The House Collective

thingyan 2019.

by Filed Under: kelli, on the house, playhouse 1 Comment

Every year in April, Southeast Asia celebrates it’s New Year with a water festival. In Thailand, it’s Songkran; in Burma, it’s Thingyan.

What it is: New Years, a country-wide water fight, a lot of chaos, a lot of alcohol, a lot of dancing. And it’s hot—one of the hottest weeks of the year.

Honestly? It’s sort of sad in our community. Parents without work and with a lot of alcohol kind of creates sad situations, especially for the kids. In recent years we’ve tried to leave so we don’t have to see all the sadness.

But we had an idea this year to try to counteract it: how could we engage? How could we give the children some safe fun? Could we provide a safe place for teens to play and discourage drunkenness? How could we make sure the women have a safe place if they need it?

So we stayed home for the week instead of traveling, which felt like kind of a big commitment in and of itself; not entirely sure what we were signing up for. We had a few projects we hoped to work on during the days: Stephen had an electric drum set to finish and I had a dollhouse to paint for the kids. And then we made plans for the evenings, to provide alternative fun, distractions, or whatever it may be.

I was more scared and anxious than I expected. We did spend one afternoon at the emergency room, so the fears weren’t entirely unfounded. But overall I just spent more time realizing how much I love these families, these teenagers; how much I care about the choices they make. How much I wish it was culturally & relationally acceptable for me to request a check-in text on occasion!

With all the concerns and risks; watching the teens leave with friends and without helmets in the morning, hoping they’d come back! -I really liked having things planned every evening. We got to see that everyone did in fact come home.

The first evening was for the girls: nails night.

Mway Mway is dreaming of opening her own salon someday, so we purchased a few special items and I pulled out my nail polish collection. And she did women’s & girls’ nails for a few hours!

We asked that people contribute 5 baht–or 15 cents–for both hands and 5 baht for both feet, so she took home a few dollars. And really, we just had fun listening to music & chatting.

The second evening was movie night: the easiest and by far the most successful!

We pulled out the projector and sound system and started off with Mr. Bean’s Holiday. A hit.

The snacks were also a hit. Toward the end of the first movie, a grandmother came to ask her four-year-old grandson, Are you coming to eat rice? To which he replied, Nope! Whoops.

This was followed by Avengers: Age of Ultron with Burmese subtitles, which a few teens and men stayed late for.

And the last night, we had a youth night. We painted pictures–mostly landscapes of mountains and rivers.

And then we played games and celebrated a birthday!

And overall, we made it. Just the one trip to the emergency room. Just learning to trust in all the things we can’t stop or change. Just learning how much we are invested here, for better & for worse!

Here’s to a New Year, and hoping next week is a bit cooler!

and so we wait.

by Filed Under: kelli 1 Comment

Three years ago, as we sat in the adoption agency filling out our initial application, we were told we’d be placed within a year to eighteen months.

I never thought I’d be writing here, three years later, as a family of two. 

Two months after that, when we completed and turned in our entire dossier, our caseworker responded that was the fastest she’d ever seen. I felt even more optimistic.

Far too optimistic to consider this current moment would ever be a part of my story. 

Still later, by the end of 2016, we completed the home study and waited on our final step before placement—a class offered once per year. We were told we’d be in the class that coming May, and then we’d be waiting to be placed; but they’d go ahead and put us on the waiting list…
It seemed so fast. It seemed so soon. 
So we left for a last trip to see our families. We took a photo; we made announcements so that it wouldn’t come as a shock if we suddenly had a child in our home.

And then more years went by, instead of weeks or months. 
I just didn’t think we’d get here. 

And I’m not always sure what to do with it. 

Honestly, the days are okay. Some days I’m broken, but most I’m okay. There is more than enough to distract me: conversations over tea, bags to be sewn, jewelry to made, bread to be baked, dinners to be eaten, English classes to be taught, games of Sorry to be played. I can talk myself through any one day. 

It’s when another month has suddenly gone by. It’s when I’m looking to another Christmas, another birthday, another year: when I thought there would be three or four of us. When I didn’t think I’d be here. 

But we are here: we’re rounding out year three of waiting, and stepping into year four. Not leaping, not holding our breath, but just stepping forward into one more day and a bit more waiting. Maybe a lot more. I don’t really know. 

I might know less now than I knew then. I’m most certainly aware of how little I know, how little I can influence. 

Two stories have been circling me, as I meditate on them. The first is from Kite Runner by Khaled Hosseini. 

“How long?” Sohrab asked.
“I don’t know. A while.”
Sohrab shrugged and smiled, wider this time. “I don’t mind. I can wait. It’s like the sour apples.”
“Sour apples?”
“One time, when I was really little, I climbed a tree and ate these green, sour apples. My stomach swelled and became hard like a drum, it hurt a lot. Mother said that if I’d just waited for the apples to ripen, I wouldn’t have become so sick. So now, whenever I really want something, I try to remember when she said about the apples.”

The second story is in Mark 8. Just before this, Jesus has fed the crowd of five thousand; and then he fed the crowd of four thousand. Then Jesus and the disciples get into the boat to go to another district, and the disciples have “forgotten to bring bread” and have just one loaf among them. As they are arguing over this, Jesus asks, “Why are you discussing the fact that you have no bread? Do you not yet perceive or understand? Are your hearts hardened? Having eyes do you not see, and having ears do you not hear? And do you not remember?”

Of course there is no coincidence that he’s just multiplied loaf after loaf of bread, as they sit arguing over one, maybe just hours later. 

But am I, too, writing about the child(ren) we are waiting to adopt, when I’ve just seen the epic moments he’s given us with the children in our community? 

I “don’t have any children, yet in spite of it all have a whole village full of children.” (Britt-Marie Was Here,Fredrik Backman) And yet God has answered prayer after prayer for them. Would I see miracle after miracle for a village of children, then turn to fret for the child(ren) we continue to wait for?

Why are you discussing this?
Do you not yet perceive or understand?
Are your hearts hardened?
Having eyes do you not see?
Having ears do you not understand? 
Do you not remember?

Do you not remember my provision for this community?
Do you not understand that I love this community of children as much as I love yours?

And so we wait, remembering what we have seen and heard.
And so we wait, for sweet apples.
And so we wait, with hope.

_________________

{Side note: I particularly love the question in Mark, Having ears do you not understand? In our community, I have two favorite lines used by parents. 1) Do you have ears?!, used when a child isn’t listening or obeying. I can hear God saying this to me in Burmese: Do you have ears?! And still you don’t hear me?!
And further straying from the point, my second favorite phrase used by parents: 2) Are you dead yet?!, used when they take a fall off a table or something scary happens, similar to when we’d scream Are you okay?! In English.}

epic moments.

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We have had many epic moments recently: moments we have waited years for. 

I can’t tell you all of them, really. For some I don’t feel the details or intricacies are mine to share, for some I don’t think it’s worthy of being public. Some I just want to hold closer, for them to be mine and not the world’s. 

Writing here gets harder and harder, and I nearly quit so often these days. I am afraid of not representing my friends well, not representing myself well, not representing my faith or my beliefs well. The internet is just a messy place, and I’m not sure I want to be a part of it anymore. 

But I also want to celebrate, because we don’t always have so much to celebrate. I also want to write, because while we live here without kids and without careers and often with more questions than answers, somehow year after year we still remain here: for the kids that we love like they are ours anyway, for the job skills we see our friends learning, for the aunties and brothers and sisters that we see floating on hope, for the answers we are finding in people and relationships.

So while I’m terrified to write, I also sometimes can’t seem not to. Here’s to a few thousand words.

________________

Rewind to about three years ago, when I had the opportunity to take a sewing class. I had a Burmese friend that wanted to learn some sewing skills; we had another friend with a promised job if she could sew. I wanted to touch up skills I’d learned from mom & grandmother and attend the class as well, but we were left with one spot to spare. 

Stephen & I had the idea of finding a woman in a challenging life situation, so that after the training she might be able to work in a sewing factory nearby. But as we prayed about who, our friend San Aye continually came to mind. For months on end, we felt like this was who God brought to mind. 

At the time, it didn’t seem very logical. She was seven or eight months pregnant with her second child, and she’d have the baby in the middle of the training, requiring us to take a break in the middle for a short maternity leave. It was also unlikely she’d get a job at a local factory once the baby arrived. From our perspective, their family was also in a more stable financial position, and it seemed the training would be a better opportunity for a different family. 

But alas, we couldn’t shake it. I went to ask if she’d like to do the training and she agreed. She had the baby halfway through, and a number of other family challenges came her way. By the end of the training, it was clear she needed steady work in a safe environment, and we were looking for how to make that happen. And as God so often does in our little neighborhood, things fell into place quickly: a local shop asked if we had any friends able to sew for a product they wanted to outsource, and we became that outsource. Within a month of the training, San Aye was sewing in our home a few days a week with her newborn beside her. 

Fast forward to today, when she continues to sew two days a week with us, and also makes jewelry three days a week in our house, through our partnership with Sojourn Studios.

In many ways, we’ve known God orchestrated this from the beginning, as He has with each of our eight House Collective “employees.” It’s a random conglomerate, but we can see his orchestration of each one, and we’ve told them that. It doesn’t have to make sense; it’s obedience.

Last week, as we sat around a cup of tea with the jewelry ladies, we were discussing our greatest achievements: what accomplishment are we most proud of? San Aye shared that it is her ability to sew. She said as a child she always wanted to learn to sew and set it as a sort of goal in her life, and she’s proud that now she can. 

I was a bit shocked, since I thought it was a more random skill. The training was offered, the job was needed…it all happened in such quick succession from my perspective. So I asked, What did you think when I showed up to your house asking if you wanted to do a sewing training?

She said she was “joyful,” but didn’t really know how to tell me how excited she was. She said my Burmese wasn’t as good then, so she just said yes, but really she was so excited. She’d previously tried a few days of training that were offered for free in the market—the top “students” were given jobs at factories, so it was sort of like an interview or exam to see who could pick up the skills fastest. But she wasn’t chosen, so she wasn’t sure how she’d learn. 

While I’ve told her before why we asked her and a bit of our side of the story, I told her again. I told her how much God had told us over and over, and I just wasn’t sure why. But not only did He know the challenges she’d be facing in just a few months, he also knew her dreams, her goals. He knew her! He knows her. 

And he loves her so much to tell us over and over, to create a training, to send a shop in town with a bag design and a job, to provide a sewing machine in our home. We’ve now moved through three or four other sewing projects. She’s learned to make beautiful porcelain jewelry. I can’t even really begin to share all the ways we’ve seen her personally thriving in the past two years. She’s meeting life goals and we’re witnessing it all right from our little house and over sweet cups of tea.  

________________

We’ve known Pyint Soe since he was nine, and he celebrated his 18th birthday this month. It felt so epic, and I’m unable capture quite why. 

We have so many hopes for him, and we’ve invested so much of ourselves into him. Recently, we’ve had some hard conversations, we’ve asked big things. We feel such pride and concern and love for him, like he’s our little brother. And now he’s 18!

Stephen’s spent so many hours with Pyint Soe in recent years, and he’s learned so many things. We’ve been watching him learn so many unique skills: to type in Burmese, to use a Mac easily, to run Powerpoint for church, to run live sound for a variety of different events, to do the basics of sound editing, to speak and write English more fluently. This week we’re anxiously awaiting his exam results, praying he is able to enter grade 10 in June, praying he’ll be the first to graduate in his family.

________________

The love I have for this young woman is scares me. She’s meant so much to me over the years, and she is one of God’s good gifts to me. 

We sat over coffee recently and had my favorite conversation to date. It wasn’t easy by any stretch, but it was one of the most beautiful, epic moments in it’s own way. 

I’m thanking God again for her, for our nine years here, and for the woman she’s become. 

________________

This young woman on the right turned seventeen this month, too—another epic moment! In some ways it was another day: we had a jewelry meeting that morning before she worked in the afternoon. We all slipped out for a special birthday lunch and snapped this photo.

But it was epic to me, because I realized just how much I love her and pray for her.

________________

This is still the year of conversations; conversations we’ve been waiting years to have. Or friendships and relationships we’ve waited years to hold the stories and history and memories they do.

I can’t help but feel a sense arrival; some sort of peace. Our house is crazy folks, and so many days are just one jumble after another. But these friends we wanted to love so well; we were reaching to love them. And then we fell in love with them. They became family. We don’t have to reach anymore, but just be. It happened.

We’re watching the years go by together and having conversations wondering how this unlikely friendship became so normal for all of us. And there’s something very epic about that.

another country, another home.

by Filed Under: kelli, photos 1 Comment

We hopped across the border last week to visit Burma yet again. We had to cross for a new visa stamp, and it seemed the perfect opportunity to visit a few friends.

Our “little sister” Pwei Pwei has been in school in Burma for the past year, and we’ve been promising to visit her. This week, she took her final exams, and we finally made it across to say hi!

Pwei Pwei is one of Thida’s daughters and has always been dear to us, and then she nearly broke our hearts last year: she finished Grade 10, took her final exams, and passed five subjects, but failed one–English. She failed English, with a “big sister” and “big brother” who speak it fluently. Major fail on our parts.

The effects of this for her: she spent the last year re-taking grade 10, and last week, re-taking the exam. For us, we started an English program using Rosetta Stone & conversational English, focusing on students that will be taking this exam in coming years; hoping we don’t let them down.

Either way, we traveled last week with Thida to visit!



Things we love about Burma:
We speak the language!
We can read the signs!
It’s quite easy to get around on our own and impress nearly every one we come into contact with. That’s always nice.

It’s also beautiful–the mountains, the colors, and the people.

We were able to spend two different days in Du Win Zeit, the village that many of our neighbors are from. We met family members, friends of friends; and generally went on Thida’s tour, introducing us–showing us off? broadcasting our tricks?–to the entire village.

Du Win Zeit is famous for it’s large, freshwater shrimp. According to Thida, there are 10,000 adults & children in the village, and 8,000 of them fish every day for shrimp!

Nyein Nyein is also from Du Win Zeit, so she came to visit her family & join the parade after baking bread on Friday. So this little one already knows us pretty well, and thankfully likes us in both countries.

Nyein Nyein’s family used to live in Mae Sot, so we’ve known this teenager since she was seven!

We’re thankful this girl will be back in our neighborhood next week, at least until she hears the results from her exams and makes some decisions about university.

We could visit friends in their villages, but as foreigners on a tourist visa, we had to stay in a registered hotel. The nearest one to their village is in Thaton.

It’s a beautiful town and our second visit there. Last time we visited our hotel had bicycles for rent, which they no longer offered. This left us walking for the first two days, but we still managed to cover 12 kilometers on foot, asking at each bicycle shop if they’d rent to us. It was in that twelfth kilometer that we found a nice shop to rent us bikes–mine in beautiful mint with “Biscuit” written on it, and Stephen’s with a compact mirror built into his bell. Classy.

We enjoyed bicycling around the town the following few days. As the only foreigners there at the time, and able to speak Burmese, we had some very interesting conversations.
One stranger: “I’ve seen you for three days! You should move here.”
Or from Thida, when she arrived to see us: “My friend called me! He said he saw my friends in town walking everywhere, in the sun! Did you not find bicycles?”

We did find my new favorite spot in town: the public library!

I loved the children’s room, complete with drawings and artwork, books in English & Burmese. It was fun to meet the librarian and chat a bit with her and her kids. Again, speaking Burmese in a small town (with white skin and a beautiful nose) makes you an instant hit.

After Thaton, we visited the larger city of Hpa’an. It’s considerably bigger, with more tourists and more English.

We biked here as well, but by then had biked about sixty kilometers and decided to switch to a motorbike for our last day to reach a few further spots.

This market seller was another favorite: he had three colors of “candy,” melted down to a moldable paste. He would make candy suckers for kids to buy, each in different shapes and styles: a monkey fishing, a chicken that actually whistles, a rose, a helicopter. He had incredible skill, even just sitting on the side of the road with a small toolbox.

As a bigger city, Hpa’an has some great offerings: a bookstore, a movie & CD shop, a large store. It was fun for us to get a few new books in Burmese, new music to share with the neighbors, flash cards for Toddler Schoolhouse, and movies with Burmese subtitles for community movie nights!

Our hotel in Hpa’an was…well, mostly just weird. But, the bathroom had quite a few ants of the biting variety, and the towels were covered in them on the first day. So the second day, I wrote a note to ask if they could leave the towels on the bed so that the ants wouldn’t get to them.
I think they liked the game of writing notes back and forth 😂

Overall, while Thaton holds a special place in our hearts, Hpa’an was fun to see again and tour around. It’s another beautiful place to visit and adventure!

it’s a big idea.

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A local organization in town, Global Alms, provides excellent certified self-defense classes. They also run Yes She Matters–a crisis line women can call locally to receive emergency assistance in four languages.

Knowing some of the particular challenges our community was facing, Global Alms & Yes She Matters offered us a free twelve-week self-defense course for twelve people. That is an incredible gift!

Further, they have been personally working with me, so that I am equipped for things we might deal with in our community.

This just makes me so thankful, as I think of these women teaching myself and my dearest friends week after week so that we can live safely. That is an incredible gift.

But it’s also a big idea. They are so brave to take it on in a group with varied backgrounds of abuse and experiences, some in current situations of abuse, in addition to other fears and concerns.

We’re already seven weeks in, and I’m still not sure what to say.

It was hard to see it in the first week: those that carry past experiences wear it on their faces and in carry it in their bodies. Their eyes give them away. They are desperate to learn, desperate to be there.

But there are also those that only feel a threat in the distance; they haven’t seen it close. They wear that on our their faces, too.

It’s been a learning experience. It’s been exhausting at times: physically, mentally, emotionally. We’ve had some of the hardest conversations yet around this class. Some I never thought I’d ever have, and most I’m still not sure if I’m more thankful or more heartbroken for them.

I do know I’m thankful we serve a God that heals the broken-hearted, because there is so much broken-heartedness around us.

We made safety plans a few weeks ago, discussing our exit strategies, our safe places, and people we trust. We packed bags and stored them in secret places, with spare keys & copies of important documents.

We’ve also laughed. We’ve accidentally smacked each other instead of the foam pad. We’ve shouted at one another, “Get back!” and “Give me back my money!” in simulations. (I’m still working on my angry Burmese.) We also got to see Yedi “attack with a full gangster act, and we all rolled with laughter.

It’s been a bit of an overwhelming experience, but a good one. I’m thankful for what I’ve learned, thankful for what I’ve seen my friends learn. I’m so thankful for Global Alms sharing their skills and expertise so generously. And thankful for a chance to spend every Saturday with some of my favorite women!

copycat.

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While stateside, I had often admired leather earrings I was seeing in different places. I knew my sister and a few friends had purchased some from Noonday Collection, but I also knew that wasn’t really something we could swing, nor could I explain to my neighbors that I spent over 1,000 baht on earrings.

So instead, I bought some pieces of leather and just made a few myself. I visited Noonday Collection’s page for “inspiration” and made a number of pairs.

Fast forward many months, when last week I found myself welcoming one of Noonday’s founders into our home to meet the artisans that will now be making product for this lovely company.

{That’s right! You’ll see jewelry made right in our house by our best friends in upcoming Noonday collections!🎉}

We sat around our table as the ladies opened Noonday’s Look Book of items, to see where their items would soon be showcased. On the first page sat a quite familiar pair of leather earrings, to which Mwei Mwei exclaimed, “Kelli! Those look just like yours!”

Since it was in Burmese, I smiled and encouraged them flip the page.

Another pair of leather earrings. Another exclamation.

By the third one, I laughed and explained quietly in Burmese. And asked them not to tell. Thankful for secret languages! 😂

I’m also thankful for great facial expressions captured by friends!
And for organizations like Global Child Advocates, Sojourn Studios, and Noonday Collection that partner with small little neighborhoods like ours.


staying alive.

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On the way to church, I took granola with me in a mug. I started to take my first bite as I approached a large roundabout in town. I paused, realizing the horrible driving that occurs at roundabouts in Mae Sot; in particular this one. I set down my cup, as I continued thinking that this might be the most dangerous driving spot in town.

No, I corrected myself, what about the intersection just up the road? Semi trucks coming off the mountains often burn up their brakes. As they enter into town on that highway, they’ll honk at that intersection–which means they are plowing right through, no matter what light shines at them. We can hear these honks from the swimming pool we frequent, and…well, the honks are pretty frequent, too.

Oh, wait, I corrected myself again, what about that intersection near the hospital? That’s just a free-for-all! …Or at GHz! That intersection has rules all to it’s own!

By then I picked up my granola and realized it’s just a miracle we’re still alive around here.

__________________

Last week a friend in town was quite sick but unable to determine what it was. After many tests, she learned that Zika virus made it’s way into Mae Sot sometime in January; they said that could be what it was.

This resulted in a few other friends chatting and then contacting us. Stephen had a mysterious rash at the beginning of the year–which we thought could be an allergic reaction to some medicine, or measles that was going around at the time (supposedly the measles vaccine from America “might not work” for here; they “aren’t sure”)–but friends now questioned if it could have been Zika.

Honestly? I don’t know. We were glad when it went away.

If was an allergic reaction or measles or Zika, I’m glad it went away. If it was Zika, I’m glad I’m not currently pregnant. If it was Zika, I’m glad we’ve welcomed three new healthy babies into our community since then.

And I’m still seeing it’s a miracle we’re still alive around here.

__________________

I’ll just add to this that while out for a run two weeks ago, a car parked in at a coffee shop on the main road decided to back up without looking, and thus, into me! I jerked my knee out to the side so that the car just brushed me (rather than a good hit), but had to leap over into the traffic to my right, hoping they happened to be watching where they were driving.

They were. But the theme continues.

__________________

I relayed these realizations to Stephen on the motorbike a few days later. His response?

“Yeah, sometimes it feels like Oregon Trail. Except every day it’s, ‘You don’t have dengue today! You don’t have Zika today! You survived driving today!‘”

#stayingalive
#hopingwemakeittooregon

new teachers!

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We are beyond thankful to introduce three new teachers to our little collective!

We’ve been working quite a bit with Sara, who manages Sojourn Studios and helps to employ and love on three ladies in our neighborhood every week. Her husband, Jason, also stepped in and managed Schoolhouse while we were away at the end of 2018.

This year, Jason asked about an opportunity to get involved in the community with his kids. They have a daughter and son, ages ten and eight, so it seemed the perfect opportunity for them to both teach and get to know their peers. Thus, a new Schoolhouse class started, with three new teachers in the neighborhood!

It’s pretty great how things sometimes (occasionally?) just work out: this group is stellar. This particular age group is committed to come to things, and we know them very well. They were so excited to be invited to a special English class, where they wear name tags. Siblings aren’t able to come along nor sit at the door watching.

{That’s one of our goals with schoolhouse. We want each age group and individual to get focused, age-appropriate teaching. Our toddler class is only for those under 5, so that older kids can’t shout out the answers. Our English lessons can only be attended by the one student learning–no siblings, no one staring over their shoulders, and no whispering the answers in Burmese through the window.}

We have really enjoyed seeing the kids learn and look forward to the class every week. I like hearing them practice their new words and dialogues on the porch:
What is your name?
My name is Kyaw Gee.
Kyaw Gee. How do you spell that?
….(long pause, followed by Burmese: I don’t have my name tag! How do you spell it?)

They are learning the responsibility of coming on time, on their own, with their name tag. They are also able to learn from their peers, and then play a great game of tag afterward.

We love having new faces to help. We’re so thankful when others are willing to get to know our friends, too!

conversations.

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It’s become a trend to choose a word for the year in January. I didn’t join this trend; I just made a few old-fashioned goals.

And then I find myself in February, and it seems a word has picked us. This, my friends, is the year of conversations.

We still have a bread business; ladies are still sewing and making jewelry. The kids still come to play. Stephen is still recording and working with Pyint Soe. English classes are meeting and the new musicians are getting better.

But these are just actions; items on the calendar. Our days are built around conversations. They are difficult, real, and seemingly endless. Sometimes I’m grasping for a specific word I can’t remember the translation; others where I’m grasping for words at all.

In some conversations I know we’ve broken Burmese culture; while in others I know we’ve broken American culture. Most the time I think we’ve abandoned both, and we’re just moving into this no-mans land of a multicultural friendship in some very messy situations.

Over family dinner, we’ve discussed if you’d rather be able to fly or to make yourself invisible. We’ve also talked about the culture of how you wash your clothes, what our values are for our children, and who decides what we watch on television in our homes. We’ve talked about if we should treat everyone equal: if they ask for rice, if we serve them dinner. We’ve talked about alcohol and how we treat animals and gender roles.

Over tea and jewelry and lunch and in the car, we’ve talked about abuse. The self-defense classes we’re attending were specifically offered to some women in difficult situations, and we’ve dealt with them very personally in the past few weeks. Conversations have turned to parents that passed away, stepmothers that abused, family they don’t have. We’ve talked about husbands that beat, the pain of alcoholism, the shame from mother-in-laws, the fear of surviving. We’ve talked about fathers that don’t remember their actions the next day. We’ve talked about safety plans. I talked to one woman about her own self worth, desperately telling her how much I’d miss her if she disappeared, even as she mourned that no one would.

We’ve also talked about how couples met years ago, when certain family members went to Bangkok and when they returned. We’ve talked about one-year goals and five-year goals; dreams and what we’d do with one million baht.

This is all since January. Because this is the year of conversations.

There have been some really beautiful conversations. Moments I couldn’t have created if I tried. Our friends are trusting us in ways they never have, and we’re trusting them, too, with some our fears and challenges; the hopes we have and the things that break our hearts.

I’m thankful for the tea and rice and car rides and muffins and coffees that make these conversations happen.

I’m also overwhelmed at the teas, coffees, and rice still on the schedule for this week. Plus the unplanned ones I can’t currently see coming. Will I have the words? Will I seize the moment? How do I really love this girl right now in this moment, knowing all the pain she carries? What do we say to this man, to love him and challenge him and welcome him in, after we’ve just seen the bruises on his wife?

I’m still overwhelmed by the conversations that have already gone by, reveling in how to pray for them, how to hope for them, and what to do now. Did I say the right word? Did they even understand?  Should I have said something more? 

I don’t know most of these things. I know we’ve been building bridges for years and years, and we hope they are strong enough to continue to hold very honest|painful|hopeful conversations.

It’s only February, and I already know this is the year of conversations.

a little less crazy.

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Perhaps it was last Saturday, when we got a call that a husband and father of five in our community had passed away at the hospital. Or perhaps it was the next five hours of trying to find his wife, who doesn’t have a phone, to tell her.

Perhaps it was last Sunday, after I’d talked for a few hours with a crying friend, convincing her of her worth, telling her we loved her, and giving her a key to our home to use if her husband hit her that evening.

Perhaps it was when I cried to Stephen that night about how little I could do about anything: about her life, about our adoption, about our community, in limited Burmese. Perhaps when I said I was tired of always having my hands tied.

Perhaps it was Monday morning, when a woman came into our house with fresh bruises covered in thanaka. Perhaps it was when she said her mother-in-law told her not to come to our house for protection.

I’m not sure where the breaking point was exactly, when Stephen said, “I think we might need something different for our Sabbath this week. Just a little more space.” It was pretty quickly after that when we got in the car.

The way the cookie crumbled that week (oh my, was it crumbling) we could manage three days away if we put a few delay-able things on hold. So we did.

We drove two hours to a little town we visited five years ago. It’s an ancient capital of Thailand, Sukhothai, famous for the ancient ruins from as far back as the thirteenth century.

We checked in to a hotel pretty late on Monday, and woke up pretty sick on Tuesday morning. The mold wasn’t too hard to find in the air conditioner.

We went to ask if they could either give us a new room or clean it, and–surprise!–they upgraded us! Pretty significantly, too. We found ourselves in an absolutely beautiful private villa. 🙌🏻

And then we just spent a few days resting. It’s a beautiful town to bicycle through, so we did quite a bit of that. We also had a lovely pool to enjoy and new foods to try.

And this: deep fried som tum. Som tum is a popular Thai dish, and we happened to have this deep-fried version of it five years ago when we visited. When we returned to Mae Sot, we asked around for it at restaurants with no luck. Not even that they just didn’t have it, but ridiculous stares as though we’d just asked to eat moon dirt. Perhaps it wasn’t available here, but only a different region of Thailand? Perhaps we were saying it incorrectly in Thai? So we asked a few Thai friends from different regions around the country, who all said they had never heard of it.

It’s things like this that make you begin to question your sanity: Did I really eat that? Was it something else? Why has no one ever heard of this?

But alas, we found the same restaurant. It was still on the menu, and it was still amazingly delicious.

And most importantly, I’m a little less crazy.
A few days of rest also made me feel a little less crazy.

So, here’s to that: a little less crazy!