The House Collective

boxes.

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After purchasing the sound system for The Reinforcers and getting to know some new arrivals to Mae Sot, we had gathered a selection of big boxes. You know the ones: full of potential, just asking to be made into a house or a car or a tunnel. We had them all.

So at Playhouse on Wednesday I set out to make a house with a tunnel attached. And a car, and another tunnel.

Honestly, the kids weren’t really sure why I needed to cut a door in it and draw a window on the side, since they meanwhile had created a boat out of the inside packing materials. And within fifteen minutes, I wondered why I had taken the time, too.

Whoa. Two days of total chaos.

This kid, too.

His older siblings made him Batman. 😂

treasures: part 2.

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This week’s jar of clay brought to you by Flour & Flowers.

Friday found us baking & delivering 25 loaves of bread, 105 tortillas, and 19 pans of cinnamon rolls. This started at 5:30am and included all of the following disasters.

We made three batches of bread with the incorrect amount of sugar, which had to be redone. The three batches were still baked in the end, and will contribute to our neighborhood watermelon & bread party this weekend. (Why do we have 60 watermelons? Check out our Instagram @thespurlocks.)

A training that began at 9:30am for our two seamstresses, in one of the rooms. Since one of our seamstresses usually watches the kids during baking and the other has a child herself, that left me with 4 kids under 2 and under while Stephen was at a Burmese lesson and got back with lunch.

Then we attempted to feed them all and get them sleep. It was a mixed bag. (If you were in a bag and shaken up with four toddlers. That kind of mixed bag.)

We then ran off to swim oh-so-quickly in the one hour break before deliveries.

At one house, Pyo Pyo’s two-year-old managed to lock all the doors and lock us out. Thankfully I’d left the back hatch up for flowers, but after trying to teach him to open it…well, I climbed through the back of our SUV over flowers and bread in my dress. It was probably not completely appropriate, but I was out of ideas.

Not too many houses after that, we returned to restart the car and found a dead car battery. Stephen and a friend with a car came to our rescue (because motorbikes aren’t great for recharging car batteries).

Just another friendly reminder that we are perplexed and struck down, but this Flour & Flowers thing is still a treasure! We made profit amidst the chaos 😊

And I’m thankful for the calm, chilly Saturday morning that followed.

treasures.

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

2 Corinthians 4:7-10

But we have this treasure in jars of clay
to show that the surpassing power belongs to God
and not to us.
We are afflicted in every way, but not crushed;
perplexed, but not driven despair;
persecuted, but not forsaken;
struck down, but not destroyed;
always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,
so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies.

As I read this verse yesterday, I immediately thought of the treasure all around me: our community.

___________________

Flour & Flowers is a treasure. I never thought we’d make it this far, and we’re over three years in. Somehow we’re weekly providing salaries to four families by driving around town with a car load of flower bouquets and bread. Those relationships, the miracle of it making profit and creating a savings plan–these are treasures.

And it rests in jars of clay. It rests on a foreigner market that flows in and out. We are losing and gaining customers nearly every month. It rests on a small store in the market that may or may not have the exact ingredients we need; or might have a different size pan this month, or perhaps a new type of flour. It rests on changing weather and a kitchen that is practically outside in that weather, so that some weeks the bread rises like a charm and other weeks we’re re-doing batches into the afternoon. It rests on second language learning that sometimes leaves us going in circles. It rests on women who haven’t completed high school, and sometimes keeping count of how many tortillas they’ve rolled or writing down the time the bread started rising is a challenge. (Just this week, the paper where they are to write the rising start time said “40 minutes,” and I had to ask, “But what hour?” It took us awhile to sort that.) It rests on changing government and laws; it rests on families dealing with the challenges of poverty.

We’re three years into me wondering if we could possibly keep this up every week. So that every week, when we finish and the books balance and salaries are handed out, I know that God made it happen again.

___________________

The Breakfast Club just keeps growing. More kids, more days, more meals.

Every evening I wonder if it’s too much for Thida to be making breakfast for fifty every morning at 6. Every morning she awes me with her grace–her uncanny ability to predict portions, her kindness to the kids, her ability to check in on so many while serving so many others. Her checklists of each kid, while also reminding me of who needs to go to the clinic and who needs medicine.

And she reminds me if I forgot to give money for Aung Moe, the blind man in our community, eat, she reminds me, which has happened more often than it hasn’t…🤦🏼‍♀️

Because while Breakfast Club is amazing–a treasure, for sure–it rests in jars of clay. It rests on funding from around the world, on records that need to be kept up, on early, tired mornings.  It rests on a sacrificed kitchen.  It rests on Thida, whom I love and thank God for regularly, and who is herself a reminder of God’s surpassing power.

___________________

The kids still come to play in the afternoon. (And they still ask every morning if we’re playing at 4 o’clock.)

It’s a treasure to see them pile in the door for Storytime; to see them clap and dance to If You’re Happy & You Know It. It’s a treasure to hear them sing Praise Ye The Lord outside our door on Saturday. It’s a treasure to see them learn to say thank you. It’s a treasure to see them master Minecraft and the alphabet. It’s a treasure to see them beat me at Mario Kart. It’s a treasure to see them win at Memory with pride and confidence. It’s a treasure to watch this girl come in every day to grab a pillow and a blanket and curl up on the floor.

But it’s one big jar of clay. It rests on me not losing my temper when one child throws a toy at another child. It rests on my explaining in broken Burmese why we don’t bite each other. It rests on getting that crayon off the wall. It rests on cleaning up water off the floor and having specific towels for cleaning up after un-diapered kids.

___________________

Many of our most treasured moments of the past 7+ years have come in medical & trauma needs: women going into labor and babies seizing; women running from their machete-clad husbands; bloody wounds and broken fingers; stitches and daily bandage changes. In these moments, there are treasured conversations, treasured assurances, prayers and miracles.

But it all rests in jars of clay. I hate stitches, and they make me horribly queasy. I hate blood. I hate changing wounds. I hate hospitals. I am one big mess of clay when it comes to all of these, and yet–it’s a reminder.

___________________

Light of Love Church is a treasure in our lives. This week I got to watch these two teenagers–off to the left in yellow & red–sing and worship together, while Stephen played guitar with the band, and two teenage boys ran sound by themselves.

And it sits in a jar of clay as we attempt to get everyone there before ten (and often “tiptoe in the back” with fifteen kids). I am a jar of clay when another kid gets shoved out of the back of the car on his birthday and eats concrete.

As I sing the Burmese lyrics and we pray together as a congregation, I’m often feeling the treasure. When we’re halfway through the sermon and I’m struggling to make the words into anything…pulling out every little word I understand: I aware of my clay, breaking.

 ___________________

Our newest treasure is The Reinforcers. As we are struggling to finalize a logo and create some promotional materials for around town, they had three gigs over the past two weekends. It’s working and the guys are doing amazing.

But it is in jars of clay, too.

We received incredible gifts that made it possible to purchase the speakers–but not without usually Thailand-level difficulties of three hours on Bangkok public transit to sign a credit card slip, or picking up the delivery in multiple trips to town because the Mae Sot branch office offers “no service.”

We haven’t gotten the correct modem in the mail yet, so we’re currently using an old one we had. It works sometimes, but two times gave us a scare that it wasn’t going to. But when it worked in two last-minute miracles? A treasure.

Stephen had to bike home with one of them at 11pm on Friday, after a day that started at 6am, because the kid is still only 15. His mom waiting for him at the door with a huge smile of gratitude: a treasure.

We don’t know how it will all unfold; how popular it will be; how it will balance with the boys’ school and exam schedules. But we know it’s a treasure to get the time with them, to see it working. And we know that every little unknown will point us to it all resting on the surpassing power of God.

 ___________________

This little community holds so many treasures for us. And we can’t control or handle or manage one of them.

We are afflicted, perplexed, persecuted, struck down. {Read: This isn’t easy. Some days I’m done. Some days I want to “go home,” wherever that is.}

But we are not crushed. We are not in despair, we are not forsaken, we are not destroyed.

Instead, we are reminded every day of clay that we are. We are reminded every day that the treasures only happen by the surpassing power of God.

the reinforcers: the beginning.

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And just like that, it’s a thing. It’s a part of our lives, a part of schedules.

It’s a new project!

And more than that, we’re seeing God working here. It’s encouraging and fresh.

In short–Stephen dreamed this up over a year ago. He wanted to provide a rentable sound system in Mae Sot that comes with two mentored, trained teenagers to run sound. His idea was to get the initial sound equipment funded by grant, which would allow the project to then be sustainable to provide work for two young men and maintain the equipment and allow for growth.

Honestly? When we didn’t get the grant, we were a bit thrown off. Stephen particularly felt so sure he was supposed to start this, but unsure how to go about it without the initial investment. We were nervous to raise it individually because of other needs in the community (i.e. The Breakfast Club–you hate to fund a sound system over a malnourishment program). And we just really wanted to make sure we felt it was the right thing before we spent a good portion of our year’s expenses on it.

A quick budget breakdown: In 2016, we spent right around $10,000 on all the community projects–medical, playhouse, Flour & Flowers, Christmas. In 2017, we added the community center side and added The Breakfast Club mid-year. We haven’t finished crunching the books just yet, we were estimating $15,000 for the year; a pretty significant increase for us. And this project we were estimating at $4,000-$5,000, a very big portion and in 2017 would have doubled our community budget.

All that to say this: what a big God we serve.

As the year progressed, Stephen still felt the need was there for these two boys, as well as the opportunity. Further, he felt the market was available in Mae Sot, and that it just. might. work.

{Cheapskate Kelli was still a little concerned, but wanted to be Supportive Wife Kelli.} So when Stephen felt like we should do a year-end request for this particular project, we did. After a Christmas party, in the midst of chaos, we sent out a choppy video to explain the project.

Y’all, it was amazing to see. We received over double what we hoped for, and we are so excited (and maybe a little nervous) for what God has in store. {While he always provides for what he puts in front of us, sometimes financial provision isn’t the only daunting part!}

Fast forward just weeks, and Stephen was trekking across Bangkok to sign a credit card slip for a whole set of sound equipment!

Fast forward five days after that, the boys had their first gig with the new equipment–running sound for a worship night of fellow Burmese & Karen youth.

Fast forward another six days to this past weekend, when they all ran sound on Friday night for a concert, Saturday night for OneHouse worship, and Sunday morning at church.

Can I just tell you some of the amazing things about this?

– We are still working on the logo and fliers and marketing material, and The Reinforcers have been hired two weekends in a row. The response from expats: positive. The response from the guys: positive. The response from the boys’ families: positive. The response from the Spurlock House: positive exhaustion.

– The guys are getting to work with Stephen on nights and weekends, so they are still attending school and taking exams, but also able to help their families, both of which need the assistance.

– They come to our house for a couple hours after school on Tuesday to practice new sound skills and to learn computer. They are able to get one-on-one time with Stephen and learn skills to set them apart in the workforce.

– We are able to use some of the equipment at church each week to help out our little Light of Love community, too.

– The guys run sound for church every week, where they hear the sermon, learn the songs, and experience the body of Christ in their own cultural context.

– On Tuesdays, Stephen is teaching them to type Burmese on the computer and how to manage Keynote. By April, we hope to be taking our projector to church each week with a database of songs, to save the church bulletin paper while continuing to improve the boys’ computer and literacy skills.

The boys love it, they do. But they are shy. They are hesitant. They are teenagers. We see it the most in the moms, who open the doors to their kids at 11pm with huge smiles on their faces. Who tell us thank you a million times over, because they know that this is opening up great opportunities for their sons and families. And they know Stephen is probably the greatest guy in town for them to be hanging out with 😊

I can’t really capture how excited we are for this, and how much we are just awed seeing it roll out so quickly. Are we a little nervous? Heck yes. It’s a commitment–everything is. But we can also see God’s fingerprints all over it.

Oh, and the name is sticking. The Reinforcers are the newest piece of The House Collective!

one of those very happy weeks.

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We live a pretty great distance from America.

{From our hometowns, we live about as far away as we possibly could.}

And yet, sometimes friends & family come to visit you. It takes a lot of sacrifice of time and sleep and sometimes time with babies. But it makes you very, very, VERY happy.

This was one of those weeks!

This is when we arrived back to the hotel around 1 or 2am–I honestly have no idea–and yet there’s still a selfie photo opp waiting for us at the hotel!

When half of you are fighting jet lag and the other half are always in over their heads and you have the best local barista in your home, you drink lots of coffee.

And play lots of games.

We showed them around town the best ways we know how!

We also introduced them to some of our favorite people over breakfast in the morning and games in the afternoon!

We took a local Burmese cooking class, where we learned to make a noodle salad, a pumpkin curry, and samosas!

We made both the samosa paper and the samosas themselves, which the neighbors were super impressed with! They said they looked amazing and that we’re officially Burmese now 💪🏻😊😍

We took them to the newest Mae Sot trend: a coffee shop & bicycle park. It’s entirely great and entirely weird: a lake and manicured gardens, a small lighthouse you can climb, and many paths to bicycle. You simply grab a bike–for one, for two, for three, or for four! We tried three and four, and, well…it was perhaps three or four Asian-sized folks!

At least we got some laughs.

Then we went into the coffee shop–the most elaborate, over-the-top, hard-to-put-into words coffee shop I’ve ever been to.

The real stuffed fox hunting a bird with a rifle was not my favorite part 😳

The laughter as we all fell off a bicycle together was 😂

I can’t believe we’ve been friends for some twelve years, and that we keep up across big oceans and big life seasons. She’s been an incredible encouragement to me for so many years, and it was great to show her this little Narnia world of ours.

And it was also great that our husbands are just quite alike, and we can all just be easy friends.

This was a great kick off to 2018: we’re thankful!

the collective christmas: recovery.

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Christmas is a bit of an overload of fun, chaos, languages, & activities. So we now consider our annual camping trip to be a bit of a tradition: 2015, 2016, 2017, and now 2018.

This year we did a loop we’ve been eyeing for awhile, enjoying it all over ten days.

We hit four national parks and a few cities we’d wanted to see–Mae Hong Son & Pai. We also went through Chiang Mai for just enough time to stop at H&M for holiday sales, an amazing lunch at our favorite place, and one last Starbucks holiday coffee. We also got to stock up on camping food in the city, so that our last few days of camping included goat cheese & halloumi!

Basically, it was all amazing.


One park had this photo op set up for the New Year. So, why not?

We mostly tent camped in this great new tent from my parents for Christmas! It was pretty big compared to our last one, which Stephen couldn’t sleep straight in. This one also kept out water when it rained–a feature not available for our previous $10 tent! #winninganddry

I got Stephen a hammock he had wanted, and its AMAZING. Last year he wanted a selfie stick, and I all but stole it. That is kind of the case for this double hammock.

Perfect to watch the Christmas movies we hadn’t yet had time for. Elf is even better in a hammock outside in the cold.

Probably one of my favorite pictures of him to date.

One day was particularly rainy and chilly, as we were moving between two national parks. We were kind of dreading the icy shower when we arrived at 6pm. But, we passed a hot spring just outside the park, where you could “rent a shower” for $1.50 and use the natural hot spring water. SO HAPPY.

Both Mae Hong Son & Pai were fun little touristy towns with lovely night markets and great restaurants. Both of these photos are of the Mae Hong Son night market.

The drives between parks and towns were just stunning. We saw some of the best views we’ve ever seen in Thailand. It was great to be reminded of what a beautiful place we live. And honestly, it’s easier to appreciate that when you aren’t sweating and are even cold!

Just outside of Pai was this stunning natural canyon.

Supposedly there was a fifteen-minute loop around the canyon. This was about an hour in when it didn’t seem to be looping. Thankfully we started mid-afternoon and made it back before dark, and just in time for the sunset!

I don’t know if this really captures it, but parts of the hike were really, really narrow. I tried to take a panoramic of both sides dropping off just past my feet.

One of the parks had this beautiful waterfall with bright blue, clear water.

The last night the Fetters met us at the last national park for dinner and s’mores and games!

So many highlights! And somehow, we actually came back really refreshed and ready for the chaos we call our house.

the collective christmas: 24 & 25 december.

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Christmas Eve was church day for us!

We started a little earlier than usual since Stephen and The Reinforcers had to return all the sound equipment from OneHouse to our church. They started around 7am–which is important when you realized when they all went home that evening!

We had our usual rounds to church at 9 and 9:30, and church from 10-12, followed by lunch.

Then Stephen headed off with The Reinforcers to set up the sound system again at the other church location. They worked all afternoon getting everything ready, and then Stephen & I carted the community out to church–four car loads full!

The church did an amazing event, which again, we loved just being a part of and not hosting. We were able to sit with friends, singing, listening, laughing, and celebrating.  And hoping our numbers were called for the raffle prizes 😊

I should have more photos of the some forty friends who joined us for another Christmas party, but…🤷‍♀️ Exhaustion was setting in.

We then took everyone home around 10pm, and Stephen helped the guy finish up taking down equipment and getting it back to the church. They ended up getting home around 11pm, after a very long day. We still stayed up a bit to read by the Christmas tree and exchange a few Christmas Eve presents over homemade eggnog. There is always time to fit in traditions!

On Christmas Day we attempted a quiet morning at the house–as much as our house is ever quiet, and as much as we always have people needing medicine or water!–and then headed to the Fetters for another Christmas Day with our pseudo family!

I felt especially thankful for them this year, and the role they play in making this town home. They were also a calmer ending to the Christmas holidays 😊

the collective christmas: 23 december.

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Saturday was already a full day with OneHouse Carols that evening, so we woke up early (a theme for this holiday season; and our lives?) and headed back out to finish Christmas gifts.

Thankfully we were able to find everyone and had lots of fun. This was probably our most specialized year, and a bit less equal.  We really tried to find gifts that fit each person, and a little bit of how well we knew them. It made it so much more fun to purchase, pack, and deliver!

The rest of Saturday was full getting ready for OneHouse that evening. Stephen helped The Reinforcers get the equipment all set up, while I sorted a meal for the band, cookies for the community & visitors, candles all around the house, and last minute gift shopping.

Oh, and I ran to the store and lost the card for my motorbike, so I spent an hour sitting at the security desk to get my motorbike back 🙄

But OneHouse was so lovely and completely worth it. Stephen had half the songs available in both Karen & Burmese, and after a number of issues finding a Burmese singer, our friend NuNu stepped in on Saturday and sang in Burmese!

It was really beautiful. The candles, of course; the Christmas carols. But also the sound of voices singing together. I was surrounded by kids from our neighborhood, as well as mothers, singing together in Burmese. Our church family surrounded us, too, with kid’s voices and British accents; young old. It was really amazing to see everyone singing together, collectively trying to prevent a fire.

One of my favorite moments this Christmas.

Every year a new song resonates with me. (And I write about it apparently! 2012, 2104) This year, as I sat surrounded by some of my neighbors, we sang Go Tell It On The Mountain.

This might be one of my least favorite Christmas songs, partially because it always seems to be sung with a twang. It gives me visions of people on horses and Santa hats; it just doesn’t fit Christmas for me. But, alas, we sang:

Go tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born

This is what we had gotten up early every day this week for, and gone to bed late for. This is what we wrapped hundreds of gifts for. This is what we cooked hundreds of meals for. This is what we serve breakfast for every day before school. This is what we bake bread for and deliver flowers for and sew things for. This is what we run sound for and go to church for and study language for. This is what we live in this hot little town for, a million miles away from our families that are cozied up by a fire together. This is what we have hard conversations for and wrestle with our faith for.

This is what just keep trying for.

In that moment, surrounded by women from our community that I love as sisters now, holding a little girl asleep in my arms that I love exponentially, watching my husband do his life so well–it felt worth it in that moment. Like we were doing what we were supposed to do this holiday season: we went, and we told it a million times over bowls of fish soup and story times and Christmas bingo. And ultimately, over mountains chaos, we shouted it.

It doesn’t always feel worth it. But in that moment, it did. And that made it one of my favorite days over this holiday season.

After worshiping together and watching our candles burn to nothing, we shared a collection of cookies our friends had brought with them. Kid were stuffing their hands full and coming back for more, and it was adorable. Everything is adorable by candlelight. (And maybe when they aren’t your kids with the sugar high?)