It started while we waited at the airport for my brother-in-law, and Stephen decided to show my dad the potential of his iPhone 6.
Before long we had a collection of slow-mo: at the park, around the house, at the trampoline park.
So here is our compilation, for your entertainment!
{Make sure you enjoy Stephen’s faces and grunts as he does a flip
with the camera faced toward him!}
Because Stephen is pretty incredible, he’s put together a fun little video of our Community Christmas this year! It is so fun to see the relationships grow each year, as we give more specialized presents and know more names and stories.
A special thanks to our home church, Celebration Christian Fellowship, who made the Christmas meal and presents possible. We are also so thankful for the many people who support us month after month and allow us to build relationships in this lovely little community!
It’s even more official! We’re on Every Nation‘s website as “The Spurlock Family”–officially a part of the team!
Stephen & I will be welcoming four new nieces & nephews into our lives this year, and the first one has arrived!
Welcome, Finley Katherine Fritchie!
We are so glad to see you here safe & sound.
And we are so ready to hold you as soon as we can get to your side of the globe!
We are in the midst some big changes these days.
In addition to residing in a country that just underwent a military coup, we have some personal changes: as of 1 July, we will be resigned from Partners Relief & Development, where we have worked for the past three and a half years. While we are really thankful for the time we have had working with Partners, we are really excited that we will be now be focusing more on the relationships in our neighborhood!
We are so thankful we’ll be able to spend more time living life together and deepening the relationships around us. We’ll also be expanding to teach English classes to a variety of age groups, working together in the community garden, having community dinners together, and simply be open to the opportunities that God provides along the way.
…And I’m sure we’ll still be spending plenty of time at the hospital!
We are really thankful we’ll still be living here in Mae Sot, in our same home and among the same friendships. We will continue to study the same languages and sharing stories.
To keep up with these changes, we have updated our entire website, and we’d love for you to look around! You can also read more here, including how to donate through our new organization, Every Nation, and what we need prayer for in this transition.
We’ll be sharing more about this as we go, in and out of the stories of change. As always, feel free to email us with questions & comments–our door is always open, too, but our inbox is much easier to get to 😉
Oh, the butterfly wings: these were well worth each and every baht spent!
The girls were ecstatic, and absolutely adorable.
These community Christmas parties keep getting better every year. Not only do we learn how to pull them off more smoothly, but we love the families more and more. Even after two nights with three hours of sleep in preparation, I could not have enjoyed this celebration more!
We started by gathering everyone outside and giving Stephen the floor. He thanked everyone for coming and shared why we live here in Mae Sot, why we live how we live, and why we celebrate Christmas every year. We had his Burmese teacher come to help us translate, and this was such a blessing. He started by sharing that when we moved to Mae Sot, we didn’t have any friends or any family here, and this neighborhood became that for us. He told them how thankful we are for them.
Stephen went on to talk about how Jesus has told us to love our neighbor, and how we are so thankful that we really do love them.
This was my second favorite moment, when as he said this, Pyo Pyo–a mother that I’ve tried to get to know as best I can amidst the language barriers–met eyes with me and gave me the biggest smile.
Stephen did such a great job sharing, and then prayed for the meal before we ushered every one into the community space. We attempted to have a buffet line that went into the community space and back out to the yard to eat. The “line” was quite unsuccessful, but everyone got plenty of food! And it was helpful that the mess was contained to the community space and outside.
15 kilos of rice
18 kilos of pumpkin
25 whole chickens
6 kilos of tea leaf salad
and 6+ kilos of fruit
to somewhere between 150 and 200 people.
As always happens, when you begin giving away free food, the word spreads! We served until it was all consumed, welcoming in neighbors from who knows where. We then cleaned everything up and said our goodbyes so that things could calm down.
Stephen & I went to grab our own dinner in town and breathe for a few minutes, then we returned and started handing out presents. Chit Ne Oo, who helped with the maps from the beginning, helped us to pass them all out. We sent everyone else home and told them we’d be to their houses shortly!
The community was mapped and divided into three sections, each with a color & then numbered by house. Each house had a rainbow bag or two with their color-coded number on it. Inside was an individual gift bag for each adult and child–all color-coded by gender and age–and then household gifts at the bottom.
The biggest hit were the butterfly wings. We bought them for all the girls between 3 and 9, and every single one received a gasp of delight. What we didn’t expect was the disappointment of the 1-2 year olds and 10 to 15 year olds! I made a trip back to the 20 baht shop Tuesday morning to purchase butterfly wings for all the girls. And since those photos deserve a post of their own, more on that here.
They were all indescribably fun to deliver. The oohs and ahhs were endless fun, and the joy was evident. It was a blessing I’d wish on everyone!
We finished delivering after 9pm, just as carolers showed up to our front door. The neighborhood came out to listen, and it was a lovely end. Stephen and I decided later that was the perfect way to capture the ideals of Christmas–giving to capture the gift of Jesus, joyfulness and the hope of Christ, the community of the Church celebrating His birth. It was worshipful.
Here are a few photos of the kids enjoying their gifts the next day, including putting together little Lego-style race cars, balloons, building car puzzles, and learning to knit!
Happy #GivingTuesday! Today, support for Partners Relief & Development will be matched up to $10,000!
Despite the warm weather here, ’tis {nearly} the season!
We are putting together Christmas cards and updating our addresses with great plans of having Christmas cards to America while it is still the season. If you’d like to receive a holiday-esque greeting, please email kelli.spurlock@partnersworld.org with your updated address.
(We also sent this out as email to the addresses we have, so if you didn’t get that and would like to receive other email communication from us, email and let us know that, too!)
Also, Partners has just this week launched their Christmas project, where you can purchase gifts for the people of Burma, and it features Stephen’s newest video! We thought you might like to see it and get in a holiday mood 🙂
Check out our most recent update to hear our plans and prayers for the next couple months!
We try to send out monthly email updates. If you aren’t on this list but would like to be, please let us know!
Just email stephen.spurlock@partnersworld.org.
We’ll also be mailing out a physical letter in the coming months. If you would like to receive this letter, or maybe you have moved, please let us know! We’d love to send you some snail mail from Thailand.
