Sundays are our busiest days, but so good in so many ways. We get so much time with the community, in addition to our home church and other Burmese communities. It is usually just a full, good day.

And this week, it was one of the best of the good days!

In an effort to be on time to church, we have pushed our tea shop time from 8am to 7:30am. Since this was the first week, we waited for everyone to finish showering & getting dressed for the market. We passed the time “cooking” with the kids and wondering who gives these kids rusty razor blades to chop weeds into curries.

For our tea shop & market visit, we had eight adults and a little three-year-old crammed into our little Zuk!  And then we added 95 kilograms of rice plus fruit & vegetables.

Our trip to the market also included an ear piercing! Nyein Nyein is older than she looks–19 and married–and she & her husband ran off to get something at a market stall. Afraid we might lose them, Stephen went after them, and by the time he got there, she’d already gotten it pierced!  That might be the last place in the world I’d choose to get my ear pierced, but hey!

After the market we drop off our purchases and head to Burmese church. We have had friends from the community joining us for the past eight weeks or so, but it generally looks like this:
– more children than adults, and plenty of weeks where it was just us and children; while this is okay, the kids color or play for most of the service, so it doesn’t feel as hopeful to impact their lives!
– we are very late, sometimes missing all of the singing
– occasionally, we’ve had some tearful, loud outbursts from the littler sibling; this has led to me spending one entire sermon walking him back and forth down the street in the sun
– occasionally, we’ve had some adults sit with their kids in the play area, but end up just playing checkers themselves; again, not bad, just not as impactful

But this week we had fourteen of us in the car, with FIVE adults and seven children! We also had our first man join us! We all were quiet and calm during the service, enjoyed lunch together afterward, and Stephen & I declared it a roaring success. It’s definitely a workout for us to keep an eye on all the kids and help a group of adults find their way through hymnals and Bibles.  Since they aren’t too familiar with it all, we usually try to find the passages and songs so they can participate. Doing this in another language in five separate Bibles before the entire congregation stands up to read together is no easy task.

As Stephen led worship in our home church later in the day, I was just so thankful for the morning spent together and simply praying for God to use it.

Unleash Your kingdom’s power reaching the near and far
No force of hell can stop your beauty changing hearts
You made us for much more than this
Awake the kingdom seed in us
Fill us with the strength and love of Christ

We are Your church; we are the hope on earth

Build Your kingdom here; let the darkness fear
Show Your mighty hand; heal our streets and land
Set Your church on fire; win this nation back
Change the atmosphere; build Your kingdom here
We pray

So thankful for the good days and so hopeful for what God is doing!

This was the little treasure we were brought today.

Part one: a drawing of Stephen & I.

Part two: a cell phone, to match the gifter’s own hand-made cell phone,
so that we can call each other!

Y’all, this was our December 1st.

We ordered & sent out our Christmas cards in the morning, about 3am.
We mailed about fifty Christmas packages to the many people who make it possible for us to thrive here at 3pm.We sent off a grant application for one of the most exciting ministry ideas we have in our future, and with acceptance, it will kick off in early 2015.
We set up our Christmas tree with ornaments telling the stories of so many adventures.
We ate cinnamon rolls for dinner and admired the lights that blink from dirty electricity. And then we had friends join us for an expat community movie night featuring A Christmas Carol, a creepier movie than I remember.

It was a good day. Stephen gave me a “Go Team!” and asked, “Does this mean we are starting to catch up?!” That’s right: we might, just might have ourselves a little more pulled together and ready to host a community Christmas party & get three women to the hospital to deliver their babes this month. Christmas is in sight!

This weekend we made a trek out to a friend’s village for her wedding! We have worked with Yim since we arrived–first at Partners with children’s projects, then Yim & I developed curriculum and taught social development courses together. She’s a genius: she’s a master of three languages and learning a fourth; she has her Masters in Political Science; and she knows everyone. And, she makes us laugh, helps us across cultural barriers, and is just lovely.

And now she’s happily married to a man she met two years ago tomorrow at a training we hosted together in the jungle. She asked Stephen to take a picture of them together two days after they met because she thought they’d get married, and two years later they did!

(Obvious) High: We got to see this girl get married.

Low: It was in Umphang, a border town 150 kilometers from Mae Sot. In this 150 kilometers, there are 1,219 curves. There is also a designated area to pull over and throw up, which is never a good sign.

High: We didn’t throw up!

Low: I had to go to the bathroom so badly on the way, and there really aren’t any stops for hours. Most people pull over on the side of the road, which I was really open to aside from the fact that we were part of a caravan, and I just didn’t want a friend to come around the corner.

High: It is a beautiful drive. The mountains are absolutely stunning, and gave whole new meaning to Go Tell It On The Mountain and O Come Let Us Adore Him.

High: I heard these songs because it was time to start listening to Christmas music!

Low: We stayed a guesthouse named Phudoi (pronounced “poo-doy”). Doi is mountain in Thai; I don’t know what Phu means, but I know what it means in English, and it was fitting.

Neutral Facts That I Now Realize Are Important: I was in charge of a lot of cooking. Yim wanted some help with desserts since she was expecting around 400 people, and she wanted some Western options, too. With help from a very sweet friend, we made about 400 heart-shaped sugar cookies, a couple dozen Russian teacakes, 400 cups of chocolate mousse, and three kilograms of chicken salad with crackers. Stephen was in charge of photography.

High: We arrived with all food in tact and iced despite the heat.

Low: As we left for dinner, our car broke. The throttle cable–which broke just about a month ago–broke again because it was fixed poorly in Mae Sot.

High: It broke at the guesthouse and not in the mountains or on one of those 1,219 curves! Complete miracle. Matt & Stephen were also able to fix it for $5.

Low: Having a immovable car meant that we were now dependent on friends to take us to dinner, checkout & leave for the wedding early with their whole family (7am!), and this forced their girls to ride in the back of the truck (as I was in a dress and they were in jeans…). It is not fun to inconvenience people.

Low: It is really hard to cross cultures and help at a wedding you don’t understand. We didn’t really know where to put food or what the expectations are for the wedding. Stephen didn’t know what the important parts are to photograph–there is no kiss; the structure and order of the wedding are different and thus difficult to predict and be in the right moment at the right time.

Low: Our chocolate mousse, which was transported in Ziploc bags and intended to be fancily put into cups, turned out to look a whole lot like cat poo in a cup. Unfortunate.

High: We laughed a lot about this, and it still tasted good. And really, at a Karen wedding, thankfully presentation isn’t everything.

Low: While prepping the food barefoot in a part of the house, I stepped on a piece of chicken bone that went into my foot pretty far. It actually got stuck and had to be pulled out, and I later realized it was bleeding when I was sticking to the floor. Not only is this gross, but by the end of the day is looking pretty infected for very obvious reasons.

High: I understood some of the wedding in Karen!  This is always so exciting.

Low: Stephen twisted his ankle while taking photos.

Low: Thinking the wedding was near the end, a couple of us snuck out the back to finish getting the desserts ready. By the time we finished, about 1oo or 200 people were eating, so we started passing out desserts. And just as they were gone, we learned that the wedding wasn’t actually even over yet–two hours in at this point–and some (or a lot) of people had just come down to eat. So only about half the guests got a whole lot of desserts. And yet another example of it being difficult to understand and predict the flow of wedding in another culture!

High: The wedding was really lovely. Both Yim & Day Eh were so happy, and it was just so fun to celebrate with them. It was one of those rare weddings where you really know them and are really truly excited for them, not just attending!

High: Matt & Stephen fixed our car in record time and we still made it back to Mae Sot just as the sun was setting over the mountains. It was stunning to watch.

Low: We had a very, very near miss on the way home. We came around one of those 1,219 corners to have a semi-truck in our lane, facing us; we’re still not really sure why. There were actually two lined up, so we just came to a stop and started to go around. There was another car doing the same from the other way, so we stopped again and reversed down the mountain a bit so he could go. As we were waiting our turn, the driver of the semi truck decided to get in and push in the clutch, causing him to roll down the hill toward us. Fast.
Stephen floored Zuk to get out of the way, but flooring Zuk on flat ground isn’t too impressive, and we just can’t get up and go from nothing on a hill. It was a very near miss, and we probably would have been hit if we hadn’t reversed down the mountain a bit for that other car to go. It was terrifying.

High: This was yet another miracle this week, and a reminder that God is keeping us alive for a purpose.

High: All adventures, whether good or bad, unexpected or expected, are with this guy.

High: Yim called this afternoon and I missed it by just a minute. I texted her that she shouldn’t call me on her wedding day, and she replied with: “Karen wedding :)”. Some things about cross-cultural weddings are really lovely: you can see how another culture views marriage and values the day. And ultimately, you realize how much you love this other person and the culture they bring with them!

This year, we took both the traditional & non-traditional route, but that kind of seems inevitable when most of the traditions–family, football games, sweaters–don’t apply.

We did make Sherry’s rolls and Gena’s pumpkin pie recipe, two Spurlock classics.

While we missed the tradition of family, we did enjoy a feast (complete with turkey!) with a long table of friends.

Otherwise, we enjoyed samosas for lunch, and we swam laps in the sun. I attempted to wear a light scarf with my tshirt, but was sweating most of the day.

As Stephen took his first bite of a roll, he said, “Now it’s Thanksgiving. It’s like my mouth just decided that even if its hot and I’m sweating and we aren’t with family, it’s still going to be Thanksgiving.”

What a funny life we live, and we’re so thankful!

He can say it now, and it’s pretty much the most adorable thing ever.

Today my language lesson was spent over a few bowls of deliciousness. I went out to my teacher’s house where they have a home of students they look after to teach them to make sugar cookies, a double-layer cake, and cream cheese frosting. I attempted to do this in Karen, which was hit or miss. The same could be said of my baking skills, but we certainly had fun!

As my teacher was frosting the cake, she asked, “So, would you eat this for lunch?”

We had to make a quick visa run this week, but since we live a few kilometers from Burma, that is not a problem at all! We headed out early and meandered through the markets before stopping at a tea shop deep into the market.  We sat down to chat–and to dream, really. We talked about who we are and what we are doing in Mae Sot, why God has us there now and where he might put us in the future, how we want to live wherever we are.

We have been working recently on defining ourselves: what are we are here doing in this little community? What are our goals? What do we value?

Some of this have stemmed from a recent prayer: we are praying for people to join us here.   We have been praying for God to provide friends and partners to work with us, challenge us, pray with us, and grow with us. There are so many weeks that there is more to be done than we can do. There are so many days that we have questions so different from what we have ever experienced, and we are finding that while there is so much wisdom around us and being poured into us–we are walking a different road from most of our friends and family in America and Mae Sot. We would love to have someone walking with us and loving this community alongside us.

But in order to invite someone to walk with you, you kind of have to know who you are and where you are going.

So we are praying through those things and talking through them. And, in the middle of some really difficult situations in the community, this was the highlight of my week: my favorite person in the world, an overly-sweetened glass of Burmese tea, an unknown kitten purring against my leg, the sounds of the market surrounding us, and dreams of all of this being worth it.

We are dreamers, even if we’re the only ones 🙂

That is the only way I know to describe our lives right now: all the crazies. So when I finally sit down to try to get a few thoughts out, that is what comes out–crazy stories of crazy people trying to do life together.

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This kid is one of the bigger crazies! And we love him.

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A friend came to visit us this past week, so we tried to warn her of how crazy our weekends are. On Sunday we were up for our weekly tea shop visit at 8am and we didn’t say goodbye to the community until after 10pm that night! However, there was so much to celebrate in just one Sunday of activity.

First, our tea shop visit is changing–for some good reasons and some very heart-breaking, we-are-trying-to-decide-what-to-do reasons–but we had four friends from the neighborhood join us this week!  We had quite a lot of fun and laughter, and we do love this time of chatting, learning, and exploring the market together.

Second, we had seven friends from the community join us for Burmese church! I will grant you the information that only two of them were old enough to understand the sermon and participate, but we’re so excited at their joy and interest in coming with us. We love the time together, eating lunch together, and simply the encouragement of connections to the Burmese Christian community. This is a huge joy to us!

Third, we met a new baby! We drove the laboring mother to the hospital one day this week (who knows which one?) at 5:45am, and then met the baby on Sunday! It’s a handsome little boy.

And fourth, we opened our doors to the community for a craft night on Sunday night, and it was such fun. We are putting together some Christmas treasures, so I can’t really post pictures yet. But we had fun, and it’s always good to be together over celebrations!

We did have an unexpected night at the hospital on Sunday night with a neighbor, as well as the weekly childbirth class that one woman is attending. Stephen was busy going back and forth, so I sent him a text to let him know when the craft party was reaching it’s end.

There was a small miscommunication…and a reminder that our lives are weird.

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We came home one day last week (who knows which one?) to find a large puddle of an unknown red substance on our driveway.

I really, really wanted it to be a red drink spilled by a child. Really, really badly.

I pointed out the ants eating it, hopeful that this might mean it was simply a sugary drink, right?

Stephen came inside after me and informed me, “Well, it’s definitely blood.”
“How do you know its blood? Couldn’t it be a drink?”

Then I heard him turn on the water at the kitchen sink and start washing his hands.

“Wait, did you put your finger in it?”
“Well, yeah… I just wanted to know if it was blood. Is that bad?”
I then gave a small explosive list of blood-related diseases as we went over the community to see if everyone was okay.

There was a little gathering of women, so we went to ask if anyone had been hurt. After a small miscommunication & more significant panic attack thinking it was a child’s large puddle of blood, we determined it was a street dog. There has been extra fighting this week as a new, large dog moved onto our street.

Either way, we have now determined we need a new way to identify unknown, potentially bodily substances.

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Community happens, and sometimes you need a new windshield because of it.

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English classes are always a little crazy, but my Wednesday class of 3-5 year olds takes the cake. It is just absolute chaos as we try to learn letters, colors, numbers, and a few basic words!

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We are still trying to finish up the Christmas gifts, so we’ve had a few more craft nights. They have also included putting boxes together with hot glue, which was a fun little experiment. Everyone was so interested, most likely because it looks like a very intriguing toy gun. Despite my many attempts to explain that it was hot, we still had many moments of discovering this and explaining to everyone just how hot a hot glue gun is!

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We went on a date Monday night, out to burgers and ice cream. And guys, this is big news for our little world: Mae Sot has mint chocolate chip ice cream for the first time! It’s a limited time offer until Christmas, and I’m pretty sure we’ll be frequent customers for now! This is Stephen’s absolute favorite and oh-so-difficult to find anywhere in Thailand. And for a limited time, it’s in our little border town!

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And today (I know which day it was because it just happened!) I was able to get my motorbike license renewed! That sounds much less amazing that it is, but that is something we’ve been working on since June. Since Stephen is the one on a work permit, it’s pretty difficult for me to be able to do much–including simply renew a license I already have!  In the midst of a changing government system and changing our organization, it has been a mess. I spent an entire week visiting Immigration with no luck in June, but…after a few more visits to Immigration, a visit to the doctor to see if I was breathing, copies and copies and copies of documents, and a few more visits to the Department of Transportation, they took my photo!

It’s the little things that can make you feel like your whole day was a success.
It’s also the little things that make your days crazy!

Just a Sunday evening from another slower-paced decade, when you sit on the street to play a game of Memory, watch a pickup football match, and have your hair done.