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!

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.

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!

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.

family dinner.

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We started Family Dinner this month. Every Friday, we invite all of our “employees” and their families to join us for dinner and a class.

Family is a broad word. There are usually between fifteen and thirty of us. It could grow to forty if “everyone” comes; maybe fifty. Family is a broad word around here.

We explained the first week that we were doing this because it’s what we do as Americans, as Christians: we eat together. We talk and get to know one another better.

In Burmese culture, or at least in our neighborhood Burmese culture, it’s quite uncommon for every one to eat together or to talk much while they eat. So we bring “ice breaker” questions. Never mind that we already know the history of your family and marriage and when you hope to have your next child; let’s discuss:
– Would you rather be able to fly or be invisible?
Invisible, so I could steal things everywhere! 🤦🏼‍♀️
– If you could be any animal, what would you be?
A snake so I could kill people. 😳
A dragon. 🧐
A lion so I could get any food I want.
– Which snack are you most like, and why? (Then you get to keep the snack from the basket.)
I’m like these fish snacks because they are long and skinny.
I’m like this bag of chips because it’s fat.
I’m like this snack because my wife likes it and she likes me. 😍

And then we’re having a class together, where we learn together and try to get to know each other even more. The past weeks we’ve been talking about beliefs, core values, ethics, & morals.

We’ve talked about who feeds the kids in the house and why–what decides that? What do we want most in our kids and spouses: intelligence, beauty, wealth, independence, or kindness? Is it okay to hit animals? If we were stranded on a boat with only enough food for five people, how should we decide who lives?

Soon we’ll move on to goals, and what our plans are for this year and the next five. Later, we’ll discuss budgets and time management.

Each week, we have a teacher coming to lead the discussion and teach, so that we can participate like everyone else. She’s a Burmese Christian, so she’s helping us to connect our faith into why we do what we do: why we treat everyone equally, why we live here, why we’ve created jobs for each of them, why we spend our money the way we do, why we have the goals we have.

It’s brought some great, difficult, personal, messy conversations. But that seems to be the theme of the year, so we’re just settling in for the ride.

And even beyond the conversations, we pretty much love it.

It’s most of our closest friends, gathered around delicious food that Thida makes. It’s probably the best meal they’ll have all week, packed with meat and vegetables. I love hearing everyone laugh together, and learning more and more about some of the quieter husbands.

We have two of the teenagers provide childcare for the kids during our lesson, which gives them some spending money and keeps us all sane. I love hearing the kids laugh and call their auntie and uncle over, “When you finish, come plaaayyy!”

I love that we pray together, even if it’s the simplest prayer we can pray in Burmese. Last week, three-year-old Win Moe sat down and said, “Stephen, Kelli, let’s pray!” She said she was hungry.

christmas pajamas.

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Every year or two I have a favorite carol: a verse or a line; something that sticks out to me, tangibly enough to grasp and ache for.

This year, it’s one of the lesser-sung verses of Joy to the World.

No more let sin and sorrows grow
Nor thorns infest the ground
He comes to make his blessings flow
Far as the curse is found
Far as the curse is found
Far as, far as the curse is found 

As we left for our camping trip on Christmas morning, we drove by Zwe in his new Christmas pajamas. 

I find pajamas nearly every year for the youngest kids. There is a shop that has them—fuzzy, fleece pajamas, often in Christmas patterns, for about a $1 a pair. I can’t pass up that deal, particularly in the coldest months of the year when the littles need all the warm clothes they can for their bamboo homes. 

Really, our neighbors don’t wear pajamas. Did you know pajamas are a thing of development? I didn’t, or at least I’m not sure I would have identified it that way until we moved here. Wearing them seems to be just another thing to wash by hand; another hassle and thus unnecessary. I’m not sure; I could be wrong. I do know that explaining pajamas to our neighbors for English class has been next to impossible. It isn’t a thing in their world.

The kids just wear them as an outfit. But I buy them anyway. 

I think in my mind, it’s like a prayer for them: a hope that someday they’ll have Christmas pajamas. That someday, they’ll celebrate Christmas as a family, and they’ll live a life where they open up a new pair of pajamas on Christmas Eve.

In just one picture of our community, even a beautiful one like this, there is so much story for us. We know the stories these families hold, at least in the past eight years. We know when Zwe got here to Mae Sot, when he moved in with his grandparents and cousins. We remember picking him up across town with a small bag of things, an infant then.

All the families, all the stories: they all carry loss. Some more than others, but all of them carry the curse, the brokenness of sin and sorrows. 

And yet, for this community in particular, we are hoping for His blessings to flow through. We are hoping for HIs goodness to stretch as far as the curse in found in every household, every family, and every story. We hope for Christmas to be celebrated, for families to be whole, and perhaps someday for there to be Christmas pajamas waiting under a tree.

the collective christmas 2018: three.

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After our Christmas meal on Friday, we spent all day Saturday helping to make OneHouse Live :: Christmas Carols happen that evening. I didn’t snap any photos, but it was beautiful. Stephen did an incredible job and had a number of carols, all in a collection of local languages. He had singers for English, Burmese, Karen, & Thai; and it was lovely to hear as we gathered around candles. Some of our community teenagers came to join, Pyint Soe ran sound as Stephen led, and it was just beautiful. 

Sunday welcomed in our church Christmas: hundreds of people, five loads of people from our community. Music and dancing, the Gospel, a meal, and a raffle! It’s an event, to say the least. 

A few favorite moments: Stephen being a proud community dad, going to the front to take photos of the kids’ dancing. And the kids seeing him, beaming with pride, and missing a few steps.

One of the sweetest husbands in our community came along and was sitting just in front of his wife and I. I love that she kept having him lean forward so she could straighten his shirt. The woman next to him, who we didn’t know, had a hard time with the raffle. Perhaps she didn’t quite get it; perhaps she couldn’t read her numbers? I’m not sure. Either way, every time a number was called, she’d lean over and ask him if that was hers. He’d politely say no, repeat her number to her, and smile. Every time. This is through hundreds of plastic bins, fans, blankets, a rice cooker, bicycles: so many raffle numbers. So many times. He kept smiling, friendly as ever, and I was shaking with laughter behind them. 

Some of our neighbors won in the raffle. And Stephen won a fan! 

In the midst of all these Christmas activities, we spend our days at the market, secretly trying to buy hundreds of gifts. We sneak them into the house and fill our side with piles of gifts and wrapping paper. 


This year was the best yet for gifts, too. It gets easier the more we know the kids; and the more we accept the discrepancies. We are getting better at abandoning fairness for friendship—who we know best and where the deepest relationships are, we get them better gifts that suit them. We do know them and know what they’d like; that’s a part of friendship! For those we might know by name or perhaps from a medical emergency, we find a more generic gift. Sometimes unfairness is hard to embrace, but it makes the gift giving much more fun.

For those families we know really need more, we give more. We use Christmas to provide extra to the families that are struggling the most, giving them new toothbrushes, toothpaste and soap, warm and new clothes for the constantly growing kids; and making sure the parents, too, have enough to wear.

This year, we did blankets for all the families. Previously we’ve given toiletries: toothbrushes, toothpaste, laundry detergent, soap. But in many ways our community has stabilized. We still included these things for some of the families we know really need them, but every family received a blanket.  

Some families received just a blanket. The families we know well–a little over a hundred–each received a bag of gifts with their blanket. Inside was a gift or collection of gifts for each individual.

There were many highlights this year. First, we didn’t “forget” anyone (people we don’t really know, but they “know” us) or have kids (again, from a few streets over; they’ve heard of us) come to the door begging for gifts. That’s a big, big win.

And then there were just perfect little moments. When we gave San Aye her family’s blanket, she smiled broadly and said she’d told Mway Mway that’s what she hoped for this year because she really needed one. 

When we went out to a group of families that live in the field behind our house, the kids came running out to the car. Really, they just know our car (it’s pretty loud, and they can see it coming on the road) and always come running to say hi. But when they saw the presents: the biggest smiles. And Lin Tet Oo came in for a big hug.  

In one house, they said thank you for the gifts, and we started walking away. Just around the house we heard paper rip open and a four-year-old girl squeal, “A new shirt! A new SHIRT! It’s beautiful!” 

At Thida’s house, the boys were comparing their shooter marbles and talking about how they’d play together. Kyaw Gee immediately got started on his off-brand Lego set, and Yedi gushed over her “Y” necklace—a friendship set with her best friend, Yaminoo, having the same one.

It’s uncommon to open gifts in front of people, so the older girls took their gifts with a thank you, and then slowly, subtly make their way into the house while the younger kids open their gifts at the outside sitting area.  But then adorably, just a few minutes later, the older girls come running out smiling, holding up their treasures with huge smiles and thank yous!  It was really fun to see them love them and feel like we really did a good job finding things they’ll love. 

It should be noted that with all the late night wrapping, early morning wrapping, and lots of coffee in between—plus my giddy joy at their liking all the gifts!—I nearly fell off the bridge returning from Thida’s house! It was really close—scarily close—and would have left me with a number of broken bones on Christmas Eve. So we’ll just note that as the Christmas miracle 2018!

Really, this Christmas felt pretty miraculous. It went so smoothly, and had very few lows. It can be hard to host an epic Christmas, in a poorer community, with friends and acquaintances alike.  It can be a lot for us and wear us out. But per the season, God was really gracious to us. He’s been gracious, despite some really challenging things lofted our way. We’re thankful for the miracles he’s sent our way, too.

the collective christmas 2018: two.

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Our meal this year was the most Burmese yet: we did it birthday style, like a birthday party for Jesus! We had mohingya, per community request:a traditional fish soup with noodles, often served at birthdays, and one of Thida’s specialities. She’s famous for hers, and it’s the best I’ve personally ever had. (I actually like hers, and I haven’t had any other I truly enjoy. That will be more understandable as you see what is put in it.)

We went to the market on Thursday to purchase 30 kilos of fish, one kilo of fish paste, a box of fish sauce, 100 kilos of noodles, ten kilos of green beans, quite a few kilos of onions and garlic, five kilos of cilantro, five banana stalks, five kilos of limes…lemongrass, turmeric, curry, salt, MSG (you can’t win at everything!)….and six bags of fried bean chips.

That evening, they started a pot of whole fish, all the fish paste, and lots of spices. That boiled in our yard for a few hours, then was set aside until morning.

The next morning we started before seven.

The fish were peeled or whatever was needed to get the meat out, which was all put into the woks.

We chopped banana stalks, boiled them in the sauce/liquid from the fish, and then added into the woks.

We chopped onions, adding half into the woks and leaving half as toppings. We chopped garlic, adding half to the woks and frying up half as toppings.

We chopped lemongrass, and added a whole lot of it into the woks. We chopped cilantro, another greenery (I couldn’t sort out what it was despite multiple conversations and dictionaries), limes, and green beans, all set aside as toppings.

Chili was cooked to be added later as a topping, and the pans it was cooked in are still making everything in them very, very spicy—a week later!

The woks were stirred together, adding water and more spices and sauces. It simmered for three to four hours.

We picked up the noodles, made and cooked fresh in the market, that afternoon. Each bowl is filled with noodles and sprinkled with pieces of fried bean chips, then set at a place at the tables. Here, a person can add their choice of mohingya: adding their own soup, adding any combo of crispy chips, green beans, cilantro, unknown greenery, chili, fish sauce, limes, onions, and garlic. Stephen and I prefer less liquid; the whole community prefers a lot. He searches for good pieces of fish; I love the banana stalks and onions. We both snuck inside to get more crispy chip pieces. I love adding lots of green beans and a bit of lime; Stephen adds chili. 

This is what a good bowl looks like to our neighbors. (Ours look pretty different.)

As we set up tables and chairs, they started in Burmese tradition: kids & lesser-friends tables outside; then adult & important-persons tables inside. This is one of my least favorite traditions: the dividing out of VIPs, serving them more and better and whatnot. I had discussed this with Thdia before, so as they made plans together, I reminded her and explained to everyone else: we wanted everyone together. We loved everyone equally, so we’d all eat equally. We wanted all the tables on the same “level” and with the same service. Thida remembered, explained that this was important to us, and we went with it. Overall, this was a success; but I will say they just couldn’t resist when our church came—VIPs in their mind—and they pulled out our ceramic bowls from the kitchen. They were forced to sit on the same playing field, but they just couldn’t serve them in plastic!    

We started serving at three o’clock in the afternoon, as the first kids returned from school. For Burmese birthday parties, you set out a few tables to serve at, and people come to eat, stepping into a free spot. Once finished, you clear out for someone else. We had tables and chairs for about thirty, but easily served near five hundred. I honestly have no idea.

There were a few things I loved about this years meal. First, it felt really Burmese: we had balloons to decorate, music—a shuffle of English Christmas music and Burmese pop—blaring from a speaker, people in and out everywhere. We had no fights or stampedes or food hoarding.

We served our church, who all came to join and prayed for our community. 

Most of our dearest friends came initially, from three to four; then word spread to all around. By six, many of those we know best were still around for the party, and we had so much food still. By the end, our dearest friends ate three to four times! We still ended up inviting a nearby children’s home to come eat—another twenty to forty?—and ultimately sent home extras in the community at 8pm!

Thida and I were in the kitchen around five, when we hadn’t even finished one wok of soup. She exclaimed how excited she was we hadn’t run out yet, and said, “God is blessing it!” She seems to see Jesus more clearly than I do sometimes.

Later that evening as we cleaned, she said it just never ran out: they’d serve bowl after bowl, hundreds of people would come, and the wok would have the same amount in it. I told her a summary of the fish and loaves of bread, and how it never ran out and they had extras, even feeding thousands. We said it felt the same. It was a really beautiful conversation. 

And for me, significant in this way: years ago, when we first started working in this community, we always marveled at how much it felt like we were living out the gospels. It was almost word for word, which was both encouraging, but also sometimes made decisions easier: we knew which way to go, we could see how God was in it. The past year or two, at some point or pattern I can’t identify, we faced so many decisions I just wasn’t sure about. Things felt so grey at times, where we weren’t sure where God was in it or how to give him glory or how to handle a predicament. At this point, and a few others in the past week or so, God was gracious to give us conversations or moments of clarity, confirmation; moments of grace.

This year, I loved the meal, the feel of the evening, the success of it. I love that people ate to their full. I love that we saw Jesus in it. I love that we also saw ourselves, just encompassed in this community: it was a Burmese party in all ways, but it was us, too. It’s weird how that happens slowly, until you realize suddenly, as if it just fell upon you. But you also like what you’ve found.

Please note: Nearly all photos in this blog are credited to Mway Mway. I realized after uploading them all that I forgot her watermark, so I’m going to give her credit here for very nearly all of these.

the collective christmas 2018: one.

by Filed Under: house church, kelli, on the house, photos, playhouse, schoolhouse Leave a Comment

It was our best Christmas yet, in so many ways.  

Do I say that every year? I hope so. Mostly, I think we’re just learning more and more each year; learning what to expect, learning Burmese culture, learning our best friends, learning ourselves. 

I’ll start with my favorite photo this year: just a day after we returned. I was meeting with Thida to create our Christmas plan–we certainly needed her help! And the kids wandered in to find our Christmas tree, which we’d just set up the night before. As the best tree on the block, and it draws quite a lot of awe!

We started the festivities with a movie night. On Sunday night–just a couple days after getting back into town!–we pulled out the projector, opened up some cookie tins, and blared Home Alone in our yard. We didn’t have a Burmese translation or subtitles, so we’d just shout a translation over the parts that seemed confusing. 🤷🏼‍♀️ Either way, slap-stick humor is funny in all languages.

It was the best kickoff we could have imagined! Hearing the adults and kids alike laughing their hearts out was amazing. 

My two favorite moments: About twenty seconds in, as the thief is in the house entryway, pretending to be a police officer, Thida says to those around her, “I don’t think he’s a real cop! I think he’s faking!”
Yeah, you’re going to get this just fine. ☺️

Then, Kevin uses the trick repeatedly of playing the movie in the background to scare off people at the door, “I’ll give you to the count of ten to get your ugly, yella, no-good keister off my property before I pump your guts full of lead…Keep the change ya filthy animal!” Same trick; repeatedly, folks. And they all laughed their heads off every. single. time. I loved it. 

We even had guests join us in the street. Look closely and you’ll see a grown man sitting in a stroller he pulled up as a chair. We know how to throw a party!

On Tuesday we had storytime after school. Thida read the Christmas story from the Jesus Storybook Bible, and we crafted our own nativities.

It was chaotic and lovely! The kids left with nativities and fruit.

There are reasons we don’t use glue often, though. There was also a nativity glued to our motorbike seat, and a few on our inside walls. Glue stick works better than you’d think. 🤦🏼‍♀️

The next day we sang a few carols in Burmese and played games, including a disaster of Bingo. That was the low point and I might be permanently finished with the game…but “pass the present” and a few other simple games were a big hit! Either way, beyond the singing, it was far too chaotic for photos. We all survived!

And then we were off to the market to kick off our Collective Christmas Meal!

a dichotomy.

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

While playing a game at Storytime on Tuesday, he was jumping up on me, asking me repeatedly to be held. I did, as long as I could, but he’s seven and lanky. Hardly someone I can hold for too long.

I held him through the story, working hard to keep him focused.

Wednesday found us struggling during Playhouse, as he asked me 101 times for a Superman coloring page. He was throwing things, breaking things, and fighting everyone. We reviewed our house rules.

And then Thursday, when Thida was nearly to tears recounting what he’d said that morning.

He said he likes it at our house because we love him, but his parents don’t love him. They only hit him.

__________________

I can’t speak to their feelings, nor can I imagine a mother not loving her own child, but it’s true that they hit him often. It’s true that they don’t love in an obvious way.

It’s also true that we do very much love him. I can speak to my own feelings, and he’s very close to my heart.

He’s seven, and quite a mess, as his life has been. He’s had significant adults in and out of his life, moving between prison sentences and questionable lines of work.

He only knows life with violence. We are reviewing, nearly every day right now, that when he’s at our house:

We play. Together.
We don’t fight.
We don’t bite.
We don’t kick.
We don’t hit. 
If we are angry, we use our words.

__________________

This week there was drama about why he isn’t in school–school our community fund paid for him to attend at the beginning of the year. Thida had provided her son’s old uniforms and we got him a bag; we even started sending breakfast extras for lunch. He was sent to Bangkok in the middle of the year and then returned, like something purchased from Target.

Meanwhile, his aunt is asking to join our literacy class–which we’d love for her to. But it’s also heartbreaking. She’s 19 now, and was taken out of school since we got here. We did everything we could to keep her in school, and it didn’t work. She was sent to Bangkok to work, and is now back, raising a baby on her own in the same broken environment as her nephew, and asking for literacy classes.

__________________

And then last night found us with his mom on our floor, in a panic attack, after her drunken family members created a brawl outside.

Stephen went back to the house to ask after their son, and they said he was sleeping. He was doubtful the child slept through all the shouting and fighting, and peeked in on him. He was wide awake.

“Do you want to come to our house? Are you scared?”
“Yes.”

We learned his mom is pregnant with another little baby, and now we’ll be taking her to clinic this week. We work hard to create a culture of celebrating pregnancy in the neighborhood, so I told her I was happy for her.

It was automatic; instantaneous as I feared she was considering abortion.

It was a lie.

__________________

It’s moved so quickly this week, from one mess to another.

It’s hard to reconcile it all in my mind. It’s hard to reconcile waiting on adoption, when we’re offered kids here that we already love. It’s hard to want to keep families together when they are so broken. It’s hard to send a child home into ugly chaos. It’s hard to see smiles as he fights through. It’s hard to know she’s bringing another little baby into this. It’s hard to fight for education when the brokenness is so much deeper. Its hard to hold a seven-year-old.

It’s hard to comprehend that his story, at age seven, involves drugs and trafficking and prison sentences and sexual encounters and drunkenness and stabbings and swords. But also a place across the street where he colors pictures of Superman, climbs on his auntie & uncle, plays with an iPad, and eats breakfast every morning.

Perhaps the dichotomy is overwhelming for him, too.