the spurlock house

surreal, but nice: one.

December 9, 2018 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: kelli, photos Leave a Comment

We’ve just returned from a whirlwind trip: Mae Sot > Bangkok > Paris > Lafauche > Paris > Chicago > Fayetteville > Little Rock > Fayetteville > Little Rock > Chicago > Paris > Lafauche + Troyes + Doremy + Strasbourg > Paris > Bangkok > …to Mae Sot on Tuesday.

That was a lot of stops, full of faraway places and people we love and incredible cities. I’ll post the incredible photos of it all in the coming days; I’ll tell a few stories.

As I look back on the photos in the weeks before we left, I see the exhaustion on my face. I see my glasses, worn due to another eye infection. I see our travels, to and from cities trying to breathe, trying to prevent another staph infection from requiring surgery; trying to survive. I see the loaves of bread that were still baked, the birthdays that were still celebrated, the classes that were still taught, the meals that were still served. But we were so, so tired in our souls.

This was the first time we left Mae Sot that I wasn’t sure I’d be back. I suppose I knew we’d at least come back for our stuff, but I didn’t know if we’d really return to all of this. It was so tempting to just leave it all behind.

_______________

Fast forward to Fayetteville, just two weeks after we left. I was sitting in a Passion worship night as they played a clip for Compassion International, whom they’ve partnered with to encourage child sponsorships.

It looked a lot like this.

For all practical purposes, that was my street on the screen. Those were my friends playing with a destroyed soccer ball in the street. That was my destroyed soccer ball. The speaker challenged people to give, “Perhaps you’re in a position…”

It wasn’t until that moment I realized I was looking for a way out. I had been for sometime, hoping God would agree, giving some sort of permissive exit: You’re right! This is too much for you. You’re free to go.

An honorable discharge, of sorts.

But perhaps I am in a position.

Perhaps I have a house already on that street; I already own the soccer ball. I already have the friends calling my name, and I know more of the language than the others in this particular room.

Perhaps my position doesn’t recommend me to give $38, but to simply use the plane ticket I already have. Perhaps I’m in a position to just stop looking for my exit strategy.

That evening, I knew we’d be going back. I still don’t know for how long, or what our next steps are, or what surprises will show up on my doorstep this week.

But we’ll be there for them. And we’ll have bells on for Christmas!

_______________

The best words I have for our trip are this: surreal, but nice. (Thank you, Hugh Grant.)

Surreal, because I never guessed we’d visit the French countryside, welcomed by the incredible generosity of friends who hosted us for a month. They made our meals, they gave us space to rest. They provided hours and hours of counseling. We curled up by the fire for reading and puzzles; we went for walks in freezing temperatures.

I never guessed we’d have the privilege to see Paris, visit the Louvre and take picturesque photos by the Eiffel Tower. All surreal. All oh-so-nice!

I didn’t guess we’d have this surprise trip back to the States. I wasn’t expecting to get to hug those necks for a few years more, and that is a beautiful surprise. I wasn’t expecting to be a part of those birthday parties or go to that Razorback game or watch my two brother-in-laws run the Chicago Marathon. So as I lived them, it just felt surreal.

But oh-so-nice!

We’re really thankful we got to go. We’re really thankful for the timing, as we head back to Mae Sot just in time to have yet another—our eighth!—community Christmas.

And most importantly, I’m really thankful for our community again. I looked through photos again today, remembering how much I do love them. Gosh, they are our world. That little home has so many memories for us, so many stories. And we get to be there again so soon, right where we’re supposed to be.

our favorites: flour & flowers.

October 11, 2018 by Admin Filed Under: housewares, kelli, mway mway's photography, photos Leave a Comment

It is a bit hard to include this as a favorite, if I’m honest. It has brought a lot of heartache this year: cultural challenges, poverty issues, difficult conversations, and challenging friendships. I think it’s really only in stepping back that I can look back and see what good it is.

It is a favorite.

More than that, it’s a part of us; particularly me. For four years now, every week has included deliveries around Mae Sot. We have baked loaf after loaf of bread and rolled out so many tortillas.

It amazes me to think of where my language was when we started this: trying to learn the words for cup and teaspoon; flour and yeast. To now, when the ladies and I chat as we bake and have heart-level conversations about abuse and kids and faith and money. (All while they still correct my grammar. 😉)

It amazes me to think that we started this when Nyein Nyein was pregnant with her first son—who will turn three in December! And that we just met her second-born, a beautiful little girl, the day before we left last week.

We have come so far with these ladies, learning so many skills between all five of us! We have watched Daw Ma Oo face cancer and go into remission! When we started, we had rules about a Flour lady and Flower lady joining us each week, to carry their own responsibility. Now I only go with on Flour lady each week, so that we all pitch in to allow Daw Ma Oo to rest (and still sell her flowers), as she continues to gain back her strength after radiation & chemotherapy.

Together, we’ve been through many childbirths, hospital stays, travels, family crises, and more. All over bowls of bread and newspaper-bundled flowers.

It’s all too good and too messy and too beautiful to not be a favorite!

Here are a few numbers to put to the stories and smiles.

28 September was our last Flour & Flower delivery until 2019, so many in Mae Sot filled their freezers with bread for the next couple months. We used 47 kilos of flour (that’s 103.6 pounds!) to make 65 loaves of bread, roll out 340 tortillas, and make 180 cinnamon rolls.

Our weekly flower deliveries began in 2014, and then we started baking bread—officially creating Flour & Flowers—in July of 2015. In the three years of bread baking, the ladies and I have baked & sold:

2,866 loaves of bread
17,115 tortillas
659 pans of cinnamon rolls

Since we are done for this year, the ladies took home some savings to help them through the next few months, and will get additional savings per our usual schedule, in December. This year they will all get the largest amount of savings yet: 5,000 baht per person, or about $150. For many of the families, that is a monthly salary at, what they would consider, a well-paid job.

So yes, clearly it’s a favorite! It’s amazing to see what God has done.

our favorites: the views.

October 10, 2018 by Admin Filed Under: kelli, photos Leave a Comment

We live in a really beautiful place. Sometimes the heat can distract you from this; or even the snakes or street dogs or current hospital situation. But it really is stunning all around us. We are in a valley with mountains on every side, and it needs to be noted as a favorite.

This is the view from a domestic flight, returning into Mae Sot recently.

And this was a Sabbath. On Sabbath days, one of our main objectives is to simply be away from the house—where everybody knows our names!—so we took this rainy and cool Saturday to sit beside the reservoir.

It’s pretty amazing we live here, right?!

our favorites: schoolhouse.

October 8, 2018 by Admin Filed Under: kelli, mway mway's photography, photos, schoolhouse, stephen Leave a Comment

Stephen comes up with the best ideas. A few months ago, I mentioned we started something new through Stephen’s great idea and a grant from Kingdom Mission Fund.

It’s easily a favorite these days.

Currently, we have ten students and four adults learning English. We have four students learning guitar and one more learning cajon. (Even more incredibly, thanks to the help of some friends in Mae Sot and Stephen pre-organizing all the curriculum, all these are continuing to study while we’re away!)

There are lots of reasons to love schoolhouse.

First, we love seeing the kids and adults succeed; to be so proud of themselves. It’s fun to work with them on it, helping them learn and answering questions.

For English, Rosetta Stone is a pretty incredible program. I’m so thankful it allows me to be everything other than a teacher in these classes! Sometimes I watch kids; sometimes I help with pronunciation. Stephen is often the technology specialist: helping them understand the warnings that open, or why the microphone doesn’t work.

One day Stephen had run to the hospital while I oversaw two boys’ English lessons. One of them was having a hard time with Rosetta Stone understanding him, so I was trying to help as he would repeat, “It is a car. It is a car. It…is…a….car. IT IS A CAR. IT IS A CAR.” Then he switched to Burmese. “IT ISN’T WORKING BECAUSE STEPHEN ISN’T HERE.”

So at least we all know what our roles are 😁

And while Rosetta Stone is amazing, it’s very gracious with pronunciation. VERY. Sometimes I can’t tell what they were supposed to be saying!

For guitar, we have an app that teaches them a chord, and then has them play it with a song. They have to hit it on beat and get the chord correct. (Not that surprising for the idea of learning guitar.)

And then for cajon, Stephen has a separate lesson with this student every Friday. They have been working their way through a video course, and he’s getting pretty good!

I think our favorite part of Schoolhouse are the one-on-one opportunities it gives us. As the community keeps growing, it’s hard to stay connected to those we know best and have known the longest. Sometimes they are actually more stable now than they were; while the more unstable families ask for assistance and take more time. These classes have really allowed us to pick and choose some individuals we can invest in, hopefully with long-term impact on their language and music skills, learning opportunities, and mentorship.

We continue to ruminate on to Jared Diamond’s words, “I have heard many anecdotal stories, among my own friends, of children who were raised by difficult parents but who nevertheless became socially and cognitively competent adults, and who told me that what had saved their sanity was regular contact with a supportive adult other than their parents, even if that adult was just a piano teacher whom they saw once a week for a piano lesson.” (The World Until Yesterday, p.190) Here’s to hoping these lessons are just that–in difficult home situations, amidst the challenges of poverty–one hour a week with a friend willing to stumble over languages, laugh, and learn new skills together.

our favorites: toddler schoolhouse.

October 4, 2018 by Admin Filed Under: kelli, mway mway's photography, photos, schoolhouse 1 Comment

This is easily one of our favorites. Toddlers are such fun in any culture, and when they are shouting out “Auntie Kelli! Uncle Stephen!” it just gets better.

For years, in our effort to learn Burmese and in our personal dread of teaching, we have avoided English classes. I have tried one here and there, but I am not a teacher. I was doing it out of love. But I will be the first to admit that as students dropped off or forgot to show, I was relieved and occasionally elated. That is probably the end of any class.

Then last year arrived, when a favorite “little sister” took her matriculation for Burmese high school. It is the equivalent of the American ACT or SAT standardized test, with six subjects: Burmese, English, math, chemistry, biology, and physics. She was second in her class at the high school down the street, and we knew she’d do well. What we didn’t anticipate was her passing five subjects and failing one: English.

As her native-English auntie and uncle that spent hours upon hours a week with her, this was a big failure on our part. We still feel awful for her now, retaking her senior year in Burma with hopes to try the test again next year.

But, that has led to another attempt at English. We won’t let this happen again! Our first step was to buy two Rosetta Stone licenses for adults and students to learn English without us being the official teacher.

The second step was a toddler class. They learn so fast, it seemed an obvious step. They are also so very easy to entertain; I thought surely I could teach colors, numbers, shapes, and basic words with little preparation. And just in case I couldn’t, I called in help from Mway Mway. Before she begins making jewelry on Thursday, she helped with the class. She would rally the kids while I taught English, and then we’d swap. I’d rally the kids while she taught Burmese.

It has turned out to be the highlight of every week!

First, there are the backpacks: all empty, some purses, some lunch boxes. All carried in with great importance.

Then, there are the cutest kids ever. I’ve been focusing on colors, counting, animals & sounds, and opposites.

We have this fun opposite book that teaches them the idea, and then we’ll use a few of them: we sing the ABCs quietly and then loudly; we sing Head & Shoulders slowly & then fast. Before we sing If You’re Happy & You Know It, I go over happy and sad. I act them out: HAPPY! with a smile; ssaaadddd with a frown. Zwe, without fail, shouts SAD! with a giant smile on his face.

Stephen also leads our singing with guitar, which the kids love. It’s really our very own little library storytime, and I’m not sure I could love something more!

We do animal sounds, which has turned out hilariously. They love Old McDonald but struggle through every bit except ei-ei-o. And we left a lion in at the end, despite it not being a farm animal, because it is fun to growl at each other. I also taught them a few with hand motions: “elephant” with a trunk; and “rabbit” with little ears. What I didn’t realize was that as I do the rabbit ears I also say, “Bop bop bop.” So now they all make rabbit ears and say “Bop bop bop.” Whoops.

The colors are going off the best–easy to review in the afternoons and we all love picking out the colors we’re each wearing! One week I asked the usual, “Who is wearing BLUE?” Zuzu proudly lifted up her dress and pointed to her panties, “BLUE! I’m wearing BLUE!” She was right, at least 😂

We’ve also been practicing our colors with superheroes: SPIDERMAN! Spiderman is RED and BLUE. The HULK! The HULK is GREEN and PURPLE. We have hand motions, as you can see below. It’s adorable.

The mixture of Burmese & English is tricky for little brains: they struggle to know which to say. I teach them all the colors in English, and then Mwei Mwei follows in Burmese. This leads to them shouting all the colors in all the languages. We have since decided it’s better if we teach different things for now: she’s been focusing on fruits, vegetables, and first words. In the mean time, there is a lot of confusion about chicken–which is pronounced similar to “jet” in Burmese, and is now most often called “jetkin” in our home. Again, whoops. I mentioned I wasn’t a great teacher, right?

It’s been a great opportunity to give the kids attention and teaching, in addition to the social lessons of thank you’s and following instructions. And of course we go home with a snack, so that everyone’s winning!

what’s to come.

October 3, 2018 by Stephen & Kelli Spurlock Filed Under: house calls, housewares, kelli, stephen 1 Comment

We’re still alive over here.

While some days that is just barely true, it’s true all the same; and a gift not to be taken lightly.

Last week was a deluge. And now, sitting miles away on a couch in the countryside of France, I can tell you: we barely made it here. In the seven days before we flew out, we made five trips to the emergency room for friends. Two new babies were born. There were some truly scary situations where I thought we might lose dear friends.

There was also our last Flour & Flowers week before this time away. The Mae Sot community loves these bread products more than we realized, and they ordered with gusto! This past Friday the ladies baked and sold 65 loaves of bread, 330 tortillas, and 180 cinnamon rolls. That’s incredible, for three women with two ovens and a tiny little kitchen on the Thai-Burma border.

So incredible, in fact, that one of the ladies went into labor that evening! She was a month early, so when we got the call at 3am, I asked multiple times, “Now?! She is in labor now?!” After my panic and worry that we hadn’t given her enough breaks or we had pushed her to pre-term labor; the baby arrived safe and healthy. She is a beautiful little girl.

And her sister-in-law told us, “I told her she did a great job going into labor before you left!”

There were also the plans to be set up while we are away: jewelry and sewing projects that will continue; friends that will step in to help the kids and adults continue English, guitar, and cajon lessons; The Reinforcer that will continue some sound editing projects; and our house continuing to be open for Playhouse three days a week. Our blind friend, Aung Moe, must still eat; and the insurance program still needs premiums paid every month.

Oh, and when you travel, you must pack bags–which thankfully managed to happen the day we left.

_________________

I suppose I should back up and explain. I’ve been out of words for awhile now. They just don’t seem to come like they used to, so I stopped writing.

We’ve just left our little community for two months away. We are visiting family in the States, with the intrepid hope that this might be our last opportunity to visit before we are placed soon for our adoption. And we’re taking some time in France, where we are anticipating space to pray, think, and dream for the future, with some healing and rest mixed in.

We still love this community, and we hope that somehow, by sheer miracles, we will see change come: changes in patterns, changes in futures, changes in systems, changes of heart.

We also hope that we can have the stamina to keep going when we feel this worn out.

Here is a short video Stephen put together of the different happenings around our home and what we envision for this time away.

____________________

Recently I’ve struggled so much to write. The stories, they are too close; they are too much a part of me, a part of us. Sometimes I’m not sure how to even tell them, while respecting my dearest friends or even myself.

So as the silence reveals, I bailed on the words and the stories; particularly the ones that hurt so much to tell.

But there are still so many, that are good and fun and joyous. And Mway Mway has been capturing photos recently, and I’m loving it. They are beautiful glimpses into some of our favorite people and favorite spaces.

Thus, in a new twist for this writing space, I’m launching a mini-series, if you will. “Our Favorites”–a few of our favorite things as we step back and look over the photographs of the life we live.

Stay tuned.

new skills, new perspectives.

August 3, 2018 by Admin 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.

July 31, 2018 by Admin 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.

July 25, 2018 by Admin 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.

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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.