanted to be sure I got out something—we need people praying with us. We really so desperately need people praying with us.

Honestly, that last post seemed a little anti-climatic for all that we’ve been praying through, all the meetings we’ve had, all the excitement, & all the answered prayers!

But, really, it has been a season of juggling and running, running, running. We just arrived from Chiang Mai today and I am leaving for Bangkok tomorrow. Oh, and while we are making plans for how to stay in this country and how to pursue all of these hopeful changes, there was a military coup, and we now have a curfew.

It just seems the proper moment to focus on the lighter side of things.

This is from a Bangkok Post article today:

“First Thailand’s junta seized power, then they commandeered every TV channel for round-the-clock broadcasts of dour announcements and patriotic hymns. The public’s verdict: DJ, please change the soundtrack.

…In this day and age, it’s not surprising that the generals who launched Thailand’s coup have set up a Facebook page.

But it was a sign of the times that the junta’s vintage tunes didn’t resonate with the Facebook generation.

‘Since you’re reforming politics, you might as well reform your music,’ said one of many postings on the page, which had over 230,000 likes by Friday evening, up exponentially from earlier in the day.

Song requests poured in — for Justin Timberlake, Michael Jackson, the Disney hit Let It Go, and for foot-tapping Thai folk music.

…And after about 24 hours, they did.”

I’m not sure really what to do with this other than to laugh on so many accounts.

It was Saturday, and I was driving the motorbike along the highway on my way home.

The roads here aren’t always amazing. In this particular area, the two lanes of highway end abruptly at a ledge, which drops down to a wide shoulder. The shoulder is for pedestrians and cyclists and anyone going the wrong direction; the road is for cars and trucks. Motorbikes are free to choose where they want to roll.

I picked the shoulder since we had just taken off from a stoplight and I was currently outnumbered by vehicles.

The trick is, once you have chosen the shoulder–or the road, really–you can’t just switch. At high speeds, you can’t just take the ledge at an angle without hitting the pavement.

Or at least I can’t.

On this particular drive, I was on the shoulder and approaching a cyclist. I had plenty of room to go around him, so I didn’t think much of the car approaching on my right at the same time.

I was going a little over 50km an hour, so I was gaining on him quickly. And just as I was nearly passing between the cyclist and the car, a pedestrian walked out into the road, and the bicycle swung out toward me.

I didn’t have much choice of where to go. I obviously didn’t want to hit the cyclist, but to attempt the ledge seemed stupid–particularly with the car going 100km to my right. I suddenly felt my helmet was going to be very little protection.

So I screamed.

I just screamed bloody murder.

You might suggest that I had used the horn, but I didn’t have time to think of that nor find the little button. Screaming was much faster.

And it worked! The cyclist looked at me like I was an absolute idiot while he swerved back so I could pass.

So I just laughed the rest of the way home.

 

 

My Karen teacher, Hser Nay Gay, had twin girls this past month, and let me tell you: they are adorable. Twins are pretty uncommon here, so it was exciting on many accounts!

Since we have been meeting together for three to four hours a week for over a year, we have had plenty of time to chat about pregnancy and having babies. It was a great way to learn new words in Karen, teach her new words in English, and challenge me to explain things or argue a point in Karen!

She and her husband have a children’s home here, where they have seven teenagers living with them and supported by them. Some of the children have parents and others may not; they live in a home so they have more opportunities for education and “a better life.”  This home is supported by a Christian foundation in town, managed by foreigners, so my teacher has quite a lot of interaction and exposure to other cultures. She often comes to me to ask questions about why they do this or why they would ask that. And with the pregnancy, these questions became quite common.

She was gifted many items that she wasn’t sure how to use, or perhaps once she understood how, wasn’t sure why. We had conversation after conversation about the differences between Karen traditions on pregnancy, birth, and parenting and “Western” traditions. Being her primary representative of “Western” traditions was a little scary, particularly since I haven’t even had kids myself. I did my best to explain how things might be different in different countries–maybe Europe compared to the Americas–and in different families based on money, location, family size, or religion.

Amidst this, though, were a few very interesting conversations that I hope I never forget.

One of our first conversations was about diapers. It is such a common gift, and she was just absolutely baffled by it. I tried to explain the advantages: the cleanliness, the ease of throwing them away; but also the negatives: the expense, the extra trash. She offered that you could leave the diaper on the baby all day to help with these, so I had to explain the risk of rashes, and the need to keep them changed. We talked about what the cost might be here for one child and then two. We talked about the Karen traditions: they often keep the kids wrapped in a particular white cloth for the first three to four weeks after birth. The baby is always swaddled, and this cloth serves as both a diaper and clothing. It is the same type of cloth that is used to wrap around the mothers head during this time, when they often don’t shower much, if at all. When we talked about diapers and clothing for babies, she asked this {as if it were the most absurd idea in the world}, “So, the baby comes out, and you just put a diaper and clothes on it?”

By the end of the conversation, I was having trouble thinking straight as to why we do use diapers!

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She was given a stroller, too, which she asked me the English name for and what the purpose is. Again, I explained the advantages of not having the weight of the baby on you, rolling smoothly, going long distances, or the baby sleeping soundly. I also talked about the advantages of carrying a baby in a sling, as the Karen do.

I was actually just reading in The World Until Yesterday about the disadvantages of strollers. Studies are showing that having the baby facing backward for so long isn’t a natural way, where if they are carried, they are naturally facing forward as the mother does. Supposedly this can lead to walking earlier. They also pointed out the advantages of having the baby close and in contact with the caregiver at all times.

Hser Nay Gay said she thought it was better to carry the baby because it was safer. When I asked her why, she replied, “What if you have to run? You cannot run with that big stroller. If you are carrying your baby you can run very fast.”

I told her I didn’t think many mothers in the West considered this, because maybe they weren’t so concerned about having to run from something. Really, this seemed like a whole different issue all together.

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After some foreigners had been visiting her regularly for a few a weeks, she asked me one day, “Do Americans choose a name for their baby before the baby is born?!”  Apparently visitors had been coming and asking her regularly if she had chosen a name.

I said that this was common, maybe as early as 20 weeks when they can determine the gender. I said if they know the gender, they might choose and even have things made with their name on it–a blanket or a shirt or a bag. I said if they didn’t know the gender, many parents will talk about it and maybe have a boy’s name and a girl’s name chosen, waiting to see.  I explained that other parents might wait until the baby is born or see what name fits the baby’s personality.

She said Karen families don’t discuss the names at all–she and her husband hadn’t said one word about it–until the baby is born. Then they have about a week to decide.

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We also talked about how many children a family might have, what items they might have for the baby, where they baby sleeps, what they feed babies. My favorite question by far was one she asked almost as a whisper. She leaned forward and said, “So I heard that babies in America sometimes have their own room!”

I laughed out loud.

I really did love all of these conversations. It was so fun to go to a baby shower that was thrown for her, and see what she thought of the entire thing. She was so patient and gracious with all of the Western traditions and games, even when I know she felt silly!  It was fun, to get an honest and informative glimpse into another cultures’ practices and thoughts on having children.

And now, I get to hold two really tiny, beautiful Karen babes!

Three of us–Stephen & I with our friend, Sacha–were watching The Amazing Spiderman, when Stephen asks,

“So when you guys watch this, do imagine yourselves as Spiderman or Spiderman’s girlfriend?” 

Neither of us was really sure how to respond. It was one of those questions from left field. …And you weren’t playing baseball. I was given two choices, but really I was really playing a whole different game. I was just proud that I was still awake.

This opens up a whole new set of questions, really.