playhouse – Page 4

fourteen.

November 18, 2017 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house church, kelli, photos, playhouse, stephen Leave a Comment

This girl, who means the world to us, turned fourteen this week.

I know it may seem like she’s my neighbor, a little girl I know, or a friend.

But we love her. Beyond words.

She is the little girl who broke her finger on our porch, with Stephen’s great idea of soaping up steps in the rain. She is the little girl who had a whole bowl of oil dumped on her head in our kitchen. She is the little girl who I imagined as a teenager {in a distant blog I cannot now locate} and now she is.

She is the little girl who was baptized this year with her father, in one of the most redemptive moments in my life. She is one of the best gifts we’ve ever gotten, and she’s not even ours.

She is this little girl…

And this one.

And now she’s this young woman who loves Jesus.

She has grown up right in front of us, right in our home, and she isn’t even ours. What a privilege to be a part of.

We love her. We love the way her family has shown so many signs of redemption over the years, and now functions, despite so many challenges, as a family. We love that we’ve been a part of witnessing it, even in the hardest things we’ve had to witness.

And so we celebrated her big, as a community and as a couple.

Extremely out of the blue on Wednesday, as I decorated her birthday cake, she asked me if we were moving back to America tomorrow. I said no, quite confusedly. She said she had heard we were moving away tomorrow, and she was visibly scared. I asked who or where this rumor had started, but reassured her we were definitely not moving tomorrow. She was so relieved.

I asked Thida about it later–had she heard this? She said no, but that Yaminoo would be so sad if we left. “She loves you so much,” she said.

Ditto.

literacy & learning.

September 4, 2017 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house church, kelli, onehouse, photos, playhouse, schoolhouse 1 Comment

Our pastors asked us a few weeks ago about teaching in our community. A few broken conversations later, we had a community meeting, and still a few more conversations after that, we re-arranged the community space for whiteboards and…we have community adult education classes happening!

Our pastor, Ah Tee, and his wife, Pranee, are teaching on Tuesdays and Thursdays. They teach one hour of Burmese literacy, teaching five Burmese women how to read and write in their own language. And then they teach an hour of Thai class. And since the neighbors also requested English, Kelli teaches English for an hour on Wednesday evening.

Guys, this is a community center if I ever saw one.

We are really thankful for the opportunity for the neighbors to learn, and that it doesn’t take much from us! We are so excited to have our pastors and friends in the community with us, helping us sort things and observing and advising.

We also love that they are teaching literacy. We had been working on this for sometime, shortly after we learned that San Aye, who sews with us, can’t read or write. Pyo Pyo, our bread manager, is also limited in her literacy. Both of them are taking the class, and it’s so beautiful to see! There is also a young teenage girl who attends Thai school–and so doesn’t get to learn Burmese–that has joined.

The two sewing ladies have been practicing their alphabet as they sew, reading letters aloud, or spelling words out letter by letter. Thida, while she waits for all the children to come in the morning, has been practicing her Thai letters. They are using new English phrases they learned and testing them out on us!

Meanwhile, Mwei Mwei is our young seamstress that we still want to ensure keeps studying. She is now taking Thai and English classes with the adults in the evening, as well as practicing Burmese reading and writing, learning typing, and learning math with me in the afternoon.

On Tuesday, I helped Mwei Mwei with her typing program until the kids came at 4pm. I then played with the kids in the main area while the literacy class was held in one of the rooms; and Stephen taught The Reinforcers how to solder in the studio. And then we swapped it all around at 6pm for the Thai class to continue.

It’s incredible to see the space used so much and see so many opportunities for our friends! And we love seeing so many opportunities for new skills and languages.

a few of my favorite things.

August 23, 2017 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, kelli, photos, playhouse Leave a Comment

When the word feels like its crumbling in your own neighborhood, in your host country, and in your home country–just accentuate those positives. Big & small alike.

1. Smart fish. So, we went to a coffee shop outside of town last weekend. It was lovely in so many respects, and I posted pictures of us there in this post. However, THE FISH. They had a lake full of fish, with these nice little walkways across it where you had the option to buy fish food and feed them. I had no fish food with me, but the fish follow you! They followed our footsteps, hoping for food, as we walked and walked back and forth different directions. A whole host of them. I don’t have a great photo, but just take my word for it: those smart fish were very, very awesome.

2. Podcasts. This is my new favorite way to be involved in America and American culture. I still love the Instagram photos, but Facebook is wasting me away. And the news: oh, I simply can’t handle it. But, podcasts give me a taste of America from an admittedly biased, personal perspective that is at least palatable. My current favorites, of which I’ve found them all on iTunes, are: This American Life–always have loved and always will; I feel like Ira & I are friends. Persuasion–recommended by a friend and have loved it! Two American Christian ladies just chatting about some important and some not-so-important things. They are humble, not having all the answers but just chatting. Also one of the ladies is from Central Illinois and it feels oddly like home. Still Processing–another humble, we-don’t-have-all-the-answers podcast. This podcast often addresses racial issues and as of yet was my favorite perspective on Charlottesville–it was just honest and it challenged me and it broke me. I think that’s probably what we need most. Upside Down Podcast–more Christian women chatting about difficult things. These ladies all seem to live in similar communities to what we do. I feel like we’re already friends. Hey, girl.–American women from different backgrounds and races chatting about a variety of important and not-so-important things. The Red Couch–an interesting, personalized take on politics and society. Diverse, unique, and hilarious: a winner.

3. Reading aloud, currently Lord of the Rings. We’re always trying to find new ways to decompress in the evenings. While we still go through the occasional TV series or season, I have to say there isn’t that much I want to watch, particularly when you eliminate serious, scary dramas (i.e. police, crime) or too-life-like dramas (i.e. This is Us is out). It also has to be accessible to us here, which is a whole different issue. Anyway, we’re exploring other options. We’re trying podcasts together, currently listening through Serial in the evenings or the occasional This American Life. And, we’re reading together. We have been for years, and we’re currently nearing the end of Lord of the Rings trilogy. While I’ve always loved reading together, I’m really loving it now. I’m realizing how peaceful it is and is becoming one of my favorite things at the end of long days.

4. ကျွေးတယ် || To feed. This is likely one of my favorite aspects of Burmese childrearing. From a extremely early age, kids are taught to share their food. No matter what. Every bag of squid chips is shared with the whole group. Every pop-ice. Even every sucker. It may not always be the most sanitary activity, but I do love how the kids learn so quickly to share so freely. And it makes for adorable situations like this:

5. Sewing. This is my newest hobby! A team purchased two Singer machines for our little sewing project, and that means there is usually a machine available to me on evenings and weekends. I’m only tackling simple mending, curtains, pillowcases, and blankets for now (read: straight lines, easy to fix mistakes), but I am happy to be listening to a podcast & the hum of the machine.

6. Injuries that bring us together. There is always quite a bit of sickness during rainy season, but we also have had our fair share of major injuries. On Wednesday, we took one baby to be admitted at the clinic for potential H1N1, and then found ourselves at the orthopedic doctor with an eight-year-old with a broken tibia from playing football.

And just a few hours after that, we were called after a bicycle accident. Two people had collided on their bicycles just returning to the community from work. Stephen & I ended up at the ER with our friend San San, while they put twenty stitches into her leg. With other injuries in the mix, it was a long week. But I was thankful that we tackled them together.

Stephen helped carry the little boy in and out of x-rays; and he was there to help get San San into the ER. And we ate street food for dinner on a hospital bench, so–while it does get more romantic than that, I’m thankful for the fact that we do this together. He’s the best.

7. ဝတ်မှုန်း || Win Moun. Speaking of injuries, one of our favorite little girls is currently admitted to the local hospital. She has an infection on her tiny little finger that has gotten ridiculous, and they need to watch it for a few days and potentially lance it while she is sedated. But this girl–she has our hearts, and she is bringing a smile to our faces every day when she calls for us, Uncle Stephen & Aunt Kelli. She is very verbal, and held both arms out yesterday at the hospital–one having a hurt finger and one having just had blood taken–shouting, “It hurts! It hurts!” in her best pathetic tone. She also shouted to the doctor, “Don’t do that! DON’T DO THAT! It HURTS!”

I was wearing this sweater when she held my cheeks and said the Burmese equivalent of, “I wear it.” She then went to get my pink jelly shoes to complete the ensemble. 😍

8. New glasses. (Read: any happy-ending story.) It was a feat we’ve been tackling since June, but eight appointments later and a only a few tears, this beautiful little girl was able to get glasses! And adorable little pink ones to make it even better.

9. The Rock Game. We’ve been playing this for years, but I’m getting better at it now! It’s similar to jacks, but much harder and the kids play it from about two years old on up. So I’m way behind on learning. But we now have a little group playing it a few times a week during Playhouse–mostly teenage girls and young moms, and it brings a smile to my face. Especially if I can at least play on par with the ten-year-olds!

The world is probably still crumbling in broken stories. But the positives have been successfully accentuated. ✔️

palpable.

August 14, 2017 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, house church, kelli, photos, playhouse 1 Comment

The darkness is so palpable recently. Each day has sufficiently held enough trouble of its own.

We’ve just past the first deadline of the new laws put into effect for Burmese migrants. I can’t even begin to try to explain the ins and outs of it while we are all trying to sort it ourselves here in Mae Sot, expatriates and migrants and locals alike. I do know that we’ve now spent two days at the Labor Office, and both were absolute chaos–like 500 people, over 100 degrees, a legitimate fear of being trampled to death–that sort of chaos.

I also can’t even begin to capture the stress and strain it puts on our neighbors. Poverty is a strain in and of itself, and this is simply a pile of cherries on a very difficult cake to swallow.

I can’t explain the conversations: asking for loans, asking for money for rice; talking about what they should do and what their futures hold. Because no one knows.

And even for us as a couple, this season is just another pile of unknowns and another list of questions. Yet again, our lives are entirely resting on miracles and more miracles, in every direction.

Meanwhile, Daw Ma Oo and her husband are living at a Yangon Hospital, while she receives treatment for her cancer. Her two youngest sons, 12 and 16, are cared for by their other siblings in town.

The assistant pastor at our church fell 8 or 10 meters from a roof on Saturday, leaving him in the hospital with severe head wounds. It’s a miracle he’s alive now, and we’re all praying, praying, praying.

One of the little boys’ parents left him this week. The one we just got into school; the one who we remind to come to our house every morning for breakfast; the one who asks every day if we are playing today at 4pm. Overnight, he became an orphan, because his parents left and he’s in the care of his grandfather–who took care of him while his parents were in prison the first few years of his life. The sadness is palpable.

I sat in church yesterday, fighting back tears from all of this weight, as we celebrated Thai Mother’s Day. The second Mother’s Day of the year, while we wait for placement in our adoption. Sitting next to the little boy who lost his mother on Wednesday. Thinking of the family of four kids who told me they weren’t going to school Friday because it was a Mother’s Day celebration, and you only go if you have a mom. Thinking of The Breakfast Club, and the hungry, hungry kids that come every day, threatening to break me with emotion each and every morning. Thinking of how to possibly pray for all the things: the friend current in surgery to drain the blood from his brain; the friend currently in chemo; the kids currently scared of losing their mom; the kid who just lost his mom; the kids who still mourn the loss of their mom.

And then we had cake, to celebrate Mother’s Day and a first birthday of one of the kids from our community. I think I’m definitely learning how to cater to my audience when it comes to cake decor.

Maybe you feel the same? America isn’t shining at the moment, and sadness seems palpable there, too.

Not all the cake & holidays in the world can make it all go away.

And yet a light shines in the darkness. The darkness has not overcome it.

These faces still shine with joy.

And this week, their heavenly Father has fed them, again. Sometimes in our own home.

Walking with us, sitting next to me on Mother’s Day and mourning their friend, too, are our pastors. They walk this road with us and provide such sweet camaraderie.

Our home is still a place of peace for all ages.

And this guy still finds new places for us to explore. And just sit at and be.

And he takes me there for a few hours on Saturday, to just read and see the beautiful views and be best friends.

The darkness is palpable wherever we are. But the light still shines. The darkness has not overcome us.

oh, kid.

July 2, 2017 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, kelli, playhouse Leave a Comment

One of the little boys is just six, and has been dealt a rough hand already.

His parents were in prison for the first three years or so of his life; he was often watched by his teenage aunts and lived with his grandfather. Not so long after his parents were out of prison and he was living back with them, his father was diagnosed with advanced tuberculosis and dangerously malnourished, so he was admitted to the clinic and then transferred to a tuberculosis isolation spot about two hours out of town. They whole family went.

They all returned months later, but just after school started. So he’s back to the familiar of our neighborhood, but doesn’t attend school while his friends do. He spends his days playing in our yard with two to four year olds.

He also asks every day if we are playing inside. We have tried to explain the days of the week and how certain days we play at 4pm and certain days we don’t. He’s not capturing all of it, so he now asks every morning: Are we playing at 4pm today? And we say yes or no. Picking our battles, at least he’s only asking once a day.

Last week his foot got caught in his dad’s bicycle. His ankle swelled quickly, so we took him to see if it was broken. It wasn’t broken, but sprained; and had a large cut on the side. Most of the instructions we gave weren’t heeded, so I began changing the bandages at our house.

A few more days went by, with bandages just not staying put. I decided since it was closed, we should just focus on getting antibiotic cream on it, rather than keeping it wrapped in gauze. Again, we’re picking battles carefully.

I took medicine to the mother and explained it to her.

Fast foward to today: our house is full of thirty-some children and adults, coloring, playing on the computers, playing market…they are everywhere. Suddenly I look down and see blood on the floor. Everywhere. There are large drops and smears of blood–everywhere. Covering most of the floor.

Thida, Stephen & I see it at nearly the same time, and we’re shouting all at once: Wait! Stop! WHO IS BLEEDING? BLOOD. WHO IS BLEEDING? WHO IS BLEEDING??

It took ridiculously long to figure out who, but it was little friend. His cut isn’t healing so well and broke open; and apparently he didn’t notice his trail.

I carried him into the kitchen to try to bandage him up. Thida very sweetly came in and asked him if his mom had put any of the medicine on it. He said no. She explained that his mom was “naughty” (not sure how else to translate that!) and wouldn’t put medicine on it. She made sure he understood to come to our house every day to get medicine.

He went back to playing, and then left at 6pm with the other kids.

About 6:30pm, he was at the door, calling for us.

“Stephen, are we going to play today at 4pm?”
“Well, we did, buddy. 4pm already came. We already played. But we’ll play tomorrow at 4pm, too.”
And then in English–“Don’t you remember playing? You bled out on our floor!”

playhouse.

July 1, 2017 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos, playhouse Leave a Comment

Friends, Playhouse is thriving.

We open up the space four times a week in the afternoons, to catch kids and families after school and on Saturday evenings for a safe place to play. And each time, it fills up with old friends and new faces.

We still have two computers available for the kids seven & older to use, playing English games, typing practice, math drills, drawing, and Minecraft.

We have a selection of toys and games for all ages, including the newly popular board games. The board games have been an overwhelming success with the older kids and moms!

We had a team visit from my university campus ministry and do some projects in our community. They made two soccer goals out of PVC that we keep inside, with two soccer balls, until Playhouse. The kids can play in the street but easily pick them up when a car through.

The team also made a set of market items out of fabric–something I have wanted to make for a long time! They did a great job making local fruits and vegetables, a milk & juice, a bag of potato chips, and fish. They also laminated Monopoly money for the kids to pretend with. It has been such a hit!

And last, they helped us set up some more technology pieces! We had one more Raspberry Pi, and we wanted to use it to set up a gaming system. Stephen found a “RetroPie”–it’s old versions of Nintendo games that you can play with a Raspberry Pi, computer monitor, and a couple controllers. The team helped us set it up for the kids to play, and they are absolutely loving it. They really love StreetFighter and WorldCup Soccer.

It’s also fun to see how communal it is!

And last, we have had a 1st Generation iPad from when we moved. It runs very few apps these days, and we were gifted a 2nd Generation iPad last year. We wanted to get our old iPad et up for the kids to use, as another technology piece to get used to. I really think its so good for them to learn how to use their fingers on a touch screen on the iPad, as well as the mouse and computer programs; and even the controllers. I love to see how much they are able to experience and learn!

It was fun to have the team here to help us get some new activities rolling, and the kids are certainly loving it 😁

accentuate.

June 13, 2017 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, on the house, onehouse, photos, playhouse 1 Comment

Some seasons it becomes vitally important that you accentuate the positives. And that is precisely this post: when I can’t find the words for all the situations around us, we’ll just accentuate the positives.

We made it to Bangkok last week, and overall had a good trip. We drove there so we could make a trip to Ikea (!!), which is a lot of good things in one sentence! We had a car that made it all the way to Bangkok and back with no problems (thanks, Hagelbergs!); Stephen also rocked Bangkok traffic for a week, which is quite an accomplishment. And we went to Ikea!

And one of the hotels we stayed in had the elevators covered in denim fabric?! It wasn’t a win. We stood in the middle so we didn’t touch the sides! 😂

We successfully completed our adoption course with about thirty other couples from around the world.

That’s us: we’re PAPs! That is, Prospective Adoptive Parents. I don’t know if they use this reference worldwide, but I would think any countries that use Pap smears wouldn’t. Just a personal opinion.

And since we’re accentuating the positives, I’ll just say that we finished the course!

Then we headed just outside of the city to visit our Burmese friends working in local factories. In short: Musana moved back to live with her mom, step-dad, & sister at the end of last year. While we were in America, her grandmother & cousin, Zen Yaw, moved there, too, to join the whole family.

The good part? The family is all together. Zen Yaw is reunited with his mom & dad, who he hasn’t lived with since he was an infant. Musana is with her family, and they are all in the apartment building. The grandmother has less responsibility, and they are overall doing better–the adults have jobs and are paid minimum wage; the apartments have running water and real walls; they are eating better.

The bad part? It’s pretty far from our street in Mae Sot, and we’re sad about that! They also aren’t able to go to school where they are, and there aren’t many kids to play with.

But, we got to spend two days with them, and that was lovely. Zen Yaw remembered us and warmed up to us quickly; it was so fun to have him curl up into our laps. He also is doing really well for the amount of trauma he’s experienced in his 4 years.

They really are both doing so well emotionally, and they light up just having someone to play with. We played Chutes & Ladders, practiced some English workbooks, played games on our phones, and chatted with the adults. We try to bring them some toys, too, that are more long-lasting: dolls she can play with repeatedly; crafts they can do; English workbooks; a punching bag for Zen Yaw! And Stephen loaded up some videos onto a flash drive, so they can learn some English and listen to Bible stories, which they were oh-so-excited about.

As sad as it was to see them for such a short time, I can’t minimize the miracle it is to be able to see them after they’ve moved hours away. And we are truly glad to see them doing well and be able to reconnect with them often and continue to love on them any way we can.

And, because we drove, we wanted to find a place nearer to them to stay. We usually take a couple hours of train rides & taxis out to their house from the city. This time we found a resort about twenty minutes from them and decided to give it a try.

It was a WIN. It was set on 70 acres along the river, with beautiful paths and a lovely swimming pool.

They had three restaurants there, with food prepared from their on-site organic gardens. They also make soaps, teas, and other products organically right on their property, which was pretty great.

We got to go paddle boating out on the lake!

And now we’re back to Mae Sot, settled into our great new house and community space! We are loving it. Playhouse has gone so well in the afternoons, with kids coming from all over the neighborhood, and often parents, too.

We’re seeing moms coming with their young toddlers, sitting to play with them, read to them, and teach them. This is what we always hoped and envisioned, and it’s working!

I did attempt to teach Guess Who in Burmese, which was a bit of a disaster. Oh, well!

This week also held International Milk Day–who knew that was a thing?! It really just means milk was on sale and seemed a good treat for the kiddos!

This weekend, we braved a Bingo night! The first week we got back from America, Nyein Nyein asked when we’d have Bingo. (Nyein Nyein is an adult–one of the moms who bakes bread every Friday!😂) We recently have had a number of expatriates move back and leave us with some donations for the community. Since they are difficult to distribute evenly and fairly, Bingo is a great way to make it a fun community event and less of a stampede 😀 And we had SO much! In the photo below, the entire corner behind me was stuffed with clothes, shoes, bags, household items, toys, and other treasures.

And since this is all about accentuating the positive, I won’t dwell on the woman that grabbed a pile of things at the end and ran out the door…😳😡😕😡😣😡

Ultimately, it was chaotic and fun and everybody loved it. We’ll do it again in another six months when our bravery has returned!

And, while the photo below is pathetic, it was a fun part of the week! Stephen is working on pieces of his OneHouse album and had a friend record some vocals and keys this week. It’s exciting to see projects moving forward, even if slowly.

So, here’s to accentuating the positives! Makes for easier blog-writing 😀

full.

January 20, 2017 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, house church, housewares, kelli, playhouse Leave a Comment

I’m just going to cut to the chase: we’re coming to America for a visit, and soon!

We had different plans, all based around a required course we need to take for the adoption; and the agency changed it on us. Because of the ins and outs of what’s ahead in the coming years, we had a choice:

Option 1: Go to America before the course and before placement, which is NOW.

Option 2: Go to America after the course, while you are being placed, and potentially miss an opportunity for a child.

Option 3: Don’t go to America at all for 2-3 more years, not seeing family or friends at all. This also includes the significant practical challenge of getting a number of visas from other nearby countries for the next 2-3 years.

So we chose #1, and bought tickets three weeks out from leaving. This has also left us scrambling for what exactly we are going to do with the community while we are away.

I distinctly remember the afternoon we sat down with sticky notes all over our table, with the categories of things that needed to be done or continue while we were away–Flour & Flowers, worship nights, the neighbors going to church, medical needs, Playhouse after school, the sewing project, paying our bills…and then each sticky note had names on it, of who we’d ask first and in what order.

It’s a list of how many ridiculous favors you can ask of your friends in the shortest window of time and hope they’ll still be your friends at the end of doing said favor for you for three months.

____________

Yesterday we had meetings in the community for three hours. The kids came to play from 4-6, and then we had a community meeting–with a translator, just to be sure everything was clear! We met with everyone together over cookies, telling them about adoption and our trip back to States. We turned down the babies we were offered, again, and tried to explain about papers and processes. We tried to assuage their disappointments that we won’t be having a snow-white baby that they all wish to hold and dote on.

We have arranged for a friend to come once a week to give rides to the clinic; the church will come each week to pick up everyone to go.

We met with Thida, and sorted out how she’ll continue with Playhouse while we’re away, so the kids can use the computers and have a safe place to play. We met with San Aye to talk about how she’ll continue sewing and how we’ll get her salary to her.

We met with the Flour & Flower ladies, to talk about how we’ll do deliveries one more week and then they’ll be setting up shop in our house each week for people to come get their orders. We reviewed hand-washing and cleaning up to prevent ants. We sorted out how I’ll get the order forms to them from around the world and who in the community has Facebook so they can write us messages in Burmese.

Somewhere in the middle of these meetings our translator turned to us and asked, “So does everyone have a key to your house?”

{Sort of, well–yes.}

Our house will be opened to the community for someone to work or play six of seven days a week the entire time we’re gone. So I’m not really sure it’s a house anymore. Welcome to The House Collective!

____________

And that brings us to another big change this month! Our neighbors, Kelvin & Laura, have decided to move out into a different house in Mae Sot and focus on their ministry in a local children’s home. We have decided to start renting their house, which connects to ours as a duplex. Our hope is to put a door in the wall between the two when we return, at which point we’ll start living on one side and devote this entire side to the community.

This is incredible in so many ways!

First–we have felt a bit over-crowded as of late. Our house being open six of seven days a week has been happening while we’re here, too, and it’s just getting full. Bread continues to grow; sewing has taken off; the kids are loving the playtime. But it’s full!

Particularly with a baby on the way and the Thai government looking into our home on a regular basis, we feel like it will really help to have a “family” side and a “community” side. It will allow us to have a baby room.

Really, we have so many details to sort, and this wouldn’t be the ideal time we’d choose. But we are so thankful for the room to expand. The landlords have also been so, so gracious. They love us and love that we have stayed so long, so they’ve agreed to rent us both houses with a $45 per month discount. At the current exchange rate, our rent is $140 per month, and we’ll be able to get both houses for $240.

We have dreams of a sewing room; of space for bread! We have ideas of a computer corner for the older kids and a table for homework help.

Since we arrived, it has felt like God has asked how much we’re willing to share and trust him with. First it was just our yard and porch. Then the kids starting moving inside, and we gave up an area at the front. Then we felt like God was asking us to share the kitchen for bread (this was a tough one for me!); and then the space in between. Then sewing joined a few months ago…

Each time, we felt like it was right. We felt like God was asking us to share and to really open our lives to trust our neighbors as friends. It’s opened doors for conversations about respecting our space and things, but also about trusting each other and sharing openly what God’s given us.

And after six years of always moving in the direction of sharing more, we feel like God has provided a space of our own. It’s making it easier to leave our house for 3 months of being community-run. It’s making it easier to think of finding space for a baby bed!

There are so many decisions to be made, and we just aren’t really sure how it will all play out yet. But we do know that we are so thankful that God has opened the doors for this, and America, too–even if its creating a very full month and a few full months ahead!

Full of good things, good people, and–we hope–good rest.

a little bit fat.

January 12, 2017 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, kelli, playhouse Leave a Comment

I had this little conversation as I walked with two of my favorite little neighbors. This came from the seven-year-old.

Where are you going?

Well, first, I’m walking you & your sister home [because you live on a dangerous road]. Then I’m going to visit Po Gwee to give him this medicine for the big sore on his leg. And then I’m going to go for a run. Exercise!

Oh, because you’re a little bit fat now and if you run you’ll be a little bit skinny, right?

Well…yes.

on the sidelines.

November 9, 2016 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, house church, housewares, kelli, photos, playhouse 1 Comment

These are the {many} sidelines and side stories of the past few weeks.

It is still one of my favorite things to see the kids pour over books in our house.

Castles have taken on popularity: in drawing, in building, in discussion. I also love how freshly showered and tanaka-ed kids look a bit scary!

Go Fish is still extremely popular. Since they can’t read or pronounce the fish names in English–and in Burmese it gets challenging to describe the type of fish–we simply hold out the card we want and say, “{Name}, do you have it?”

This week, 8-year-old Jorgee decided to switch to English, without asking how to say it in English. He now holds up his card, and asks, “ARE YOU OKAY?” If they shake their head no, he shouts, “I DON’T KNOW!”

This is enough to make me shake with laughter while we play.

We have also had more and more women joining for Open House in the afternoons. Sometimes they come to let their young babies play, and sometimes they come to play themselves! We had a group of four moms and grandmothers playing Go Fish on the floor the other day!

We added Minecraft to the computers, and the kids love it! It’s pretty cool to see them learning the mouse and how to get around; and problem-solving themselves since we don’t know much about it.

We also had three broken arms in two weeks!

One was an older woman from a falling coconut; another was this little boy playing at his house. Sadly, yet another was a young girl playing on our playset, when the tire and wood bar fell on her. When I found myself back at the orthopedist for the third time in two weeks, I gave the name and age, and where they live:
“Really? The same? All near you?”

I got to visit these two cuties every morning for two weeks while changing bandages in the family. Noted: when you need to change bandages on gruesome wounds for days on end, make sure there are cute kids to brighten your day following.

We are trekking off to Burmese church each week still, which is in fact an event! We have a family attending regularly and a steady group of teenagers that are interested. And some weeks–like this one–we are nearly half the church. We had thirteen older kids, six adults and two babies! I also had a meeting that evening about an upcoming friends’ wedding I’m helping to coordinate, so Stephen drove and coordinated all 21 attendees himself 😳

They still do such a great job with the kids’ program in the afternoon, and this week was one of my favorites. It was a song about helping each other and giving hugs to each other, and it was adorable.

He was pretty adorable, too.

Flour & Flowers is exploding, and we are finding ourselves looking at how to handle the growth in coming months. For now, we are starting earlier in the days (7am most weeks; 5:30am on cinnamon roll weeks!) and going later into the evenings with deliveries. It is pretty amazing to see, because we certainly can’t take credit for it and just didn’t know it’d grow like this. But God is providing ideas and people and words and capacities, and we are thankful.

And then this week it truly exploded: while we were making cinnamon rolls, the honey on my shelf exploded. ALL OVER. As if our kitchen wasn’t crazy enough!

The rest of house stays pretty crazy, too, while the “older kids”–aged five to eleven–help with the babies. Sometimes it involves putting them in baskets and taking them for rides around the tile floor!

And recently we’re having trouble keeping the new walkers away from the ovens! Two tiny burnt hands that required popsicles to ice them down 😞

We still make plenty of trips to the clinic (Mae Tao, or MT for Stephen & I), & sometimes it goes smoother than others. Here was our text string the other day, admiring timely patients!

And then we found ourselves at a new dentist this week, to take our friend to get a tooth replacement after the recent domestic violence. It was quite an adventure that involved us meeting the dentist on the side of the road to follow him out to his house, which is why Stephen join the two of us women! And thankfully Stephen was there to take the baby, as I was asked to fill in for his dental assistant that was away.

😳😳😳

Our lives are so ridiculous. Sometimes in the middle of a situation I find my mind reeling backward to sort out how exactly I found myself here. {Was it when I agreed to pick up the water-sucker-tool? No, no; you were in long before that…} But, it was a great way to have a hand on her shoulder in the midst of challenging season and uncomfortable morning.

The sidelines are crowded, folks! Too many stories to tell 😀