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the professionals.

May 31, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house church, kelli, photos Leave a Comment

Since we finished House Church in our community recently, we having been praying through what the next step will look like. Two weeks ago, we met with the pastor & his wife from our Burmese church to discuss options and ideas.

We discussed a few ideas, to which they responded: Could we start with an eye clinic?
Yes, yes, and YES.
And then we’d like to just come by to visit; can we build relationships and get to know them?
Yes, yes, and YES.
We’d love to invite them to church later. They are welcome to come! Can we come pick them up?
Yes! A million times yes!

A few days later they came by the community to say hello. We scheduled an eye clinic for next Tuesday, when they’ll come able to check vision, find prescriptions, and give out free glasses. If bigger problems are found–cataracts and glaucoma–they arrange for surgeries to be done at the local clinic and help with transport. (!!)

They popped into houses, mentioned the eye clinic, and asked if they could come by to teach the children. They chatted with the neighbors, they laughed; they were welcomed instantly.

Stephen later said, “I feel like we’ve been planting and watering for years, and then we just called in the professionals.”

This Saturday they arrived at the community about 5 o’clock; they pulled out a mat and thirty kids gathered around. They sang songs, learned names, and shared Bible stories.

SSThey came back Sunday to pick the kids up for Sunday school at 2:30pm. Ten children hopped into the truck and spent an hour with other Burmese Christian children. They memorized a Bible verse, sang songs, and heard another Bible story.

Church 1And they’ll be back, every Saturday to teach in the community and every Sunday to pick them up to go to Sunday School. We’ll be joining when we can, and they’ll continue when we can’t. Because they’re professionals.

Beautiful GirlsIt feels too good to be true! We’ve found a lovely Burmese church that loves us and welcomes us with limited language. They love what we do in the community, and they are walking with us!

We’re rejoicing that God sent the professionals our way!

the trio.

May 30, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: housewares, kelli, photos 1 Comment

We live in consistent inconsistency, so don’t worry if this is completely confusing.

In short: we had two ladies baking for Flour & Flowers–Pyo Pyo & Nyein Nyein; plus one organizing flowers–Daw Ma Oo. One of the baking ladies, Nyein Nyein, went back to Burma to see her mother, who was sick and hadn’t met Nyein Nyein’s son yet. She was planning to be gone a week, but that turned into three months. We added another young mother, Pwe Pyu Hey, who has been helping for a few months.

Nyein Nyein is now back, as of this week! We’re thankful to have her, her husband, and little Nyein Htet Zaw back in our lives.

IMG_0002As Pwe Pyu Hey has been such a great help and good addition to the group, we’re keeping all three! Pwe Pyu Hey has asked a couple times over the past month if she would have to stop when Nyein Nyein returned. She really enjoys the work and was delighted when I told her we’d try to keep her on. We had hoped to grow to three employees for bread this year, and here we are!

IMG_1012Thankfully, with the additional bread items we recently added, we should be able to make enough most weeks, and use any overflow to make sure they get a consistent salary each week. And hopefully we’ll continue to grow!

As Stephen and I chatted in the kitchen on Friday, we smiled at our three dear friends. This is a great group and a lovely collection of women and families. They are three great moms, all young and now able to work where their babies can be nearby. They can continue to nurse, they can take a minute to get them to sleep, and they have a nanny teaching the babes English! (That’s me.) It’s so fun to chat with them, laugh with them, and just see healthy families growing. They are married to three good men with four children between them.

IMG_0011And now that we have three skilled women working in the kitchen, including Pyo Pyo as manager, I’m mostly there to oversee! I step in when someone is nursing, and otherwise I’m the nanny of three infants, particularly as of this week when the older kids are off to school!

IMG_0007We’ve had Yaminoo stepping in to help over the summer, which has been so helpful.

We’re so thankful for this trio of ladies and their babes filling our home every week!

our first summer program: in the books!

May 19, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos, playhouse 2 Comments

We did it: a five-week summer program for 25-30 kids in the community. We felt pretty good completing it, I must say.

To finish strong, our last day was focused on learning currency. We reviewed Thai currency values and added up amounts in worksheets. We did math problems about spending and saving and earning. And then, each student received pretend money for their age: 10 baht for every year they were, giving them 40-140 baht to “spend” in our “market.”

IMG_3282Yep, we created a little market in our house.

We have had some friends move recently and give us a few items for the community: clothing, a rice cooker, a light. We also always have a few items we can give away, and we bought some things in the market they can always use: notebooks and pens for school starting next week, new clothing, a few Burmese books, laundry detergent. All the things kids like, right?

IMG_3284Well, they did. They loved it! Each child went home with a little set of treasures while they learned to count and spend their money. It was a pretty fun way to finish!

We then had a little ceremony, giving participation certificates to all & awards for perfect attendance.

IMG_0015We gave out special certificates for best English, best math, beautiful handwriting, and best singing. The kids love certificates; the whole country of Burma does, really. They were so proud to see their names written out, and we were so proud to hand out homemade certificates entirely in Burmese 🙂

IMG_0017As we finished everything yesterday, I took out a bag of extra printouts and notebooks we had left over and left them by the trash. We came out today to find eight kids circled around our table & porch practicing English & math, so apparently they didn’t have their fill yet.

But that’s a wrap: our first summer program successfully in the books!

girls in white dresses with blue satin sashes.

May 19, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos, playhouse 1 Comment

Spoiler: There weren’t really any white dresses or blue sashes. But there were beautiful dresses all the same, and even more beautiful girls. And these are a few of our favorite people wearing their favorite things!

IMG_2832Some friends of ours in town wrote us last week to ask if we’d be interested in having 20 dresses donated to girls in our community. They had a friend of theirs–a 9-year-old Iraqi–who wanted to give other girls her age the opportunity to wear beautiful dresses like she can. She raised funds to pay for a local Burmese seamstress, who works with our friends at Global Alms, to make all twenty dresses and give them out in a local community.

And we are that community! We were so honored to have them ask.

IMG_2949We always love a chance to bless these friends. This in particular was just such a great opportunity. We live in a neighborhood where things are seemingly always breaking: families, houses, clothes, opportunities. It feels like everything is coming apart at the seams.

To bring in bright colors, beautiful ribbons, gathered fabric, and flowing skirts full of innocence and beauty; handmade with love–this is an opportunity not to be missed!

IMG_2872 IMG_2981

Excuse my arm in this shot, but I love her face! IMG_3168
IMG_3087 IMG_3141 IMG_3126It is so fun to see their confidence soar as they try to minimize their visible excitement!

IMG_3199We are so thankful for friends around us in Mae Sot partnering with us in the community. We have a family that comes to our house weekly to play with the kids; another family blessed our community with their tithe this month. We had computers donated last month, and now dresses!

IMG_0769

in other news.

May 17, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos Leave a Comment

A few random bits of other good things amidst it all:

IMG_0728These kids are amazing. They are eating ice for a snack. I really love how much they enjoy the little things and consider everything a gift; I’m working on acquiring that.

IMG_0003While I was out with an eye infection last week, Stephen went to a wedding in the community. It’s fun to see everyone all dressed up and celebratory!

IMG_0006And this beautiful girl? Love her.  She’s a sister of the bride!

IMG_0942Oh, Asia. We’re falling in love with you.

IMG_0940This week we got to celebrate our friend Nu’s birthday, and we just love her, too.

IMG_0949She & her husband, Adam, are really good friends of ours and have been such a blessing over the past year. They’ve been an answer to prayer in more ways than one!

the sausages.

May 15, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house church, kelli, photos Leave a Comment

There’s another side of House Church every week. For awhile we were serving soy milk & fruit as snacks afterward, but the soy milk became unavailable to purchase in bulk. So a little over a month ago, we hired San Aye, a mother in the community, to make sausages for house church every week. She had a sausage shop on the side of the road previously, but her mother-in-law was our friend arrested last month and she was scared to open her shop again.

Being able to hire her every week to make snacks was a great way to help the family and spend time with her. In general, we love finding ways to benefit the community in both directions: who we are purchasing from as well as giving to.

Other than that, it was a stretching experience.

Every Thursday San Aye & I would head to the market at 6 or 6:30am. We’d buy sausages and then get back in time for me to bake bread at 8. Around 3pm, San Aye would come back to our house and fry up the sausages.

I’m just not sure I can describe it to you.

IMG_0007I have no idea what these sausages are made of. She says they are mostly chicken and fish; I’m skeptical. The one I could read in English was shaped like boiled eggs–white circles with yellow centers. The ingredient list is:

Ingredient Meat    60%
Lard  10%
Flour    10%
Seasonings    10%

“Ingredient meat”? What does that even mean? And ten percent lard?! We were hoping there is protein in there, but it’s hard to say for sure.

IMG_0008We also put this sticky, spicy sauce in tiny individual bags, which is a big, sticky mess. We cut up about 5 kilograms of cucumbers.

Then she fries all the sausages, which I just didn’t know was a thing. They puff up while they fry and then shrink back in a very unnatural way.

It smells awful.

But the kids love it. And we love win-win-wins 🙂

house church.

May 15, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house church, kelli, photos Leave a Comment

A little over a week ago, we finished up this season of House Church. Week by week, we went through the Bible from Genesis through Paul’s letters, connecting each story to the Rescuer of Jesus Christ. Our last week Stephen shared about Paul’s letters and how he wrote to the growing church about how to live as Jesus did.

There have been ups and downs to this year of house church. It was so wonderful to finally put into words why we are here and what we believe. It was also a lot of work to write the study each week and go over it with translators, then organize the group and provide snacks. It wouldn’t have been possible without Kelvin & Laura, who took some weeks and helped with snacks. The entire process was hours of our week, and that is nice to be shared!

It was also challenging to overcome the talking and chaos that comes with our community. It was challenging to want them to understand and believe and care so badly, but for it to be out of our control.

IMG_0038As Stephen shared on the last week, I sat listening among the kids. I tried to keep them quiet, tried to listen, and tried to pray for them. For a moment, it felt frivolous: why are we working so hard to do this? Do they care about anything but the snack? Are they getting this at all?

I thought of Acts 2, where the Holy Spirit descended like tongues of fire. A strong wind; fire; multiple languages miraculously spoken.

I wondered why we haven’t seen God like that here. Why can’t Aung Moe see yet? Why is there still fighting when we are praying against it? Why aren’t things growing when we are praying for growth?

I just began to pray for the Holy Spirit to come, unsure of what that might look like.

I stood up to lead prayer a bit later. We’ve been talking all year about how powerful God is and how much he loves all of us. We’d been sharing how we made a choice to follow Jesus and love him, just like the Hebrews had that choice, the disciples, and now the growing church. We talked about the kids thinking about if they had made that choice, and then we prayed for them to love Jesus. We prayed for their families and the whole community.

I can’t say that we saw fire, but I can say that my prayer was answered. And all of our prayers for this House Church were answered, really. Both of us left that night encouraged; we felt like we’d finished well. There had been plenty of discouraging weeks; plenty of times we’d questioned if this was working. But we had finished. Truth had been spoken, week after week, and it is promised not to return void. An even more, we both felt like God was present, walking us through to the end and showing this community the power of his presence.

In some way or another, House Church will continue. We are praying through our options and talking with some friends and leaders about how to best reach the adults and kids alike. But all the same, we’re really thankful for this past year. Even as I am overwhelmed at all that is currently ahead of us; even as I write all these blogs..it is clear that God is walking this messy road with us.

our first summer program: part two.

May 15, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos, playhouse Leave a Comment

This has been one of our busiest seasons in awhile, in the midst of the hottest summer we’ve had here, so there is much that has gone unsaid. I’m working on it, though, because amidst the chaos, there are some great things blooming.

You see, the summer program has worked! And that is worth noting.

IMG_2600The kids are coming and they are anxious to learn. The students helping are amazing and completely making it possible. We’ve practiced English and we’ve practiced math; we had a geography day and learned about continents, oceans, and countries. We have a money day coming this week to learn about counting and spending and saving.

I taught this little guy to add using Legos. It was amazing.

IMG_2751He made two little piles of 4 and 5, then added them up to 9. And then we did it over and over again with each problem.

I taught another young girl and little boy how to carry when they add. We learned about the different value places and added three digits with three digits.

IMG_2780We learned about families and who lives in their families. We learned how to describe people {and encouraged words other than “big” and “fat”}.

We sang songs and danced together.

IMG_0719They listened to stories with such intensity and learned about being nice to people that are different than us, picking up trash that can hurt the earth and animals, and how we all have something to offer.

We successfully wore the kids out for two hours, making them more sane the other hours of the day!

And summer just flew by us. We finish the summer program this week!

our first summer program.

May 1, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos, playhouse Leave a Comment

We are in the midst of a busy, challenging, hard season. The weather doesn’t help–it’s the middle of hot season and well over 100 every day. The evenings cool down to the 90s, but that is little respite. It is also summer, so the kids are out of school and, well, like every kid you know on summer break! They get a little stir crazy. They tend to be more destructive, more demanding, and more overwhelming for us.

To help curb this, we thought it would be helpful to have something for them to do–to keep them busy and to wear them out. I talked with the sweet woman I used to take Karen lessons from, who lives near our house and has a small children’s home. They have about seven teenagers in their home and love Jesus, so we thought they’d be great help to love on our community of kids. Actually, they are far more than a great help! They are spectacular teachers.

From Door - 1Every Tuesday & Wednesday from 10-12am, we have about 25 kids in the house. We try to keep the doors open and fans going: 110 degrees with thirty people in a small space is beyond hot.

We take attendance–as there is a prize promised to anyone who attends all 10 classes over five weeks–and then start with English.

Small Group - 1Each student has their own work folder, with an English packet and math packet for their level. They work through it on their own or in groups and ask for help when they need it. Its very counter-cultural, since we don’t have a teacher in the front and it isn’t rote learning.

IMG_2627We usually do about 40 minutes of English and then switch to math for about 20 minutes, simply because I have to grade it all and they are much faster at math! Over the weekends I look over all of them and circle what is incorrect, which they then re-do. This is also very counter-cultural, so we’re stretching them in every direction!

IMG_2586

A little after 11, we sing songs. I picked out eight songs for us to learn over the five weeks. One is a version of “If You’re Happy & You Know It,” but goes through happy, angry, scared, and sleepy. We also sing a song for the days of the week, one for colors about God coloring the world, and “The Lord is Good to Me.” The last four are from The Verses Project, so they are directly from the ESV Bible. It seemed a great way for them to learn Bible verses in English, so we are memorizing Galatians 5:22-23, John 14:6, Proverbs 15:1, and 1 Corinthians 13:4-7.

After we sing through some of the songs, we have “story time.” I found a set of Burmese children’s books in town, and Stephen & I have been reading them in our Burmese classes. They each teach a lesson about caring for others, taking care of the environment, having confidence, etc. I gave them to the older students who are helping us teach, thinking they could read them aloud to the younger students. I’m not sure where the miscommunications occurred or what “story time” generally looks like locally, but it usually means they re-tell the story book in their own way and words. Or sometimes they just tell their own stories–perhaps with a moral, perhaps funny; it’s hard to say because I can only understand bits of it!

IMG_2701Either way, we have stories of some kind.

Once the kids in the community head home, we walk to one of the family’s shops to have lunch with the student helpers.

So far, we’re two weeks in and the kids love it. It is amazing to see them so excited to come and learn, even just to do worksheets on their own. It has also made summer much more bearable for Stephen & I, despite the stacks of papers to check over the weekend. I love the opportunity to encourage the kids and tell them how great they’re doing. Two weeks in, I’m both thankful we decided to do it and that we decided on only five weeks 🙂

a new baby, but different.

April 30, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, housewares, kelli, photos Leave a Comment

Pyo Pyo, who I’ve been baking bread with for months now, was at her due date last Friday. She still baked bread all day Thursday, rolling out over 100 tortillas in over 100 degree heat. She then made deliveries per usual on Friday.

Unfortunately, Stephen & I headed to Bangkok for a few days this past weekend, and we didn’t know if she’d go into labor. We gave her the number of our pastor’s wife and sweet friend, who also helps in migrant communities around town. She is Burmese so that Pyo Pyo could communicate, and they have a car to get them to the clinic.

Tuesday morning at 1:30am we got a call in Bangkok from Go Tight, Pyo Pyo’s husband. They had called the pastor’s wife, but didn’t reach her and didn’t know what to do. We told them to wait a few minutes–don’t take a motorcycle taxi–and we’d sort it. I then woke up and called and called and called until we reached her. Pyo Pyo made it to the hospital and she had the baby by 4am.

We got another call at 4am, which apparently I answered but don’t remember. Then, another call about 8:30am, because they apparently could tell I wasn’t awake! They wanted to tell us it was a little boy and he was healthy. They wanted us to celebrate with them! I assured Pyo Pyo we’d be in to Mae Sot by noon as we were about to head to the airport, and I told her I’d go straight to the clinic to see her.

IMG_0004So we did! We saw her healthy, huge new baby–he was 4 1/2 kilos, they said, or about 9.9 pounds! Not only is this large for any baby, but for a Burmese baby born into a migrant home, this is just amazing! She was so proud.

IMG_0006IMG_0005 Excuse how ridiculously hot we both look. It’s because we were ridiculously hot. While she has the excuse of having just birthed a child a few hours earlier, I just have the excuse that we are in the hottest recorded summer in Thailand ever–we’ve had weeks straight now with daily heat indexes of 110 or 111 degrees Fahrenheit. I am dying now as much as I look like I was then.

IMG_0005The next day she was able to go home, so Stephen went to get them and waited while they sorted the birth certificate and footprints. Note Pyo Pyo’s cozy coat, as it is cultural to keep the mother bundled up after giving birth. Also take note that this was another day feeling like 110 degrees.

IMG_0008She is now enjoying “maternity leave” from baking bread–she has three weeks off and is still paid, and then she’ll be back to join us in a managerial position. We’re going to teach her some of the books and finances of it and allow her to manage hand washing, delegating jobs, and managing the other employees.

I have to say, we welcome a lot of babies in this community. San San delivered just the week before–a beautiful little girl named Meh Oo. We still have one more woman due in about a month and two more in about five months, and another one just after that. It’s a revolving door and there are always new babes.

IMG_0019But there was something different about this one, and it was so fun. This was the first time we knew the family this well, seeing Pyo Pyo nearly every day and spending so much time with them over baking and deliveries and meals. We have helped them start a savings budget which they keep at our house, and we have watched them really improve their standard of living since adding a second job with Flour & Flowers into the family. They’ve added a new roof to their house that was a much needed improvement, and Go Tight added a second level loft in their little hut. And now they’ve birthed an incredibly healthy son!

And more than that, I realized that Pyo Pyo is probably my best friend here. We have an odd friendship to say the least, but we know each other well and look out for each other. I am really, truly excited for this little boy to be here, and she was so excited to tell us!

In all, we already love little baby Aung San. But it was fun to see how much this friendship has grown and how his mom has come to mean to me.

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