The House Collective

all in a week.

by Filed Under: house calls, house church, housewares, kelli, onehouse, photos, playhouse, stephen 1 Comment

Whoa, what a week.

We took this crew to church on Sunday, including the marijuana hat. And snail hat was left behind.

The left hat caused me to write down this note to myself (hat@church), which I later came back to wondering why I was reminding myself to hate church. 😂

Sunday ended in a large community fight, involving a beer bottle being thrown at one woman’s head and a sword being drawn. We went to the hospital for emergencies twice on Monday night, and the teenage girl who came with us to help was locked out of her hut, because I mistakenly said I’d bring her back in the morning for school when I tried to assure her dad she wouldn’t stay at the hospital but be able to go to school in the morning. She ended up watching some Avengers with us over popcorn and sleeping at our house.

Stephen is teaching The Reinforcers to type in Burmese, and they are working on typing up all our songs for church so they can run them on the projector in coming months. I’m super impressed with all of them, but particularly the husband who can teach them how to type their language and provide them with so many new opportunities.

Wednesday we did a special Valentine’s Flour & Flowers delivery!

And had a flat tire.

And made little gifties for the kids: red off-brand Pocky sticks and pink strawberry yogurt drink. (Do you guys even have on-brand Pocky sticks?) I know you’re jealous.

This was confiscated from an eight-year-old, six-year-old and three-year-old playing with it at our house.

Girls are becoming teenagers and spent their week whispering about boys and things behind curtains. It’s adorable.

Stephen sent this to our little friend in Bangkok, who writes us on Facebook all day every day, and we mostly send photos, emojis, and stickers back and forth. My husband is awesome.

This girl can multiply! After bribes and weeks of practice, she’s got it, and I’m beyond proud. We’re moving on to division!

Stephen made a trip to the border to pick up our Burmese teacher’s wife returning from Burma. And he took this great picture with a great friend.

We did our Friday laundry load of towels and rugs, which is my favorite load of the week. I love what it represents: the feet wiped on the rug on the way in, the bread loaves baked, the breakfasts served, the hands washed before playing computer. It represents a full, active community space that requires so many towels.

We got matching button-up shirts for The Reinforcers that will soon be logo-ed, and we made badges with their names. They’re official! We announced it to the Mae Sot community last week.

And they had two gigs this Saturday! They started at 7am, doing an amazing job at a celebration for a local non-profit. There were over 800 migrant students present at the local university stadium. In the evening they ran sound for a worship night for another local ministry.

Somewhere in there we also had two significant meetings this week, working on two new and very promising connections for the two ladies sewing in our home! We’ll share more info soon, but for now, we are so thankful to see prayers answered and God providing work for them.

We also applied for and received a visa for Burma, and we leave tomorrow afternoon with one of the bread ladies and her little family.

We’re never bored, friends. We are never bored. 😊

the reinforcers: the beginning.

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And just like that, it’s a thing. It’s a part of our lives, a part of schedules.

It’s a new project!

And more than that, we’re seeing God working here. It’s encouraging and fresh.

In short–Stephen dreamed this up over a year ago. He wanted to provide a rentable sound system in Mae Sot that comes with two mentored, trained teenagers to run sound. His idea was to get the initial sound equipment funded by grant, which would allow the project to then be sustainable to provide work for two young men and maintain the equipment and allow for growth.

Honestly? When we didn’t get the grant, we were a bit thrown off. Stephen particularly felt so sure he was supposed to start this, but unsure how to go about it without the initial investment. We were nervous to raise it individually because of other needs in the community (i.e. The Breakfast Club–you hate to fund a sound system over a malnourishment program). And we just really wanted to make sure we felt it was the right thing before we spent a good portion of our year’s expenses on it.

A quick budget breakdown: In 2016, we spent right around $10,000 on all the community projects–medical, playhouse, Flour & Flowers, Christmas. In 2017, we added the community center side and added The Breakfast Club mid-year. We haven’t finished crunching the books just yet, we were estimating $15,000 for the year; a pretty significant increase for us. And this project we were estimating at $4,000-$5,000, a very big portion and in 2017 would have doubled our community budget.

All that to say this: what a big God we serve.

As the year progressed, Stephen still felt the need was there for these two boys, as well as the opportunity. Further, he felt the market was available in Mae Sot, and that it just. might. work.

{Cheapskate Kelli was still a little concerned, but wanted to be Supportive Wife Kelli.} So when Stephen felt like we should do a year-end request for this particular project, we did. After a Christmas party, in the midst of chaos, we sent out a choppy video to explain the project.

Y’all, it was amazing to see. We received over double what we hoped for, and we are so excited (and maybe a little nervous) for what God has in store. {While he always provides for what he puts in front of us, sometimes financial provision isn’t the only daunting part!}

Fast forward just weeks, and Stephen was trekking across Bangkok to sign a credit card slip for a whole set of sound equipment!

Fast forward five days after that, the boys had their first gig with the new equipment–running sound for a worship night of fellow Burmese & Karen youth.

Fast forward another six days to this past weekend, when they all ran sound on Friday night for a concert, Saturday night for OneHouse worship, and Sunday morning at church.

Can I just tell you some of the amazing things about this?

– We are still working on the logo and fliers and marketing material, and The Reinforcers have been hired two weekends in a row. The response from expats: positive. The response from the guys: positive. The response from the boys’ families: positive. The response from the Spurlock House: positive exhaustion.

– The guys are getting to work with Stephen on nights and weekends, so they are still attending school and taking exams, but also able to help their families, both of which need the assistance.

– They come to our house for a couple hours after school on Tuesday to practice new sound skills and to learn computer. They are able to get one-on-one time with Stephen and learn skills to set them apart in the workforce.

– We are able to use some of the equipment at church each week to help out our little Light of Love community, too.

– The guys run sound for church every week, where they hear the sermon, learn the songs, and experience the body of Christ in their own cultural context.

– On Tuesdays, Stephen is teaching them to type Burmese on the computer and how to manage Keynote. By April, we hope to be taking our projector to church each week with a database of songs, to save the church bulletin paper while continuing to improve the boys’ computer and literacy skills.

The boys love it, they do. But they are shy. They are hesitant. They are teenagers. We see it the most in the moms, who open the doors to their kids at 11pm with huge smiles on their faces. Who tell us thank you a million times over, because they know that this is opening up great opportunities for their sons and families. And they know Stephen is probably the greatest guy in town for them to be hanging out with 😊

I can’t really capture how excited we are for this, and how much we are just awed seeing it roll out so quickly. Are we a little nervous? Heck yes. It’s a commitment–everything is. But we can also see God’s fingerprints all over it.

Oh, and the name is sticking. The Reinforcers are the newest piece of The House Collective!

the collective christmas: recovery.

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Christmas is a bit of an overload of fun, chaos, languages, & activities. So we now consider our annual camping trip to be a bit of a tradition: 2015, 2016, 2017, and now 2018.

This year we did a loop we’ve been eyeing for awhile, enjoying it all over ten days.

We hit four national parks and a few cities we’d wanted to see–Mae Hong Son & Pai. We also went through Chiang Mai for just enough time to stop at H&M for holiday sales, an amazing lunch at our favorite place, and one last Starbucks holiday coffee. We also got to stock up on camping food in the city, so that our last few days of camping included goat cheese & halloumi!

Basically, it was all amazing.


One park had this photo op set up for the New Year. So, why not?

We mostly tent camped in this great new tent from my parents for Christmas! It was pretty big compared to our last one, which Stephen couldn’t sleep straight in. This one also kept out water when it rained–a feature not available for our previous $10 tent! #winninganddry

I got Stephen a hammock he had wanted, and its AMAZING. Last year he wanted a selfie stick, and I all but stole it. That is kind of the case for this double hammock.

Perfect to watch the Christmas movies we hadn’t yet had time for. Elf is even better in a hammock outside in the cold.

Probably one of my favorite pictures of him to date.

One day was particularly rainy and chilly, as we were moving between two national parks. We were kind of dreading the icy shower when we arrived at 6pm. But, we passed a hot spring just outside the park, where you could “rent a shower” for $1.50 and use the natural hot spring water. SO HAPPY.

Both Mae Hong Son & Pai were fun little touristy towns with lovely night markets and great restaurants. Both of these photos are of the Mae Hong Son night market.

The drives between parks and towns were just stunning. We saw some of the best views we’ve ever seen in Thailand. It was great to be reminded of what a beautiful place we live. And honestly, it’s easier to appreciate that when you aren’t sweating and are even cold!

Just outside of Pai was this stunning natural canyon.

Supposedly there was a fifteen-minute loop around the canyon. This was about an hour in when it didn’t seem to be looping. Thankfully we started mid-afternoon and made it back before dark, and just in time for the sunset!

I don’t know if this really captures it, but parts of the hike were really, really narrow. I tried to take a panoramic of both sides dropping off just past my feet.

One of the parks had this beautiful waterfall with bright blue, clear water.

The last night the Fetters met us at the last national park for dinner and s’mores and games!

So many highlights! And somehow, we actually came back really refreshed and ready for the chaos we call our house.

the collective christmas: 23 december.

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Saturday was already a full day with OneHouse Carols that evening, so we woke up early (a theme for this holiday season; and our lives?) and headed back out to finish Christmas gifts.

Thankfully we were able to find everyone and had lots of fun. This was probably our most specialized year, and a bit less equal.  We really tried to find gifts that fit each person, and a little bit of how well we knew them. It made it so much more fun to purchase, pack, and deliver!

The rest of Saturday was full getting ready for OneHouse that evening. Stephen helped The Reinforcers get the equipment all set up, while I sorted a meal for the band, cookies for the community & visitors, candles all around the house, and last minute gift shopping.

Oh, and I ran to the store and lost the card for my motorbike, so I spent an hour sitting at the security desk to get my motorbike back 🙄

But OneHouse was so lovely and completely worth it. Stephen had half the songs available in both Karen & Burmese, and after a number of issues finding a Burmese singer, our friend NuNu stepped in on Saturday and sang in Burmese!

It was really beautiful. The candles, of course; the Christmas carols. But also the sound of voices singing together. I was surrounded by kids from our neighborhood, as well as mothers, singing together in Burmese. Our church family surrounded us, too, with kid’s voices and British accents; young old. It was really amazing to see everyone singing together, collectively trying to prevent a fire.

One of my favorite moments this Christmas.

Every year a new song resonates with me. (And I write about it apparently! 2012, 2104) This year, as I sat surrounded by some of my neighbors, we sang Go Tell It On The Mountain.

This might be one of my least favorite Christmas songs, partially because it always seems to be sung with a twang. It gives me visions of people on horses and Santa hats; it just doesn’t fit Christmas for me. But, alas, we sang:

Go tell it on the mountain
Over the hills and everywhere
Go tell it on the mountain
That Jesus Christ is born

This is what we had gotten up early every day this week for, and gone to bed late for. This is what we wrapped hundreds of gifts for. This is what we cooked hundreds of meals for. This is what we serve breakfast for every day before school. This is what we bake bread for and deliver flowers for and sew things for. This is what we run sound for and go to church for and study language for. This is what we live in this hot little town for, a million miles away from our families that are cozied up by a fire together. This is what we have hard conversations for and wrestle with our faith for.

This is what just keep trying for.

In that moment, surrounded by women from our community that I love as sisters now, holding a little girl asleep in my arms that I love exponentially, watching my husband do his life so well–it felt worth it in that moment. Like we were doing what we were supposed to do this holiday season: we went, and we told it a million times over bowls of fish soup and story times and Christmas bingo. And ultimately, over mountains chaos, we shouted it.

It doesn’t always feel worth it. But in that moment, it did. And that made it one of my favorite days over this holiday season.

After worshiping together and watching our candles burn to nothing, we shared a collection of cookies our friends had brought with them. Kid were stuffing their hands full and coming back for more, and it was adorable. Everything is adorable by candlelight. (And maybe when they aren’t your kids with the sugar high?)

an unpleasant event.

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One of our best little friends moved away with some of his family yesterday.

“There is a painful difference between the expectation of an unpleasant event and its final certainty.” (Sense & Sensibility by Jane Austen) That is how I feel about all these goodbyes. Sometimes I’m not sure when they’ve started and when they’ll end, but they are certainly upon us.

I can’t even pretend to have the words, but I have photos. We’re just trying to figure out how to do this.

I’ll just go ahead and admit we’re taking a second Sabbath tomorrow, since this week’s Sabbath involved a bicycle wreck and learning this little guy was moving away.

We’ve known him since he was a toddler, and since his older sister spent a lot of time at our house, so did he.

Now he comes all the time and loves Minecraft–he’s built up quite an amazing little world full of books and three or four houses and incredible tunnels. His creativity is amazing, and I still love how Minecraft gives you a glimpse into kid’s dreams.

His birthday was coming up this Sunday, and he’d been anticipating it so long, so midnight on Monday found me making a big chocolate birthday cake & decorating it with sprinkles and chocolate chips in the shape of Superman.

We had invited everyone who was leaving to have breakfast on their way and did a special birthday party for him over Breakfast Club, hoping that would encourage them to come say goodbye and not just slip away.

We also went to pick up his best friend that morning to be sure he got to say goodbye and they got a photo together.

We have so much history with the whole family, it’s hard to put into words. But I will say that Laytahoo & Yaminoo’s dad–here smiling at the camera–has grown so dear to our hearts. He has been going to church with us this year and was baptized in May. And ultimately, we’ve watched his life change in some incredible ways over the past seven years. It’s has been such a privilege to witness that and the incredible effect it has had on their family. He will be missed and forever be a friend.

As stateless friends without phones and documents, pray for this crew as they they set up a life in Burma, as well as the few left here with us for a bit longer. Pray they are reunited before too long.

Goodbyes are hard. I probably should have used my trick of taking this photo from behind, because–as you can tell–goodbyes involve a lot of tears, a lot less sleep, and a lot of prayers.

snippets: november.

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Y’all, these past few months have just beat us in so many ways. But, hey, there is still so much to say.

We started November with an anniversary trip to Chiang Mai. We took on the city for a day or two of good food and fun shops, and then headed outside of town to ride bikes and go for hikes and enjoy the beautiful weather of northern Thailand.

At the end of October, the mourning season for H.M. The King officially ended for the country of Thailand, and we slowly, hesitantly have begun to wear red again.

This was Stephen first day to wear his favorite red t-shirt, to which he put on and said, “Hi, I’m Stephen. And I’m back!”

After just returning from our anniversary trip, we got a call from the adoption agency to meet our new caseworker. We packed up the car the next week and trekked to Bangkok.

This was right before a disappointing, four minute “meeting” in the hallway–a literal “meet her”–with our fifth caseworker. We’re still on the waiting list.

{When Stephen & I were dating long distance, I learned pretty quickly that there are lots of emotional moments that you want to remember–for the moment but not necessarily for your face. I started encouraging photos of the backs of our heads, of our feet. And well, it’s stuck. I don’t want to forget this moment in our lives, but there are parts of it I don’t want on record, either.}

Thankfully Bangkok has more to offer us, including visiting these favorite faces.

And nice parks & skylines.

And since we’re still having celebrations once a week, we went out to our favorite live jazz venue and talked about what good things were going (this list didn’t include the flop-meeting with our caseworker).

Since Thanksgiving isn’t really celebrated worldwide, Thailand tends to jump into Christmas pretty early on.

So we just jumped, too, enjoying some Starbucks peppermint mochas (over a Skyped missions meeting in a hospital waiting room, because…well, our life is still our life!).

And I found a Real Simple in the hotel lobby, so I read through that in my shorts & tank top in the air conditioning.

Within a day or two of returning from Bangkok, I had another abscess under my arm. Not wanting to repeat the last very painful experience, as soon as we knew outpatient surgery was necessary, we got in the car to go to Chiang Mai. Ultimately, it was a good call, but it wasn’t pleasant on many fronts. I’m still recovering, and we’re working so hard to build up my immune system.

The doctors say that with my immune system down (which it seems it has been since dengue fever in July and my dog bite in August; and the following reported infections), this will keep happening. We’re currently downing green smoothies and fresh fruits & veggies and vitamins like there is no tomorrow, and we are praying, praying, praying we can be done with this season of poor health.

We’re still trying to participate in the local community, and went to the art show our friend hosted, the grand opening of our friend’s restaurant, and a fundraiser for an organization working to end abuse of women & children. {It might sound like we have a lot of friends, but I’ll just remind you that we do sell bread & flower bouquets in a small town every week, so…}

To raise funds, you bought a t-shirt & decorated it, and then it was auctioned off.

My contribution was auctioned for $30! {From what I gather, one of the higher ones, & they were pretty surprised. To be fair, many people were painting pictures of abusive situations or fists in the air; things that might not be worn as commonly…} Either way, since this is something we deal with regularly in the community, it was refreshing to be able to fight from both angles of the issue.

I also ran a 5K to fundraise for another local organization that supports Burmese migrant schools around Mae Sot.

The Breakfast Club is still happening, and Stephen is still on the look out for budding romances! He’s convinced of this one.

Our seamstresses are still busy sewing for a few projects. San Aye and her two kids are thriving, and I love how her smile captures it all.

Mwei Mwei loves sewing, but isn’t a huge fan of the required studies. It’s a bit like pulling teeth, but teeth I really want to pull–I really want her to know a higher level of math (I’d like her to be comfortable with multiplication & division, but she currently does alright at addition & subtraction); to be regularly reading & writing Burmese; and to learn some English & Thai.

Math has been a particular battle. At the beginning of November, we struck a deal (offered a bribe?)–if she would memorize her times tables, we would give her additional money (on top of her salary, which goes to her family) and take her for a shopping trip. She has two chances to get 90% on all her times tables (1-12, in the form of minute math pages), and her first try was this past Thursday.

She’s at least appearing to be motivated and we’ve caught her studying in between Breakfast Club & her workday. She’ll finish up the exams this week and hopefully head out for a day of shopping with us! Here’s to hoping she can do well and it can build her confidence a little.

We found out one of the mothers in the community is pregnant again–with her third, the oldest being 3 1/2. Culturally this is rare, and a “mistake” if you will. As the general response was overwhelming fear and concern; others asking how she let this happen again, we wanted to be sure she knew we were there to support her and wanted her to welcome this baby with joy. We bought two maternity dresses in the market and delivered a bag of rice to the family; and then offered to take her to the clinic for her checkup. Within that week, her oldest was also bit by a dog, at which point we learned he didn’t have any vaccinations–including his tetanus which is really needed for dog bites. Thus, by the following week, we were at the clinic two days with them, catching both boys up on all their vaccines, getting them their birth certificates, and getting an ultrasound and bloodwork for the new babe. While we believe it was so important to support her this, it did mean I ended up locked in the car with three toddlers because I couldn’t manage to keep them all within reach at the clinic.

And after over an hour of that, I just drove them home and told her I’d send Stephen back for her.

That resulted in me at home with four toddlers for the afternoon. Our lives don’t always go as planned, mostly since I don’t usually work children into my schedule since I don’t have any to call my own!

Fast foward to this Saturday, when Stephen had to pick up The Reinforcers to return sound equipment to the church before we went to get four kids for a Christmas dance practice. As we planned our day, “Let’s go to Sai Bo Bo’s birthday party at 8; and then you go at 8:30 to get the kids and return the sound equipment. Can you pick me up by 9:30 so we can get the kids to dance by 10? Then maybe we can go work at the coffeeshop until we have to pick them up…”

Again, lots of children and yet none we call our own!

After a three-hour dance practice, we learned they hadn’t had lunch, so we took the kids out to lunch. It was a unique group–some of our favorites–and I’ll probably cherish that meal forever.

They got chicken fried rice with a fried egg on top, and they were so excited to have meat and an egg. Laytahoo also asked, “They’re paying for this, right?!” at one point, which had all the other kids shushing him and Stephen & I rolling on the floor. We got ice cream, too, and listened to Christmas songs on the way home, while Jorgee drummed on his legs and snapped his fingers just like his hero Stephen. It’s a memory I won’t quickly forget.

On a Sabbath, we went up into the mountains to read and hike in the quiet. It turned out to be colder than we thought, so I was layering two sweaters and we eventually started a fire. We couldn’t believe the chill, so we looked up the temp–according to our phones it was 82 degrees 😳 I’d like to assume that was incorrect, but not sure how much margin of error I can credit!

The kids think its pretty cold, too, and it’s adorable when they come for breakfast in the morning all bundled up.

Birthdays just keep coming, and this little guy turned 2 years old. He usually licks of the icing and toppings of things, so we went all out with the strawberry on top.

And now it’s December, and we’re going big for Christmas this year! More snippets of chaos to come 🙂

an epic day.

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It was a Friday, so we had Flour & Flowers; plus it was the first week of the month with cinnamon rolls. I was up and putting artisan loaves in pans at 5:30am when Nyein Nyein arrived with her little boy, and we got started on bread & cinnamon rolls.

Thida arrived for The Breakfast Club around 6am with her two sons, and they began serving fruit & soy milk to the kids around 6:15am. It was a school sport day, with four teams competing, so the kids were decked out in their team colors as they came for breakfast early—most arriving around 7am. Thida was out of the six kilos of longan fruit before 7:20, so we made do with watermelon, bananas, and apples from our fridge until 8.

Also by 7am, Pyo Pyo & Pwe Pyu Hey joined us for bread & cinnamon roll making. Mwei Mwei came to watch the kids. In all, they baked 22 loaves of bread, rolled out 120 tortillas, and made 173 cinnamon rolls.

Our morning was chaos: four of us baked here while kids ran in and out of the house. Stephen had breakfast with a friend and then went and one of The Reinforcers to deliver the sound system for the evening. He picked up lunch on the way back for all the bakers and us.

They asked about Bingo all day—I had promised we’d play this week but haven’t them the day. They chatted about how we hadn’t decided yet, which I corrected that I had, but just wasn’t telling them! They begged me all day to know.

Flour & Flowers finished baking around 1:30pm. We rested for about thirty minutes, before we had to shower and pack up the bread and load up the flowers.

As they walked out the door I asked if they were free on Sunday evening and might want to play Bingo? It was received with shouts, jumping, and cheers—grown women with children, jumping in our doorway to play Bingo this weekend! It was well worth the game all day 🙂

Because of reports of raids this week, Pyo Pyo didn’t make deliveries with me. I picked up Thida at 3pm instead, as she has legal paperwork. She doesn’t know the Flour & Flowers system, though, so we…made do. It was a lot of explaining and chatting while driving, until my head hurt.

Stephen left the house at 4pm, in a friend’s borrowed car, to take the two Reinforcers to the restaurant in town having a grand opening. They set up the sound system and did sound checks with the band; had dinner together and got started at 6:30pm.

I got back from deliveries about 6pm and did finances with Pyo Pyo, before heading out the door to the concert. I chatted with friends while The Reinforcers had their first paid gig running live sound. They did amazing! I think they exceeded many people’s expectations, both Stephen & the two guys, which is always fun to see. We had people asking about opportunities in the future!

They loaded up the car twice with gear, and we crashed at home around 11pm.

That’s eighteen hours later, spent entirely with the community. In those eighteen hours, eight people from our community had work and earned money for their families. In those eighteen hours, we had good conversations about the adoption system & children’s homes, about what their kids want to be when they get older, about inside jokes, about an absent father, about our weight (of course!), and all about Christmas and Bingo.

It worked, guys.

Flour & Flowers: it worked. It made profit. Four women took home money to their families and still got to see their kids through the day. It was relational. The loaves were beautiful, and every one raved at the concert about how much they love it. It’s a popular business to sell delicious things.

The Breakfast Club: it worked. It fed kids healthy food. It created stability. It was relational. And it will happen every school day this month because Thida is amazing.

The Reinforcers: it worked. It made profit. It kept kids in school. It gave them new skills. It was relational. And it looks like it might grow!

It’s working, and even on the most epic days, it’s worth it!

fourteen.

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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.

renewed.

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We were on our way to the Department of Motor Vehicles this week to renew Stephen’s license. It expires while we are out of town next week and you never know how many times you will need to return with different paperwork, different medical tests, and different days or hours. But amidst the week, it was on a very long to-do list.

I believe I said something along the lines of, “Well, maybe it will just go really quickly and smoothly.”
To which Stephen replied, “Yeah, maybe. Maybe the DMV in Thailand in another language will just go really, really smoothly. That’s a lot of optimism you’ve got there.” 😂

He’s now back for the second time this week with two copies of every possible paper he could need (signed & unsigned, black & white, plus originals), to watch an hour long video of violent car & motorbike accidents, and then hopefully it will go smoothly & quickly!

_____________________

We got our licenses shortly after we arrived. They give you one year from your birthday at first, and then you get a five-year license. So, as he returns–we’re nearing the seven year mark in this country, in this growing little town, on this street and in this very house.

It’s funny the things that show you time going by. It’s not what you expect.

It’s not that seven years has snuck up on me: I’ve watched it coming one day at a time. And what is seven years anyway? You’d think five would’ve hit me, or maybe ten if we make it.

Instead, it was last week as I was trying to get two fans to work, I was frustrated as these “fans we bought new” were failing us. I said something about not wanting to buy more–they should work! And Stephen reminded me that, while we did buy them new, they have been on for nearly 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, for 7 years.

Maybe those fans are as tired as we are. 😂

And then it was this license. I remember getting the second one, seeing it was good for five years. Five years, I thought, we won’t have to renew it!  I thought we’d be gone by then. For some reason four years seemed likely; five years seemed the cap.

So much of what we do feels transient, even seven years in. We rent a house because we don’t have the option to own; most of what we buy we consider the re-sale value. We do paperwork for visas and work permits regularly, a constant reminder that we are aliens. We operate in multiple languages.

I find myself walking in the market like it’s home to me, understanding the chatter and knowing exactly where to buy the best carrots. And then I find myself wondering why people are staring. Apparently I still look less at home than I feel with my glowing skin and large nose.

(Yes, it’s probably the most frequent comment from strangers, either to us or without knowing we understand them: what big, beautiful noses we have!)

And for some reason, renewing it this week, it feels like we are…residents. We are making a home here.

 

This license feels like evidence. I came, I stayed, and I’m renewing this thing.

_____________________

He just called to tell me he has to go back this afternoon. They wanted his old passport–the one that expired two years ago. The one that is in America, unused, because we can’t use an expired passport. So they will accept a copy, but he will have to come back at 1pm for the next video showing.

So, you won’t make this easy on us, hmm? I tell you, that expired document requirement was a surprise!

But let me tell you again: I came, I stayed, and I will renew this thing.

The license, and my will to survive, it seems!

the reinforcers.

by Filed Under: house church, kelli, onehouse, photos, stephen 1 Comment

Alternate title: What Stephen is calling “The Reinforcers.” I’m just not sold on it yet.

At the beginning of every year, we sit together and talk about what has changed and evolved in the community over the past year, what God has done, and what prayers have been answered. And then we make goals for the next year.

At the beginning of 2017, we specifically prayed and strategized for very little growth–we wanted to deepen relationships, to get better at what we do in the community, specifically to grow in quality and not quantity. We have felt in over our heads for so long, and we just really didn’t want to start anything new.

That has become the running joke of 2017: Let’s “not start anything new.”

Instead, we brought on Mwei Mwei and started a new side of our sewing project. This also involves providing part-time education for her, so I now teach her English & math three days a week. And she wanted two friends to join her on Wednesdays, so we have a little English class in the afternoons.

We started The Breakfast Club, which is an epic undertaking involving new community members being hired into the house, a warehouse full of bulk rice, eggs, and noodles (in addition to the flour and baking goods we buy in bulk!), and the added bonus of waking up by 5:30am Monday to Friday.

We got more involved in our church, with Stephen helping on the worship team and I’m helping with Sunday school. As of Saturday, I’m teaching English to the pastors & elders at our church.

Oh, and The Reinforcers. We just started that last Tuesday.

First, the background: We have previously partnered with Kingdom Mission Fund, who is funding Stephen’s current project with OneHouse. While Stephen continues to work on the recording and translation projects, we have found its coming slower and more challenging than we thought. He keeps trekking ahead, but also felt like God opened up a different door.

Stephen felt like there was an opportunity to begin mentoring two teenage boys, training them on live sound and hopefully computers and recording in the future. His hope was to purchase live sound equipment that could be used for our monthly worship nights, and also be rented out to local non-profits and businesses. He hoped that if the equipment was purchased with the grant, the project could then sustain itself, providing part-time jobs for the boys and teaching new skills. It would also provide new opportunities for churches, non-profits, and other ministries in town. Meanwhile, it gives the boys a part-time job on the evenings and weekends, where they can contribute to their families while attending school–and hopefully keep them there. So many teenagers are pulled out around this age because they are needed for their income, and we always want to prevent that. And as icing on the cake, it provided an opportunity for Stephen to invest in two specific guys. One of them has no father figure in the home. The other has a physically present father that is not the best role model, and his mom is currently battling cancer (our Flower lady, Daw Ma Oo) and has been gone since April.

Pretty amazing project idea, right? Stephen always comes up with the best ideas. I just wish we could do them all.

We applied for an additional Kingdom Missions Fund grant this year and hoped to receive it when we were stateside. Unfortunately, we weren’t chosen this year, which left us in a predicament: we still felt like this was a great project and a genius idea. Upon returning in April, we felt both of the boy’s situations needed it more than ever. But our grant was requesting $4,000–something we just don’t have in any of our budgets.

So we’ve been praying and praying and praying. We have been considering options and re-working the idea. Where was God leading us? Why did he give Stephen this great idea, and why were we both so unsettled? It didn’t feel right to simply close the door, but we also weren’t sure how to make it happen.

Until this month. Our church had a new building open earlier this year, and recently acquired some new instruments and has some new musicians–including the two newly-baptized young men in our community. They have the capacity for a full band, but they are still trying to get in a groove.

We began talking with our church, and we have re-worked the idea for our current situation. For the time being, Stephen is partnering with our church’s worship leader and his good friend, Saw Min Tun. They are going to purchase a few things for the sound system at church that makes it more usable. They are setting up the mixer in the back of the room, and Stephen is going to go ahead and train these two guys to run sound weekly for our church. They will still learn the techniques and it opens the door for additional training. And we are investing some: we are making a few initial purchases as gifts to the church, and then we are “hiring” the two boys each weekend. They will run sound for band practice every Saturday and for church on Sunday, and we’ll pay them each $6.

And we’ll wait. We’ll see if God provides a way to purchase a sound system and open up doors that way, or perhaps He has something else in mind. And for now, it still provides a way to support these families in need through education, new opportunities, and skills.

Stephen is training them one afternoon a week, doing what he loves, and loving getting to spend time with these great kids. And they are ecstatic–they are really beyond excited to learn about sound and music. They are both artistic and very smart. And they’ll be coming to church with us regularly while providing additional income for their families.

Because even when his first great idea doesn’t work, Stephen finds a way 🙂

{If you’re like me, you’ve read all that and you’re still asking: so why “The Reinforcers”? I’m told that live sound is officially called sound reinforcement, so these guys are now The Reinforcers. I think they all just like that it makes them sound like superheroes.}