It’s a good morning to wake up to little voices chattering outside your window.

In the conversations, bicycle rides, and even chaos that this week has held, I have been reminded over and over again of God’s faithfulness. He is just so stunningly faithful to love us, to give grace, to teach us, to lead us. To open doors and close them. To give inspiring days and rip-your-hair-out moments and be fully present in the midst of both.

I could tell you story after story, particularly of how we have seen God’s hand work in the past year to bring us to where we are today. He was making a way. He was putting the pieces into place.

And even now, he is doing the same–he is putting the pieces in place for our futures here, there, and anywhere. He is putting the pieces in place for our neighbors. He is working in relationships and in the flower deliveries and tangled conversations over tea.  He is faithful in the little details and little decisions and little gifts.

I am just stunned by the extent of this today, the extent of just how great His faithfulness is.
The extent of how great His love for us is.
The extent of just how great a God we serve.

This week left me feeling almost famous.

First, I revisited my favorite local photo-printing shop and found they had remodeled. They put up new doors, new walls, and printed new photos and signs. One is a sign advertising for visa photos of all sizes and colors, where I found myself!

I’m the third German from the left. Hmm.

The second almost-famous opportunity was really much more fun. Our favorite restaurant in town–and probably most everyone’s–is called Casa Mia. They serve Burmese, Thai, and Western food. They make their own Italian dishes, and just generally are lovely.  They learned Italian from an Italian doctor and friend of ours, Elisabetta, who has lived in Mae Sot for over a decade. She still helps them with the restaurant and asked if I’d be willing to teach Ta, the Karen owner and head chef, how to make some Mexican dishes.

Would I!?! Of course! I love cooking, I love the Karen, and I love Casa Mia.

And for us, Casa Mia goes way back to 2009, when we volunteered for three months. Whenever we’d be back in Mae Sot for the weekends from Noh Bo village, we’d find our way to Casa Mia. We had many a date night there while we were engaged.

This entire event was made even more special because the original Casa Mia location that we’ve known and loved and visited for over five years is closing this week. The landlords sold the land, and they are having to relocated just a kilometer or so down the street. This is not all bad, but we were kind of sentimentally sad, since we do love this place and the people. It holds quite a number of memories for us.

Alas, I got to spend my Thursday morning in the kitchen, introducing some Mexican food to Ta, in the black and white checked shirt. We made salsa, tortillas, chicken tortilla soup, chips, nachos, quesadillas, and fajitas. I felt famous, even though I’m sure everyone else who’s been here too long has spent time in the kitchen and taught many a dish. However ridiculous it may be, I was pretty excited just for the opportunity!

We also stopped by Friday to be there for the closing night of the original restaurant and snap a few pictures. It was the end of an era.

Ta treated us to a free dinner and made us feel almost famous!

We got to celebrate Stephen’s birthday yesterday!

We started the day off slow, sleeping in, enjoying chocolate chip pancakes, and reading at a local coffee shop. Stephen then spent the afternoon out caving with some friends, and I attempted to coordinate a little block party for him to return to! The kids had fun coloring signs for him and then making a variety pictures and finding flowers for him!

Of course they all started jumping and shouting as soon he turned the corner in the car.  There was a very scattered version of “Happy Birthday” sung and candy was given out.

We then enjoyed a date night out, with a few more celebrations to come this weekend.

I am so thankful for another year with him, and so thankful that we were here together for another year. This is an odd road we are walking, but it’s amazing to see God confirm that we’re meant to be here together. It’s encouraging to see the kiddos draw pictures of Stephen and write how much they love him all over their papers. Its fun to see everyone jump for joy to wish him a happy birthday, just after we celebrated with our family just a month ago in America. It’s amazing to see him loved on both sides of the world!

I think we sort of started a small business.

It seems like everything else here in our little neighborhood: we pray for God to open doors, and He does. Sometimes we don’t even know we’ve walked through them until we turn around!

Such was the case last Friday, as we stood on the steps of woman’s house and she told us, “What a great idea! You’ve started a little business!”

I’ll start at the beginning. I wrote this post a few weeks ago about the new little ways that our neighbors have been trying to earn more money to cover their higher living expenses. San Aye was the lovely friend delivering flowers to our door each week. As much as I loved the flowers, my $2-$3 each week wasn’t going to change her situation with rent. I started to wonder if some of my other friends might enjoy getting flowers delivered to them, and it could make her a little extra money.

I asked one friend, and she seemed excited. The Burmese market–the best place to buy fresh flowers–isn’t pleasant for everyone. Parking is a nightmare even with a motorbike, but nearly impossible with a car. It is a crowded, confusing maze of streets and vendors; I have been lost more than once.

Most flowers are available in the main covered market area–about a block-sized metal structure absolutely full of vendors selling their wares, including fish, fish paste, pork…some very strongly scented items, if you will. There are also some rivers of blood, urine, and who-knows-what running under your feet…

Let’s just say I don’t usually shower before I go each week with the neighbors.

I started to wonder how many other foreigners might like to avoid the market and have fresh, reasonably-priced flowers delivered to their door each week. I posted to our local Facebook page–“What’s Happening in Mae Sot”–and got more of a response than I expected.

We talked to San Aye, and she was so excited!  We headed out with her and her son, Na Leh Ton, a little after 8am last Friday.

For us, it is a commitment of about two hours each Friday morning, and maybe $3 in LPG. (We are thankful for a car with reasonably priced fuel!) For her, she can make around 2-4 times her usual daily sales, but in an hour or two. For our first week, we had eight houses signed up. For this coming Friday–our second week–we have at least ten.

And so here we are–San Aye has started a little delivery service in Mae Sot!

This is one of my new favorite things, so we carted it all the way around the world.

My grandma is an amazing quilter & seamstress. Though I never picked up the quilting gene, I do remember many summers spent sewing lap blankets for local nursing homes, skirts and dresses and pajama pants, and teddy bears.

My mom gave me an idea a few years ago to collect fabric locally for my grandmother to make into a quilt.

Basically, I did all the fun things. It is one of my favorite adventures to wander in and out of fabric stores in the market, and it wasn’t hard to find a million fabrics I liked. I also found quite a few quilt patterns I loved, and mapped it out for my grandma on a color-coded piece of graph paper.

It turns out we were the perfect pair, because she said the planning was her least favorite part. I’m not sure how she likes the cutting and sewing and quilting, but it seems like the people that like the outside edge of brownies–you don’t have to understand it to love them for it!

She put together this absolutely gorgeous, huge quilt for us. It’s really stunning, and full of stories of my favorite fabric shops and the longyis and sarongs that color our world daily. I love seeing it in our room and being reminded of all the work my grandma put into each little stitch and square, while also being reminded of the place we love here!

We started English classes!

We are actually finishing our third week, since we started the day after we returned to Mae Sot. It has been so much fun! We have four levels and about forty kids & adults participating!  I teach Tuesday to Thursday in the afternoons and evenings.

The littlest ones just have lots of fun as we study the basic level of English. Here you can watch a video of us learning animals and sounds!

For the middles, it’s a great way to practice understanding me and starting to form sentences. The oldest kids are able to put what they know into practice, and they are picking things up quickly.  While we see the kids regularly anyway, this makes the time in our house more productive, and it makes it more manageable for us to welcome them in more often!

For the adults, we are focusing on conversation that they will encounter regularly. Some of them aren’t literate in Burmese, so we are focusing on the conversation that will be most helpful to them. Outside of meals, it has been the best way for us to connect with the adults! It is really wonderful to be able to talk and laugh with them in class.

We are really excited for this little addition to our community!

With all the changes in our country & neighborhood, many of the families have moved into concrete homes|rooms in the past few months. This has increased their monthly expenses, as rent is at least double and sometimes up to five times as much. As has been said, “Need is the mother of invention”–we suddenly have some little entrepreneurs on our hands.

One of the women has opened a little shop at the kids’ school. She is outside all day cooking and selling her items to the kids for lunch. Not only is it a great income, but it’s a fun place for us to go! So, here is a new favorite lunch stop:

We can’t eat there all the time as its all fried foods that will slowly (or quickly?) kill us, but it is fun to support her little business. It’s also on the campus of the kids’ school, so we get to sit at this little table–the only table–with a lot of our little friends on their lunch break. Talk about a place where everybody knows your name!

 Another woman has begun selling flowers, and she brings me by a selection to choose from. Nothing like having fresh flowers delivered to your door regularly!

It has been really fun to see their entrepreneurial sides come out, and we really love to support them. It’s even better when it’s things we can enjoy–flowers or lunch. This is considerably better than the unidentified-meat-kebabs that I wasn’t really sure what to do with once I bought them!

After sharing our neighbors’ love snack with our families, there were some ideas thrown around for what could be sent back as a “love snack, part 2” for our neighbors to enjoy! Gena had a great idea to make puppy chow, a Spurlock family favorite.

We delivered them throughout the neighborhood and explained how much our families were thankful for the gift and wanted to reciprocate.

The snacks just keep on giving.

I will admit we kept a small bowl back for us to enjoy!

The rest was happily consumed 🙂

Stephen and I had some great opportunities to enjoy a couple dates nights out while we were home. We also really enjoyed the Arkansas River Trail that runs through Little Rock and North Little Rock. Our tandem–my wedding present from Stephen that is still the best present ever!–was really fun to enjoy.

We did have one significant flat tire that shortened one of our trails, but we did love the other couple times we got to go!

We pass this along the trail, which is pretty fun since we have green tandem 🙂

We also took several hikes up and around Pinnacle Mountain.

And, to fulfill a dream I’ve had since we moved to Thailand, we went to a water park!  We were definitely the only ones in our age group–it was pretty much all teenagers or parents with kids–but we had so much fun.

Last, we took a trip to Oklahoma City, a place that somehow feels a lot like home, too.

We saw some our favorite people, including this lovely family!

We have pictures with them each year, and it is amazing to see them grow up! Thay is now graduated and off to start her freshman year of college, and Htoo is now starting her senior year. And please note that they are all smiling in this photo! Stephen & I take partial credit for that after years of convincing them to smile for photos 🙂

We were also able to see my sweet sister, Hope! She has recently taken a management position at Chuy’s and is working at the Norman store.  It was so fun to get to see her in her element and catch up after so much time away!