We have tickets for the 11:45am bus from Chiang Mai to Mae Sot. We plan to arrive at 5:30pm this evening, and these are the photos preparing us.

If any of you have been to visit, this is heading in to the downtown one-ways, taken from the corner of the little Tescos.

This is in the downtown area, near Dave’s. The car is actually driving the wrong way down the one-way.

And this is down by the border at the Moei River. This is the huge market there that we’ve taken some of you to.

At our house, we know the water made it up our driveway and covered at least one step up to our porch. Thus, we know our motorbike was sitting in about a foot of water.

We are hopeful it didn’t enter our house.

However, even having made it up to our steps, that’s about a third higher than the water was last year. That means that our neighbors’ houses that were almost under last year are definitely under this year. It means there are houses under at least six feet of water at this point, since the neighborhood is sloping. We are the highest point, and some of the houses are very, very low.

The good news? We work with some stellar people, and they came to the rescue of our neighbors and friends. They welcomed them into the Partners office, fed them, and entertained them with games.

Absolutely incredible kindness, and we are so grateful. It is so encouraging and beautiful to see these familiar faces smiling and giggling and clapping. And dry.

It sounds like the rains have stopped and the waters are done rising. We are praying they go down; we are praying for the homes that will need repairs. We are already contemplating blankets and food. We are praying for wisdom.

Please rejoice with us–pray blessings on our coworkers and our neighbors!  And please keep praying–for our bus ride and for settling back in, perhaps with bunkmates!

This was our Wednesday evening in the house of many languages.

Stephen had a Burmese lesson at 8:00pm.

I studied my Karen in the community space…

…while these kiddos practiced their English alphabet, and giggled at our pronunciation of their languages.

There was a little bit of spying from the curious kiddos as well!

Of course one of our little friends came over about 8pm–she has freedom to stay out quite late that others don’t really have, so she comes over to get some one-on-one time of playing Memory or something else special.

This week, Stephen discovered the app Dots and informed me I would love it. He was right on, and it’s addicting. He also said I could show sweet little Yuh Meh Oo how to play on the iPad. She loves it, too, and played for over an hour.

Stephen and I were reading a marriage book together, so I kept reading aloud while she played. She doesn’t understand much of the English anyway, so we didn’t think it mattered. It did feel funny to read “sex” aloud with a small child in the room, though, so I substituted that with a code word! 🙂

We found a stuffed Piglet toy on our driveway last week. He was ripped and surrounded by stuffing, but still seemed fixable, despite the pen markings on his head.

He sat on our coffee table for a few days until I got around to it, then I finally took it outside yesterday afternoon to sew while the kids played cards on the porch.

They were thrilled that I was sewing it and began pulling it out of my hand before I could finish.

I chose red thread, thinking that, of my on-hand choices, it was closest to pink. What I didn’t consider were my sewing abilities: I wouldn’t be able to hide the thread well, nor I am a smooth seamstress. My sewing also got considerably worse with children hanging on my arm, sitting on my lap, and pulling at my project.

In the end, Piglet’s head was indeed on him. He also looked like he had been slaughtered and sewed back Frankenstein-style. Stephen declared it a little creepy.

But little Neh Wey was thrilled!

It felt like an eventful weekend for our lives in Mae Sot, so I’m stealing the high & low technique from a fellow blogger that I follow/stalk.

High: I started off Saturday early by playing in a soccer tournament at 9am. This was a fun idea, until…

Low: It was freakishly hot.

Low: The opposing team was fourteen-year-olds, some of which weren’t wearing shoes, which makes it hard for me to be as aggressive as my teammates might have wished.

Low: I am also downright horrible at football, which makes it hard for me to play as well as my teammates would wish. And to top it off, my eyes are having some allergy problems this rainy season, and at times there were definitely two soccer balls, making it difficult to know which one to kick for. I guessed wrong a few times.

High: We won anyway!

High: We started renovating the front area of our house into a community space!  This is exciting because it creates a space we can welcome the community into our home in a place designed for us to have conversations, play games, enjoy tea, get medicine; and generally continue to build relationships that are not confined to our front porch, but in the warmth of a home.

Low: This required shifting a curtain from one wall to another. We borrowed the drill the week before. We had measured & the lengths were the same; shouldn’t take long, right?  We measured poorly, only to discover on chairs that the spaces are about 2mm different–just enough to make life really difficult. It became a three hour task, including a trip with an 8 foot pole on the motorbike to a local metal shop to have new holes drilled.

Despite a really frustrating afternoon, the curtains are now hanging and divide the community space from the rest of our home.

High: We had one of our neighbor friends build us some shelves. The shelves were communicated in a second language, and all that considered–they turned out great!

Low: Let’s just say the shelves are very, very sturdy and style wasn’t a high priority.

High: I talked for over an hour in Karen with some of the neighbor ladies on Saturday!  While we talk often, it is usually in shorter bouts or about medical issues. So while my medical vocabulary is quite expansive, it is easier to follow along if you know the general subject. It was quite an accomplishment to have a lengthy conversation about somewhat random conversations that I could still follow.

High: I didn’t have a headache after said conversation!

High: We purchased a huge metal board for magnets in the community space, which the kids are already excited about.

Low & High: We only lost it out of the back of our truck once on the way home!

Low: It required four coats of paint–two on each side–to prevent rusting. I put on the first coat on Sunday afternoon, at which point I discovered it was oil-based paint.  Really, we knew that but didn’t think it through until I had oil-based paint covering my hands and nothing to remove it.

Low: I tried nail polish remover, at which point I discovered three large cuts on my hand.

Low: By the time Stephen got home, we were late to meet friends for dinner and had no plan, so I walked out the door with sticky paint all over my hands.

High: We borrowed paint thinner from a friend late that night.

Low: Throughout multiple coats of paint, I have since re-discovered the three cuts on my hand multiple times.

High: We were invited to a birthday party on Sunday morning! The newest baby in the community had his one-week party, a common celebration around here. This included sweet, sweet tea, coconut-y rice, and music.

High: We got to witness the mummifying swaddling of Burmese families. Wow.
By the way–the music isn’t edited in. That would be the one-week-old baby party music.

High (that is not a Low yet): The kids, or perhaps some adults, concocted this gem of a “toy.” It involves a small toddler bike, ridden by a four-year-old, that pulls a baby walker on wheels while the young child puts his feet up on a board. Its endearing to see the ingenuity and a sweet little boy looking after his 10-month-old brother, but it does illicit a little fear of this becoming a hospital visit sometime in the future…

May God bless us with discomfort
At easy answers, half-truths, and superficial relationships
So that we may live from deep within our hearts.

May God bless us with anger
At injustice, oppression, and exploitation of God’s creations
So that we may work for justice, freedom, and peace.

May God bless us with tears
To shed for those who suffer pain, rejection, hunger, and war,
So that we may reach out our hands to comfort them and
To turn their pain into joy.

And may God bless us with just enough foolishness
To believe that we can make a difference in the world,
So that we can do what others claim cannot be done:
To bring justice and kindness to all our children and all our neighbors who are poor.
A Franciscan Benediction

Some things are worth repeating, and I think this is one of them. It seems blessings and curses can be so easily confused.

Oh, rainy season, you are wonderful.

We try to stay dry a little more than the kiddos, which includes but is not limited to Stephen’s full outfit of waterproof jacket & water proof pant covers, a waterproof laptop bag, and waterproof bags for every phone, electronic and wallet. But while well prepared, we really enjoy the rain–motorbike rides in the rain, a few really wet dinners out to restaurants, a soccer game in a downpour, and just cool enough weather to eat dinner on the porch.

Rain, rain, keep coming. We’re glad you’ll be here for four or five more months!

 

 

Our lives are weird.

Any concept of normal and days that turn out as you intended are long gone.

Since we returned from America, we are really working to preserve our Sundays. We are trying to save our Sabbath and rest. We have no requirements: exercise, language, cooking, playing with the kiddos–all are wiped off the schedule as required. I am only allowed to go for runs that I enjoy or swim as long as I am relishing in it. I only cook if I feel like it; otherwise we just eat out. If Stephen leads worship at church, he prepares on Saturday, so that Sundays are still saved.

It’s a valiant effort, but because of the days that never turn out as intended, its merely an effort.

Last Sunday was full of surprises when we had 26 friends sleep over. While fun, it wasn’t exactly restful.

And this Sunday, we had a vaccination clinic in our drive way.

Somewhere about 10am, Mong Ey came shouting. Mats were laid out, tables were pulled out of our house, and there were coolers everywhere. Nurses began taking names and giving shots. Kids began shouting and crying.

This continued for a little over an hour, while we read inside, tried not to pass out, and discussed how weird our lives are.

In the end, we learned that there was a diphtheria outbreak about forty-five minutes south of Mae Sot. The Thai children are required to have the vaccine for school, but most of the migrants don’t; so the local general hospital is going around Mae Sot, giving out DPT & DT (depending on age) for free in migrant communities.

Migrant communities just like ours!

I realize this probably doesn’t excite many people like it does us, but I was truly excited and thankful. We have been working on getting vaccines to our neighborhood. Through some very generous donations of a school in England, we have funding for MMR & Tetanus for the kids in the community. However, it still is quite an event to get shots ordered and delivered, keep them refrigerated, and have nurses come to give them–not just once, but multiple times. Tetanus requires a minimum three shots, which is quite a lot of ordering shots from Bangkok and getting available nurses out to our home while all the kids are present and accounted for. Thus, it is still in the works on our end, and now has been provided–shots, labor, coordination–for free from Mae Sot General.

This is also really significant because it is coming from the local Thai hospital, which is not always keen to treat migrants.

And so though it was weird to have a vaccination clinic in our driveway using our dining table, we are really thankful!  And they’ll be back in a month 🙂

I had a dream last night about one of my favorite little friends. She was getting ready to go somewhere and wearing a beautiful dress. It was a little too big for her, but my mom was there and tucked it in around her waist. My mom made it poof out beautifully and it fit this little sweetheart just perfectly. She was glowing.

I heard her voice outside our door about 10:30 this morning. She had just come back from church, and I went out to say hellos.

She was wearing the prettiest dress I’ve seen her in. She looked so beautiful, and tears came to my eyes.

I don’t know what the connection is to my dream.
I don’t know why God has given me such a deep love for her specifically.

But I know that she looked absolutely beautiful today.
I know that she felt beautiful.
I know that I held her for so long today and cherished every minute of it.