Day 17: We finally get a massage...and it wasn't even the best part of the day!

 

Juliet spent most of the afternoon playing games and doing origami with Julia, Sayama Ma Nwei's 12-year old daughter

Sayama Ma Nwei and her husband, Saya Ah Ti, are praying that God would start many churches and save 1,000,000 Burmese people through them

We slept in until 9am today! Woo-hoo! Once we got up we decided to head to Borderline Tea Garden for a late breakfast/brunch. We heard about them not because of the food, but because of the store that they run at the front, Borderline Shop. The shop was setup as a way for Burmese women who are living in exile to still make money. They have all sorts of purses, clothing, bags, book covers, washable feminine hygiene products, and many other types of goods for sale. Each one was created by a Burmese woman who sells their goods to help provide for their families (keeping in mind that many Burmese are under-employed as they don't have proper immigration documentation and are being exploited). Juliet purchase a hair scrunchie and a book to draw in!

We had mentioned to Dave that we were interested in possibly having a massage, and by God's plan he messaged us just as we were leaving Borderline with the location of the massage place he and Louise recommend...which was just a 2 minute walk away! We walked over and both Lindsay and I were able to book a massage right away while the kids stayed in the front lobby area and watched Netflix...all of us had what we wanted at that moment!

We really didn't have much time after the massage, however, as Louise was coming by with the 4 boys just 1 hour later. We raced back to the hotel to quickly get ready, and then we were out the door to go to another part of town to meet Sayama Ma Nwei and her husband, Saya Ah Ti. Sayama is a Burmese pastor in another area of Mae Sot who is hosting a house church of 60-70 people every Sunday! And for some events, has had 250 people at the house! She was a pastor in Myanmar before they escaped to Thailand and has quite the amazing story of God's protection and deliverance from the Burmese military who shot at her, took her oldest daughter hostage, and forced her family to flee across the border during the night to avoid further military resistance. She has so much trauma and still knows that God was with her and gave her great peace. She has expressed that she has a dream to grow the number of churches she has helped plant and prays that God will use her to see 1,000,000 Burmese come to know Jesus...amazing!

We stayed for about 3 hours talking, playing soccer, and Juliet and their 12-year old daughter (Julia) spent hours together playing! It really was a great time together with other believers on the other side of the world, using translators to talk with each other.

When Dave picked us up we had a plan to take Jayzin, Clement, Shalom, and Simon out for dinner and back to the hotel to go in the pool with us. They were really excited as they said they had actually JUST been talking about how they wish could go swimming in a pool earlier that afternoon! We had a great time with them at the pool. Clement and Shalom asked Lindsay and I for help learning how to swim, and James spent most of the time getting Jayzin and Simon to play with him, jumping and diving into the pool and playing games. What a great way to spend some of our last moments here in Mae Sot!