The House Collective

new skills, new perspectives.

by Filed Under: housewares, kelli, mway mway's photography, photos, schoolhouse 3 Comments

Mwei Mwei is one of my favorites. (Or Mway Mway; she uses both because it’s really မွှေးမွှေး) After a little hiatus to Bangkok, she’s been back in our lives for over a year now. She makes porcelain jewelry for Sojourn Studios two days per week, and also sews canvas bags for Housewares one day per week. With this job, she also studies at our house: she takes private Thai lessons once per week that are subsidized by Sojourn Studios; I’ve been teaching her math; and Stephen’s been teaching her guitar and photography. We have hopes of starting her on Rosetta Stone in English in coming months.

We’ve learned that if you can find something she loves or cares about, she’ll give it her all. If she doesn’t care or feels she’s competing with a sibling, she sits back and quite obviously doesn’t put in effort. It’s been a learning curve to find her strengths, find her passions, and get to know her.

One of those things that motivates her? Photography. She loves it, and has an eye for it. She has been easy to teach and has picked it up quickly. And now we want to show her that she can make a future of this; she has skills she can offer to both us and the whole world.

So after a few months of photography lessons on Stephen’s Canon DSLR, we’ve given her the project of taking photos in the community every week. She can choose what to photograph: Sojourn Studios jewelry, the kids playing or taking classes, sewing projects, The Breakfast Club, Flour & Flowers, The Reinforcers. She captures photos through the week, and in her class she sorts and edits, with Stephen’s oversight.

Nyein Nyein, one of our Flour & Flower bakers, and the best tortilla roller!

Pyint Soe, a Reinforcer and high school student; son of Daw Ma Oo, the Flower Lady

And then we buy them! Each week, we pay her for the photos that are good. We give her two different rates, for if she captures a good moment, but perhaps it not fully in focus or not well aligned. Photographically it might not be amazing, but we love the people and love that she captured it! And then, when she really captures a beautiful photo with great skill, she makes a pretty decent price for our little neighborhood!

Since we started, she’s made a few extra dollars most weeks. Last week, she took photos of San Aye making jewelry, and did an absolutely stellar job. She made nearly double her weekly salary!

We’re pretty excited about this. We’ve helped her create a watermark, and explained how this shows everyone it’s her photography. We showed her this blog and our monthly updates, so she understands where the photos are used and why. We’ve explained how our friends and family in the States want to meet our friends and learn about our lives here; and that through gifts of the Church, we are able to do all these projects and create jobs like hers.

It’s always intimidating to share all of this with our neighborhood. But a friend posted an African proverb the other day that I think captures it quite well, “Until the lion learns how to write, every story will glorify the hunter.”

While I think this captures the point, I’m not sure I want to be represented as a hunter, nor do I wish to present my friends as lions. But the idea still stands that if we never open this up to their perspectives, you will only see ours.

I don’t know if we’re to the point we can equip our neighbors to tell their own stories, but I hope someday we can. For now, this feels like one of the first steps. We want you to see our neighborhood, and for our friends to be presented, from another view that isn’t just ours. We don’t want you to always see what we see or praise what we praise; it will probably always make us look good.

But if we give our friends room to tell you themselves, to show you their lives and their work and their skills, we hope that honors them.

So enjoy these beautiful photos that Mwei Mwei skillfully captured, and be looking for more photos with her watermark on it! We are excited to see where this can take her, and us, too.

rain, rain, go away.

by Filed Under: kelli 2 Comments

It’s 2:30am, but I can’t sleep. Rain is pummeling outside of our windows.

It’s been falling constantly for about six weeks. It’s hard to describe if you haven’t been in a jungle rain–it isn’t like the temperate areas I grew up in. Monsoon season is indescribable, the way it just doesn’t stop for days and weeks on end. And while often it’s just a steady, straight rain, sometimes it is this, what I hear outside my window. It just pounds on the house and concrete and trees. A sheet of water flows off the sides of our roof.

And while we have monsoon season every year, this year has been unprecedented. We’ve been dealing with flooding all around Mae Sot for days now. Entire regions of Burma are flooded, with thousands and thousands of people displaced.

Honestly, for our neighborhood, it hasn’t been the worst this year. While our neighbors houses are low, we are mostly affected by a nearby dam, which fills and fills where it can’t hold the pressure. Due to some political and leadership issues in past years, the dam will fill to capacity and they’ll be forced to open it up so it doesn’t break. This floods our entire area rapidly–sometimes up to six or seven feet in a few hours.

This year, they’ve seemingly done a great job managing the dam, letting a bit out at a time. This year, it’s all come from sky, in unbelievable amounts.

Thida’s house is on a peninsula of sorts made by a river. The bamboo bridge to their house collapsed on Friday, after Thida had gone home to wait out the heavy, heavy rain and go out to the market. It was a holiday, so two of her kids had left to go to an event, and another neighbor boy had come over to play with her son. She called, unsure how to get her two girls home, how to get this little boy back home, and what they’d eat for dinner–she’d be unable to leave to buy rice yet!

While most of their house is surrounded by this river, the last side of land goes up against the gated neighborhood in town. So Friday evening, after deliveries, we gathered her two girls, plus bags of rice and food, and drove to the back of the neighborhood. Thida’s husband and two son-in-laws came to help scale the wall, passing over the little boy and receiving back Thida’s girls and food for the evening.

They were unable to rebuild the bridge until mid-day Sunday, stuck on their little island of sorts! Her son really loves church, though, and there was a special dance they’d learned in Sunday school the week before, for performance this week. Since the water had gone down some, his dad carried him through chest-high water, with his son on his shoulders, so he could cross the river and go to church with us! It’s Father’s Day weekend, by the way, so #superdadwin.

And really, for our neighbors it hasn’t been as bad as for others. Their houses are currently okay, and as dry as they can be. That said, it’s morally draining, and we can see it in their eyes.

They shower and wash clothes outside in the rain day after day. All their clothes have to be “dried” inside, which they never do. They just get put back on damp, often moldy, and worn out into the rain again to just get wetter. The ground is a muddy mess, so most have given up shoes until they get to the road or arrive to school. As you can guess, sickness goes up considerably, with fever after fever and infected cut after infected cut. So many have come with what I have only heard referred to in English as “toe rot”–where their feet are just never able to dry, and in-between your toes grows a fungus.

Even in our house, which is as Western as we could wish in our impoverished neighborhood–everything is damp and humid, including the tile floor and walls. Our clothes won’t dry, either. We bleached all our furniture last weekend, because we had found mold growing on every single shelf in the kitchen, Stephen’s desk, our laundry room shelves, the kids’ benches, the kids’ computer desks, and the ceilings in two rooms. For us, it’s nuisance, yes. I’m tired of being wet; I’m tired of going for bike rides and runs and swims in the rain; I’m tired of driving and even walking through flooded streets to deliver bread and flowers around town while Pyo Pyo & I return just soaked! (I’ve had enough time in the car, driving through floods and delivering in the rain, to sort out a translation for “Rain, Rain, Go Away” that I learned as a child.)

I’m tired of all these things, yes. I’m tired of being wet and chilled. But for our neighbors, it’s so much worse. Isn’t it always that way, with the privilege I carry? Every nuisance to me is a liability for others.

Most of our neighbors are construction workers, and it’s difficult to build concrete houses in the rain. Most have inconsistent work, if any. Even those who work in the fields, now during rice season, spend their days drenched in the rain. While their wives try to figure out how to cook in a tiny hut, dry clothes in a tiny hut, and keep their kids dry and healthy.

And tonight, as I just listen to it pummeling, I listen for the call of our names, afraid water will rise into their homes. I think of so many that are flooded; and I just pray it will stop, that the sun might come out again after so, so many days.

trying again & counting wins.

by Filed Under: house calls, kelli 1 Comment

Development is no easy task.

We took a giant leap for this community in April: we partnered with a local insurance program for migrants in the area. This involved creating a few difficult boundaries in the community. First, we would no longer provide rides out to the free clinic; nor would we be footing any medical bills at clinics or hospitals. Instead, we would continue to provide basic medicine here in our home, and then help to subsidize the new insurance program.

To give you an idea, it’s an amazing deal. Healthy adults and kids pay $3 per month; basic chronic cases pay $5. Pregnant women who join pay an entry, plus $6 per month–which allows them to birth at the local hospital with C-section accessibility & their children receive official Thai birth certificates that can allow their children to become partial citizens if they stay to 18. Nearly all visits to the hospital, including surgeries and deliveries and bloodwork and admittance, are all free to the M-Fund member.

To help promote this in the community, we set up a subsidy system. It was a chaotic mess, involving colors and systems, and looked like this:

(If you’re really trying to understand the above mess, S = “staff” of The Breakfast Club, Flour & Flowers, The Reinforcers, Sojourn Studios, or our sewing project; A = you’re in our community and we know you well; B = you’re looking for a cheaper way to get insurance & we support that, but I wouldn’t know you in the market; P = pregnant.)

And yet, two months in, people were struggling to get their payments in on time. One month the payment fell on a Flour & Flowers delivery day, which found Thida and I sprawled on the floor with a pile of insurance numbers and names and money from the community and money from the House Fund and a couple calculators, all while the insurance staff waited for the money. I was late for deliveries. Thida had spent the whole day going door-to-door asking for premiums that people may or may not have. For about four families, Thida was paying for them and they’d “pay her back tomorrow.”

Something had to change, but it’s just always a challenge to maneuver. How do we encourage development: savings, investing in insurance, stability? But we also recognize and don’t want to belittle the real issues of poverty, struggling to make ends meet, being fearful of arrest, trying to get their kids fed, and trying to get clothes washed with water they are pulling out of a well.  How do we inspire these families to value insurance enough to pay on time?

________________

In May, we had two families ask for money to pay for their kids’ school fees. We do value school, and we want to encourage kids to attend and parents to make that happen. But we also don’t feel it’s fair to have 90% of the families around us paying the fees, and yet we’re funding the last 10%. What will motivate them all to pay next year?

For each situation, we came up with a different solution. If there is one thing we have learned, every situation requires something different; something to fit this particular person or child, this particular financial situation, this particular need.

For the first situation, we really felt she didn’t have access to the money. Her husband was working and spending most of the money; it was a win if she & her son were given food in the scenario. Because of this, we were fairly certain we’d never see a single baht if we offered a loan. So we offered her an option to work off school fees. We’d pay the fees in full, and she had to work twenty days for The Breakfast Club, helping Thida. We also talked to Thida, explaining the opportunity for her to work off the school fees, as well as learn from a more experienced mother. We presented it to Thida as an opportunity: to talk to her about how to cook and serve healthy food; for how to discipline and set expectations for kids without hitting them.

Honestly, it’s been an epic success. She has since stayed on, hired to help Thida with breakfast every day. She’s eight months pregnant, and yet able to work a few hours in the morning to put money into her hands (very significant in some relationships), where she can make the choice for it to go to food or other necessities. She also has come to know and trust us; and has since spent a few nights at our house when she felt unsafe at hers. Her son comes for breakfast every day, and also gets to take some to school for lunch.

For the second situation, the husband did work and really did love his family. There are some budgeting choices that are difficult; but it’s clearly a choice to spend it on alcohol or save it for food, clothing, and school fees. For them, we offered a deal: we would pay the school fees in full, at $30. She would give back $3 per week: every week, on the same day, with no exceptions. If she was on time and had the full amount for 5 weeks–at which point she’d have paid $15, or half–that was all she had to pay. But for each payment she missed, she had to pay $3 more of the total.

Again (and surprise!)–an epic success. They didn’t miss a single payment. They were able to have school paid at half price, and we were able to have a successful loan system that didn’t weigh on our shoulders as we nagged and nagged for the next payment.

________________

With these two successes, we looked to M-Fund. How would we motivate this community to pay on time?

We couldn’t realistically offer everyone work to ensure they had the money, so we took Option #2! Last week we had yet another community meeting, to reiterate the value of M-Fund, to remind them that we will not always be here, and explain that this our effort to encourage a long-term improvement.

And we offered a simpler subsidy system. For anyone in with M-Fund in our community, money is due on the 29th of every month. If they submit their money by the 20th, House Fund will pay 50%. If they submit their money by the 25th, House Fund will pay 25%. And if they wait until the 29th, they pay the entire premium. We do have an exception for pregnancy: we begin at paying 100% on the 20th, if they ensure their entire group or family has paid by then.

Simply: If you value this enough to save and organize ahead of time, we’ll pay some. If you are disorganized or refuse to plan ahead, we won’t. And this will last until April, at which point it’s your responsibility to pay the full amount.

This did involve a re-working of the entire system, and if I’m honest, I’m tired of re-organizing health insurance programs in a Numbers chart, in Burmese.

But, we did have three community members go to the hospital this month for major issues: one for a CT scan (so expensive, but free!), one for surgery (so expensive, but free!), and another little toddler admitted with dengue (expensive enough, but free!). So I was motivated. Sure, let’s try this again!

As the 20th rolled around this month, just a week after our meeting to announce this, all but three members had their premiums paid in. Next week, we’ll be ready when the insurance staff As Thida and I went over the numbers and figures, she smiled, “Thank you so much. This is such a good idea. So much easier!”

So we’re just over here counting our wins.

big eyes.

by Filed Under: kelli, photos, playhouse 1 Comment

We were making faces for selfies and faces at each other.

As I looked at her to make a face, she suddenly stopped and stared.

“You’re eyes are so big. So, so big.”

I laughed and then continued to make a new silly face. Her eyes became serious, and she came in closer, “No. Your eyes are very big. Very big.”

And then she poked them.

this world, our neighborhood.

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A poem in Felicity by Mary Oliver, titled “A Voice From I Don’t Know Where.”

It seems you love this world very much.
“Yes,” I said. “This beautiful world.”

And you don’t mind the mind, that keeps you
busy all the time with it’s dark and bright wonderings?
“No, I am quite used to it. Busy, busy,
all the time.”

And you don’t mind living with those questions,
I mean the hard ones, that no one can answer?
“Actually, they’re the most interesting.”

And you have a person in your life whose hand
you like to hold?
“Yes, I do.”

It must surely, then, be very happy down there
in your heart.
“Yes,” I said. “It is.”

all in a friday.

by Filed Under: house calls, housewares, kelli, photos 2 Comments

We had an epic Flour & Flowers day on Friday. So epic, in fact, I was up before 5am, and met the ladies at 5:30am to begin. And because it was such a full week of orders, I helped them pretty consistently through the day to help with details and be an extra set of hands.

Our two ovens were on constantly from 6am to 4pm.
We used about 30 kilograms of flour.
We made 35 loaves of bread.
Nyein Nyein rolled out 170 tortillas, because that’s her specialty.
We made 30 pans of cinnamon rolls.
We delivered to 33 customers around town.

Nyein Nyein & Pyint Pyu Hey had to finish baking while Pyo Pyo and I showered and headed off to make deliveries. We came back to pick up the rest mid-way through. For Pyo Pyo and I, we finished deliveries and finances about 6:45pm.

It was such long day, but also so very good. They were optimistic about the sales, and they made quite a bit of extra money to reward them for their early morning and late day. They also put a large portion into their savings account for the end of the year, which is exciting! To be able to reward them both the day of and in the future seems like a win!

We also had good conversations and laughter. There are great things about having a tiny little kitchen filled with four people (five during The Breakfast Club hours!) to run into each other and step over each other and laugh together.

There were so many good things about the day.

__________________

At one point the conversation turned to our husbands. They commented that Stephen & I don’t fight; ironically, we had just had quite the argument the previous morning, during The Breakfast Club, which I was sure at least some of them had heard or been aware of. But the conversation, loosely translated, when like this:

You and Stephen never fight. 
We do fight sometimes.
But we don’t hear it. When my husband and I fight everyone can hear it and everyone knows!
Well, we fight, but you might not hear it. And Stephen doesn’t hit me.
Because in America men don’t hit their wives, right?
Well, in America, men can be arrested for hitting their wives. But also, Christians mostly don’t hit their wives, because of what the Bible says. Stephen doesn’t hit me because he loves God and doesn’t think that is okay.
Yeah, Stephen doesn’t like it when men hit women. He really doesn’t like that. And he loves you. You love each other. 
Yes, and because he loves me. We do love each other. And yes, Stephen doesn’t like men hitting their wives or other women.
He always comes out and stops them! So I’m not worried when you are here. I can come here or Stephen will come stop my husband.
Do your husbands hit you?
– One time. He hit me one time. Our son didn’t like it and said, ‘Don’t do that! Don’t hurt mommy! She doesn’t like it!’
– Sometimes. Have you ever seen the marks on me? It hasn’t happened for a long time. The worst time was when you were in America. I had marks all over me; my face, my arms, my legs. He was really mad and hit me a lot. Until his brother came to pull him off me and told him to stop. But everyone heard and saw it.
You weren’t here so I didn’t know what to do. But I don’t worry if you are here, I know Stephen will come! My husband is so much bigger than me, there isn’t anything I can do. But Stephen will come. 
Was he drunk when he hit you?
Yeah. He drank to much and came home; I hadn’t finished the rice yet and he was really angry. My daughter was so scared and kept shouting, “Daddy, don’t do that! Mommy is hurt! Daddy, DON’T!” But it hasn’t happened for a long time now.

I was processing all this, and that was obvious. I love these women, and their kids, and their husbands. And honestly, in this context, they are pretty healthy families, all things considered. My mind was swimming: the father of that little girl? They actually have a really sweet, beautiful relationship. The brother that pulled the husband off? He’s a Reinforcer. He’s in high school.
It’s true, Stephen will come if he can.
It’s true, he doesn’t like men hitting women; husbands hitting their wives. And in his words, “If that’s what they remember me by–the crazy American who didn’t like men hitting their wives–I’m okay with that!”

The ladies were watching me, and asked, It makes you sad, doesn’t it?

Yeah, it makes me really sad.

Sometimes there is so much we want to change in this neighborhood. I want them to have more education and more opportunities: to learn English and to learn how to use computers; to learn guitar and Thai and literacy. I want them to have a job where they manage the books and count the money; where they learn more reading and writing Burmese and doing math; where they learn to manage their time and do their best: so we sell bread and flowers every week to do that. We make jewelry and sew bags.

I want the kids to love books and play safely. I want the kids to go to school, not to work or be sent off to who-knows-where. I want them to learn to save money. I want them to eat healthy and have enough to eat. I want them to go to the doctor and receive treatment. I want their babies to be born with paperwork. I want them to have access to safe, clean water. I want them to have a safe place to ask for help when it floods or they lose their jobs or someone gets really sick.

I want them to see their value. I want them to have confidence. I want them to know how much God loves them–so much that he sent this young married couple halfway around the world, to this seemingly random street, to fall in love with this neighborhood. To struggle miserably at language, but keep on trying. To struggle miserably with learning to love here, but to keep on trying. I want them to see that God really, really loves them, and he can show them mansions of his goodness that I haven’t figured out yet, but I believe is there. And I believe it’s good.

But yes, I also want them to learn that husbands hitting their wives isn’t a normal, and that its okay to expect something else. I want them to see how to stick up for each other. I want them feel loved when someone else does stick up for them.

There are so many things we want to change; and it feels overwhelming.

But I have committed: “I will listen for the echo of rejoicing in heaven when those I minister among step into the light or even take a small step forward, and will remind myself that persistent celebration rolls back the power of the enemy.”

And somewhere, in that sad conversation, there was an echo of rejoicing.

__________________

It was just hours before this conversation became more real. We were about to leave for dinner, but instead, the evening found us outside standing next to these same ladies, while we all tried to determine if another woman in the community was safe. It was a fight; a loud argument. But it has turned violent before, so we waited; prayerfully and carefully trying to determine when it’s preventing violence and when it’s prying.

Stephen went over to ask if everything was alright, and the mother said she was okay.

As we waited not too far away, her little boy came over within ten minutes, “My mom said to come call you now. She said to go call Stephen.”

So Stephen went to get the mother; and I went inside with the little boy. He had tears in his eyes as I sat to talk with him.

He and Stephen played MarioKart and Donkey Kong; and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles–which took so long to understand: The men, different colors, with the knives, cutting down…grass? What? Oh, turtles? No, frogs? With knives? What?” 

I sat with the mother while she cried and calmed down. She told me she didn’t want her baby–the one arriving in just a month or two; and didn’t know how to take care of her kids. Would we take them?

Oh, the painful irony, folks: of being in a slower adoption process than we hoped, while being offered children–A little boy you already love and know! Newborn babies about to arrive across your street!–and know they are paperless; knowing the line between trafficking and adoption is so grey here; knowing that she needs to be equipped to care for her kids, not have them taken away. So we talked about this little baby that she would soon love so much. That she would look into his eyes and love him. How her son needs his mother and they love each other so much. They can stick together. He’s going to be such a great young man someday…

We talked about options, too: how we can help, how we can get outside help. How this isn’t the end of the story.

But as the story continues, it is not lost on me, as Stephen played video games with a little boy over a bowl of Mama noodles in front of the prayer painted on our wall:

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.

__________________

I have been thinking more recently that this blog is on it’s way out; because who would want to read this? I’m sure there are rules out there about how many words I’m supposed to write; and this has to be way over that!  It’s quite sad, and I know it. You might even think I need to pursue more counseling (than I already am!).

Can I just tell you: there are so many good things in our lives. I love how many jobs are created in our home; that women able to work safely and be paid fairly with their kids nearby. I love that they are given opportunities for more education in a variety of ways. I love that the youth have a safe place to be and learn. I love that the kids know we won’t hit them. I love that the parents know Stephen doesn’t hit me. I love that the littles come calling for Auntie Kelli and Uncle Stephen; and they’ll always find a hug, a smile, and safety. I love that we are in the neighborhood and culture; but also bringing in a new perspective. I love that we have so much to learn and so much to teach. I love that the kids teach pretend school on our porch; I love that they no longer dig through our trash. I love hearing English songs sung on our porch, whether the words are right or not. I love seeing the kids bring books to Thida to be read to. I love that the kids know to say thank you at our house, while the parents are amazed. I love that I can see kids on their way to school in the morning, put bandages on their cuts, and send them out the door after a steaming bowl of rice, vegetables, and meat.

I cannot believe what God has allowed to happen here. I cannot believe that he has been so gracious to us; for something so much bigger than a couple that didn’t know what they were getting into.

But while the goodness continues, every single day, I feel like I must also write about the sadness, because it’s true. It’s real, around the world, including this seemingly random street; and yours, too. It’s in your country of residence just as much as mine.

I recently read in Jim Wallis’ America’s Original Sin book, “Are we hiding behind untruths that help make us feel more comfortable, or are we willing to seek the truth, even if that is uncomfortable? [John 8:32] is telling us that only by seeking the truth are we made free, and that hanging on to untruths can keep us captive to comfortable illusions.”

All the conversations yesterday, the fighting: it made me uncomfortable. Honestly, even the 5am wake up and endless baking made me fairly uncomfortable! But I also encountered truth. And for this little neighborhood, the truth is that God both hurts for them and loves them more than we ever will. And that this is precisely why we’re here: to let the truth set us all free.

almost christmas.

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On discussing when Chocolate Mint ice cream will be back in town, Stephen noted, “Well, it’s almost Christmas, anyway.”
“Yeah. Almost.”

….

“Wait. No, it’s not. It’s July. We’re the furthest from Christmas we could possibly be.”

What day is it again? We’re just over here enjoying the chill of rainy season and pretending it’s almost Christmas. 🌧💦🎄

a long time coming.

by Filed Under: kelli, onehouse, photos, stephen 2 Comments

Sometimes dreams take a long time in coming.

Years ago Stephen wanted to work toward unifying the multilingual Church that surrounds us. There are so many different languages and backgrounds, but he wanted to have worship songs available in different languages in a way that it would be easy for everyone to sing together in the language of their choice. Ultimately, he hopes to have resources like this available to churches around this region, including recordings in difficult languages, translated chord charts, and more.

To start, it was a worship night, that has taken on different looks in different seasons of our life and of the Mae Sot community.

This month, Stephen worked really hard to gather together young leaders from the Karen, Burmese, and Thai community around us. They worked together to gather what songs are already translated and have the information available. They practiced to sing together, with different verses being led in different languages.

We also partnered with multiple para-church organizations in town to have a big enough space in the rain and to have a full band.  It was a group effort to say the least, and that made it more amazing to see it happen last night.

Fifty or sixty people came, from different countries, backgrounds, statuses and ages. We all sang together in four languages.

It was beyond beautiful, and a really lovely step into this dream.

The Reinforcers were both scheduled to run sound, but only one was able to come due to a family situation. Because of the system Stephen chose for them, The Reinforcers are able to run it all from an iPad, which allowed him to sit in the audience with friends and sing along while he ran sound for the whole event. And while I don’t really know how to describe it to you–because you have to know him, to know his story, to know how much we pray for him and love him–but to see him using a new skill confidently among his peers, while singing along in Burmese and English; to see him really enjoying himself at a “church event”–it was a great opportunity. Sometimes church here can be very structured, for lack of a better word, and we want so badly to show this community how loving Jesus can be fun and natural and a part of your life; not just a boring sermon on Sunday.

We also had three teenage girls from the community join, able to sing alongside Christians from their school and in their own language, right alongside us.

It was a culmination of a lot of good things, and we are just celebrating that we got to be a part of it!

something new.

by Filed Under: kelli, photos, schoolhouse 1 Comment

We started something new. Again!

It’s practically a disease, but with great results 😃

While we have loads of toys and games, there is a point where the kids get uninterested in trains and CandyLand. And when these kids get into teenage years, that’s really when we most want to be there for them. We want to provide them with one-on-one attention and opportunities to talk to us. We also want to give them skills, a chance to be set apart. It’s hard to instill the idea of dreaming, of opportunities, in migrant students, but we want to try.

Toward the end of last year, Stephen had an idea of how we could continue to reach this group of teenagers and youth in the community.

It also provided a way to use his gifts aptly: he loves technology and enjoys learning with it. So, we applied for a grant with Kingdom Mission Fund and we were granted it earlier this year! Per anything with just the two of us, it takes time for us to get things going. We’re generally operating a bit over our heads, if we haven’t mentioned that yet. But, it’s officially up and running!

Four days a week after school, while our house is also open for play, we have two iPads available to the older kids. We’ve chosen a select group we know well and want to further invest in. They have an hour per week that the iPads are reserved to them, for them to learn different skills through apps and lessons with Stephen and I.

We gave them options of what to learn: English, coding, math, guitar, cajon, and art. They almost all chose guitar initially. Some have since changed their minds, but we do have six students studying guitar for an hour per week. We also have three learning English, one on coding, and another on art.

We have set it up to be self-guided but with help and assistance from us. I help more with English and art; Stephen helps more with guitar and coding. They are also given the freedom to “study” their class for 40 minutes, and take the last 20 to play educational games or puzzles. This week I taught Mwei Mwei how to play solitaire, and she loved it. And honestly, it teaches some great deduction and problem-solving skills that aren’t utilized in schools here. We played together, and I had the most fun I’ve ever had playing Solitaire!

The oldest three kids are actually given two hours per week. Mwei Mwei is learning both guitar and math; one of The Reinforcers does English one day per week and guitar the following. The other Reinforcer is really loving coding, and he does that twice per week.

The two new iPads focused on the youth has opened up our older iPad for a younger group. We were also given an older iMac that Stephen has set up with some basic games and activities. All of them have different schedules to give different age groups opportunities to learn technology, strategy, creativity, and more. It’s been really fun to see the kids learning new skills and exploring new worlds their community hasn’t previously had access to.

We’ve been introducing the idea of a schedule: they are each given a time on the iPads each week, and it’s their responsibility to show up to attend. We were laughing at the irony of the first few weeks, as we’d be encouraging people inside to sit in front of a screen. We’d be puling them out of groups and pushing them into work by themselves.

One of our goals is that this creates an individual activity for them to work toward and succeed at. We don’t want friends helping or taking over; we want them to get an individualized, focused opportunity to both teach themselves and get one-on-one help from us.

It means that we are constantly saying, “This is a one-person activity.” Or, “Stop playing outside and come work on the iPad!”

The difference is striking between their lives here and so many kids’ lives in the States.  They spend so many hours outside; they are constantly walking to school, to the showers, to do laundry, to the shop. Everything is communal, so that they are always with people and in groups. There are often three or four people crowded around the computer to play Minecraft together. Even our retro video games: there are usually 8-10 kids taking turns playing Mario Kart, standing up, jumping around. As the two folks working extremely hard to get them fed every morning, I just want to tell them, Sit down! Let those calories stay with you! I want to give them a ride everywhere and get them seated playing a game; I want them to experience doing something on their own successfully.

It’s meant that this is fairly counter-cultural, but I think a good balance. Couldn’t we all use learning from our differences?

Overall, we’re so excited for the opportunities this has opened up and how smoothly we’ve been able to provide this for the community teenagers. We’re also going to do a test run of some English learning with two adult mothers next week.

We want to send out a special thanks to Kingdom Mission Fund, who makes projects like this possible! So many ideas just take a spark to make them happen, and we’re excited to be able to partner so that this could spark!

not to be neglected.

by Filed Under: kelli, photos, playhouse, schoolhouse 2 Comments

There has been good, too; I don’t want to neglect that.

One of our lost girls is back from Burma. Most of the family is together, living back in Mae Sot. She’s boarding at our pastor’s house and attending school. We get to see her on Sundays, and that is a joy.

We saw one of Thida’s daughters off to study in Burma for a year. We sent her off with photos and all the love & encouragement we could muster. We love her to bits.

Sometimes we come home to things like this, to both horrify and humor us.

I started a toddler class with Mwei Mwei on Thursday mornings. The kids call it “school” and often come with little backpacks that are empty.

I teach them English for thirty minutes or so, and then Mwei Mwei teaches them some Burmese. We sing songs while Stephen plays the guitar. It has brought me so much laughter over the past few weeks, and I love it.

We started a new after school program for the older kids–the full story which requires another post–but it’s going really well. The kids are loving it, and it’s manageable for us, so we’re thankful.

This team found a basketball game on the computer they love (and they are learning about angles while they play!) He vocally cheers for himself when he makes a shot. 😍

We’re still celebrating birthdays, and that’s fun.

We took one of our sweet friends out to snacks and ice cream with a small group of her friends, and it really was a beautiful afternoon smack in the midst of some of the messes mentioned above. We laughed and loved it.

And we put birthday candles into chicken nuggets. 🤷🏼‍♀️

On the way, the birthday girl was laughing at Stephen & I, saying, “Kelli always says, ‘Uhhmm-hmm, uhhmm-hmm.’ Stephen always says, ‘Yep! Yep! Yep!'” Oh, they know us so well.

Sometimes, we make cakes and attempt to decorate them with jelly filling for little at-home parties. And we laugh and love those, too.

We have this little fellow who likes to be drawn on and a babysitter that enjoys it even more.

We have this little girl, who came to the door last week to tell us she was going to get a snack with her mom. To this I asked, “And when you mom gives you your snack, what are you going to tell her?”
“Thank you.”
Her mom, in awe, “Who taught you that?!”
“Auntie Kelli.”
I mean, could I be more proud?! (Admittedly, we’ve become quite well-known for the fact we counter-culturally require thank yous and hand washing to the extreme.)

We still have Thida and her whole family. And that is such a gift.

And we’re making it together. We’re still discovering new places in Mae Sot, one of which serves up delicious soft serve (or soft sever..). They let us bring in our own little parties as you saw above, and one of the staff also works at the hotel where we swim often. So now she sees us all the time for either ice cream or a swim! At least we’re attempting to balance it out 😊

Stephen is gearing up for the OneHouse worship night this come week, and he’s managed to work with local students and worship leaders to have songs available in English, Thai, Burmese, and Karen; with a variety of musicians. It is not a small feat, but it’s really beautiful how God is pulling it together.

That could be said of a lot of things in our lives. Many little things, but no small feats. Many hard things, but many beautiful things.
None to be neglected.