Three years ago Braverly opened its doors for the first time. On this Fall day, life was business as usual for 99.9% of the world. Kids went to school. Government bodies met and argued about something. Somewhere a recent college grad moaned about the struggles of adulting. 

Life.as.usual. 

But a small group of people in a quirky Thailand border town felt a little anxious and excited and completely full of anticipation. Their hearts beat a little faster, and their steps held a little bit more purpose. On that day, a dream was stepping into reality and breathing its first few breaths on its own. 

Braverly was born. 

Braverly

A quick look at street view on Google Maps shows that simple, beautiful concrete building. From the street, you can see Braverly’s logo—that big, cursive B and the words “bikes. bagels. bags.” But once inside, you see that other word that pulses through the veins of this café and sewing center—brave.

Braverly came from the dream from an American who imagined a place that trained and empowered marginalized and oppressed women—moms, sisters, and aunties trying to build a better life for their family. From there, the idea of a café and sewing center slowly began to form. Not only would these spaces give women valuable business, life, and hands-on skills, they would provide opportunities to impact Mae Sot and possibly even the world. 

Etched on the back wall is the slogan and driving force—three simple lines that inspire everything.

Live brave.
Dream bravery.
Influence bravery.

Every day the women in the Braverly family are challenged to live with courage over fear. They are stretched to dream scary, big, difficult dreams for themselves, their families, and the world. And because of their courageous decisions, they encourage bravery in others.

For three years, this has been the mission, and it has begun to make a mark on Mae Sot. Yet, there is a longing for more. This dare toward courage, this challenge to choose bravery is for the world. It’s a message we all need to hear and be wrecked by and choose every day. So while the café became known in Mae Sot, the dream grew. 

What if Questions Inspire Bold Dreams

What if these beautiful handmade products—bags, wallets, clutches, and more—were sold across the world? What if these story-carrying products created by incredibly courageous women in Thailand found their way to the arms of women in the U.S., Spain, Kenya, and Mexico? What if a simple purse was a reminder for women all over the world to choose courage over fear every day, to dream intimidating dreams, and to encourage others to choose bravery? 

What if? 

It’s the question that seems to start every big and beautiful and terrifying adventure, doesn’t it? What if humans could fly through the sky and reach places we never imagined? What if we could connect the entire world through cables and satellites? What if we took a risk, a step out? What if we tried and failed? What if we tried and succeeded, and the world became a better place because of our courage?

What if?

For Braverly, the questions have always been simple—what if one woman found freedom, wholeness of heart, empowerment, and life in the Father? What if that one person became two became three became a whole family, community, a whole nation? 

Why it all Matters to You

Last week, the dream stepped a little closer to reality when Braverly’s online store launched. Yes, people of America, you can now buy beautiful products made by incredibly brave women in Mae Sot, Thailand. You can show off a unique headband crafted from beautiful Thai fabric. You can carry a one-of-a-kind clutch or bag created by someone you have more in common with than you know. 

The dream of Braverly was never just about Mae Sot, about the people who invest so much of their time and skills, heart and soul into this place. It was always about the world—about you and me. It was about all of us, because if we pause long enough, we just might see that we have more similarities than we ever could imagine. 

You get the opportunity to be part of the Braverly story. You get to choose courage over fear, bravery over insecurity. What if we became a people marked by courage? 

What if we were a people marked by Braverly?

Join the movement, and check out these handmade, story-carrying product here. 

The post Why a Café in Mae Sot, Thailand Matters to You appeared first on Kate Berkey.

This girl, the one who could fit in a crib meant for children, was 13 years old. 

I still remember hearing her age. The air left my lungs. My head spun. My eyes watered. My knees buckled. And I remember the way I couldn’t look her in the eye, because just a week earlier, I had been 13. When I’d first walked into the room, I thought I was so different from the little girl in the crib, but now I knew the truth.

We weren’t so different after all.

We were practically the same age. Our hair was the same color, and our eyes looked so very similar. We both burst with joy when we heard a voice we recognized, felt a touch we knew to be loving and kind. Both made in the image of our sweet Father, He called us Beloved. He knew our needs, and He cared so deeply for them.

In that moment, I had a choice: 

Stare at the wall behind the girl, fidget like the awkward teenager I was, and edge toward the door
or
I could look her in the eye. I could take her hands in my own, stroke her head, and wipe the hair from her face. I could honor her by engaging her, by seeing her. Simply put, I could love her by not looking away.

When I close my eyes today, I can still see this beautiful, 13-year-old girl laying in an isolated room in a Romanian orphanage. Her face is a little blurry—the cruel result of time gone by and new memories that demand space in my mind. But this experience and those emotions are still there, the lingering effects of an encounter with hard realities.

I never want to forget this experience, her face, her eyes. I never want to forget that my first reaction was to look away. And I never want to forget that realization—she and I were not as different as I thought. Because if I had more in common with this girl in a Romanian orphanage, I have to wonder how much I share with the person just down the road.

Confronting our Vulnerabilities

I believe this simple truth—that we have more in common with one another than we realize—is one of the reasons Jesus told us to love our neighbor as ourself. It’s why He told us to create space for everyone around our tables and in our homes. Could it be this is why He said those fateful, beautiful, grace-dripping words, “He who is without sin, cast the first stone”? 

Our world is full of hurting people, stories that rip our hearts apart. Humans are exceptionally good at marginalizing one another, separating ourselves from one another. It’s called pride and selfishness and a seemingly innate need to be more than we are. 

But, friend, if we look our neighbor in the eye, we just might see—like my little 13-year-old self saw—that we’re not all that different. 

We all lay awake some nights paralyzed by fears or worries or anxieties. 
We all have beautiful, complex hopes for the future. 
We all wish for love and joy and happiness for our families. 
We all have dysfunction and struggles and secrets. 

When we look into the face of someone who is hurting or marginalized or oppressed, we are confronted with vulnerability. We’re confronted with our own hurts and pain. We’re confronted with our privilege. And it’s deeply uncomfortable.

In that moment, we have a choice:

Look away or see the human staring back at us. 

Ushering in the Sacred

It’s true, we can’t fully engage with every single person or story or injustice in this world. The news is a seemingly never ending parade of the day’s latest challenges. But we do have the capacity and the calling to love our neighbors—to step into vulnerability, to embrace them in their vulnerable state, and be embraced in our own vulnerability. 

When we do that, I believe we usher a little bit of the sacred into our hurting and splintered world. We bring a little bit of Jesus, a little bit of the holy and extraordinary. It doesn’t require traveling to a third world country or donating your life’s savings. Sometimes it simply means talking to the cashier at the grocery store, delivering cookies to your next door neighbor, making conversation with the person who comes alone to church. More times than not, it means looking someone in the eye and listening to her story. Isn’t that what Jesus did over and over again? 

So, may we resist the temptation to look away. May we have the courage to look our neighbor in the eye, and may we bring a little more of the sacred into our ordinary. 

The post Why We Need to have the Courage to Look our Neighbor in the Eye appeared first on Kate Berkey.

It was an honor.
It was a privilege. 
It was humbling. 

I made sure to take off my shoes before I walked into the friend of my friend’s home partly because of culture and partly because of that verse in Exodus. I still believe holy ground exists in things that seem completely mundane or simply different or quite possibly even extraordinary.  

On this night, my friends and I were completely and utterly stuffed after a dinner of curry and naan and rice pudding and sweet donuts soaked in syrup and oil. Each of us tried to stretch our pants a little before sitting on the floor around the family’s table. Kids seemed to come from out of nowhere in this Chicago one bedroom apartment. They crowded around the table with us, focusing on the cartoon playing on the iPad rather than the ragtag group in their living room. Their sweet mother and auntie disappeared into the kitchen despite our constant pleas. 

“Please come sit with us.”
“We don’t need any food.”
“Sit here.” 
“Oh, thank you for the noodles.”
“Please come sit with us.”
“We came to be with you.” 

It was hospitality at its finest, especially to our dear friends from Burma. They passed heaping plates of fried noodles and giant glasses of fruit punch around the table until we all had more than enough. We exhaled slowly, unsure of how another bite of food would fit into our bellies. But this family had given out of what they had, and we would try desperately to honor them. 

Only when we were all happily eating did the sweet mother sit with us—wrapping her beautifully colored skirt around her feet. We did not come to be served by her. We did not come for another meal. We did not come to take. 

We came to be with this family. We came to be with this sweet mother.

As chatter swirled around the room, I saw her fidgeting beside me, fumbling on her phone. I saw the picture then—her son, brand new and beautiful. She passed the phone over me to the friend she knew more than the stranger next to her. 

It was a sacred moment of pride and sorrow like how I imagine Moses’ mother must have felt when she floated him in a basket that she prayed would save him from the river's current and the depths below. 

This boy—her brand new baby—did not come out crying. He did not come out breathing. This sweet mother pushed and cried through pain to give birth to a baby who wasn’t alive. They called him stillborn, but this was not his name. 

We did not come to be served. We did not come for another meal. We did not come to take. 
We came to be with sweet mother. 

In that sterile hospital room just weeks before, there were tears. There were cries. But it didn’t come from her baby. It came from sweet mother and sweet father—refugees in this strange land trying to build a home and life for their family. And in the weeks since this story-defining moment, there would be more tears—from the pain of recovering from childbirth, from the replaying of that moment in her mind, from the moments she could almost feel her son’s body in her arms only to look down and see nothing and no one. 

Often, I write about brave living—how it turns up in the most unexpected places. I’m not going to pretend that I was brave in that moment. I was speechless; I could only reach over and put my hand on sweet mother’s knee. The chatter and the cartoon playing in the background faded. It was a moment for my friend and sweet mother and me—the random stranger who was lucky enough for an invitation to the table. 

Brave living—in that moment—belonged to this sweet mother. Because she did not continue to serve us. She did not stay busy. She did not hide in the kitchen. She sat with her friend and a stranger. And she pulled out one of the only pictures she will ever have of her baby called stillborn. She passed him to us, one of the greatest treasures and sorrows of her heart.

And all we could say was, “He is so beautiful. He is cúndoijja.” 

We made sweet mother smile at the sound of our terrible pronunciation of this beautiful Rohingya word. Her smile, another act of bravery. 

I had no business being in this room, in this space with such a sweet mother—the kind who comforts her crying children, who finds refuge in a new country for their safety, who tries to teach them parts of their culture in a brand new place so different from the old. I had been invited to holy ground that was found in the sacred ordinary. I was surrounded by bravery and humbled by my place at the table. 

We did not come to be served. We did not come for another meal. We did not come to take. 

We came to be with sweet mother—the bravest one in the room. 

The post Stumbling into Holy Ground Moments Around the Table of Refugees appeared first on Kate Berkey.

I can’t stop looking at this picture. 

It’s more than just a great memory or moment. It does more than just make me smile or fill me with joy. It reminds me to take risks, to do things that scare me. It reminds me to be brave.

It reminds me that our courage is contagious.

A few days ago, my family came back from a vacation to Disney World. We ate way too much food, walked way too many steps, and let the kids skip one too many naps, and it was completely worth it. Who wouldn’t love those kind of days—staying out late, watching fireworks, riding ride after ride after ride. 

My oldest niece is five years old and was finally tall enough for a few more rides. I’m not claiming that Disney World has real roller coasters. I completely understand that they cater to families and kids, but for my niece, some of these rides were intense. They were unknown and unfamiliar in every way. She asked us over and over again if they were scary, if they were just pretend, if they were outside or inside. Without fail, every time we went on a new ride, I could feel her excitement and fear as we stood in line. It was never one or the other. It was always a mix—sometimes a little more fear than excitement, but in those moments, I realized something beautiful.

My family’s courage was contagious. 

So we smiled big. We held her hand. We cheered her on. We didn’t hide the fact that we would go fast and down some big hills, but we tried to help her believe that when the cars came to a stop at the end, she would still be smiling. 

That’s why I love this picture. 

It was our fourth time on this particular ride, and by that point, Finley loved the ups and downs and twists and turns. We laughed and screamed together, and when I yelled, “Finley, put your arms up,” she threw them in the air without hesitation. 

As silly as it might seem to those who love the kind of rides at Cedar Point or Six Flags, this was an act of deep, deep courage for my kiddo. With every new ride, she took a risk, she took a step. She chose to trust us, trust that we knew her and knew what she could handle. She trusted our own courage and caught a little bit of it herself, because courage is contagious. And when she caught even a hint of apprehension in us, we could see it on her face, because fear can be just as contagious. 

And I can’t get these truths out of my head, because I see them in the world around me every day. I see them in our women at Braverly—the way they encourage each other to try new things. I see them in the way my parents lead their business together, each one catching a little bit of courage from the other. 

And sometimes I see the opposite. I see how fear-based conversations in our country cause division at best. I see how our fear of the unknown cause us discredit things that seem different or risky. I see how our fear sends ripples we cannot control.

Our courage is contagious and so is our fear.

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Day after day, we influence others. We inspire, or we hold back. We spark courage or fear. Our actions, our thoughts, our emotions matter, and they matter more than we realize. We can catch courage from other–courage to show up and be seen, courage to listen to those with whom we differ, courage to open our hearts and minds to ideas and perspectives, courage to create space for those with whom we disagree. Courage rather than fear, because I believe the Father is in our courage. And our culture desperately needs more of the Father's heart.

When we cultivate courage in our own lives, we just might find ourselves standing next to someone who needs a little bit of courage themselves. And when we choose courage over fear, we're not just making this decision for ourselves. We're making it for our family, our community, our culture, our country.

Friend, remember that your courage is contagious. 

The post Your Courage is Contagious appeared first on Kate Berkey.

This week I stepped into a room filled with people who were there to hear from Kristy and me, ask questions, and see for themselves the work we’ve poured ourselves into. Nothing felt more vulnerable than stepping into that space, prying our hands open to let others see the dream we have cultivated for so long. We had one hour to explain it all, and for the sake of our translator, we had to simplify our words while still sharing the most important and complex details. We had to speak about things that are deeply personal to us, ready to hear any critiques the group had. 

This is living brave. 

On the back wall of Braverly, our mantra is painted in big, bold letters. 

Live brave. Dream bravely. Influence bravery.

It’s actually the inspiration for the book we’re writing, the heartbeat of it all. It’s a challenge we give to our women all the time. Daily, they are put in situations that force them to either face their fears and insecurities or run away. Over the years, our women have conquered so much— like the fear of trying something new, like the fear of looking silly, like the fear of failing. 

And here’s the beautiful thing: they are at their best when they choose to live brave every day.

This challenge to live brave, dream bravely, and influence bravery isn’t just for our women. It’s a charge for us. It’s a charge for me. It’s a charge for you.

I have a friend in the States who tries to do something that scares her every day, and she’s my hero. She refuses to let fears or insecurities control her. Instead, she leans into them, knowing that the place she feels the most fear is the place the Father longs to use her the most. 

Sometimes I need to sit with that truth, cling to it, and remind my heart of it. The place I feel the most fear is the place the Father longs to use me the most. 

I remember first hearing that on a podcast by Jonathon David and Melissa Helser, and it continues to rock my world. I can’t fully describe the fear that comes with writing a book, knowing it will get rejected by some agents and publishers. I can’t explain the fear that comes with vulnerably telling some of my story on the pages of said book. I can’t describe the fear that comes when I simply allow people to see the book writing process, people who have the power to question it all. 

We all have these kinds of fears, right? It surrounds our work, our relationships, our place in this world, and for me so much of this fear comes from the feeling of vulnerability. 

Sharing my ideas, opening myself up to criticism, trying something new, sharing my story—all of these things invite vulnerability into my life. It’s so much easier to write in my journal than on my blog. It’s so much easier to keep certain ideas to myself than honestly share them in a meeting. It’s so much easier to gloss over my story than share the really messy parts. 

It’s much harder to step into a room, to take a seat at the table, and share my heart, my work, my ideas, and my story with a group of people. It’s much harder to invest time and effort and energy when there is uncertainty or risk at the end of the conversation. 

But brave living calls us to show up and be seen. It calls us to say yes when our entire body screams no! Brave living is an everyday choice. Sometimes it’s a moment by moment choice. It doesn’t always mean getting on an airplane and moving across the world. Please hear the truth of that, because sometimes brave living is simply looking at the person across the table and saying, “I love you.” Sometimes it’s taking a new job. Sometimes it’s being vulnerable with others. Sometimes it’s going to the small group that seems like it might never click. Sometimes it’s sending that email or text that may never get a response. 

And sometimes it’s learning to sew a bag you don’t know if people will buy. Sometimes it’s figuring out how to make a bagel from scratch. Sometimes it’s making a home in a new country and culture because that’s what’s best your family’s future generations.

If there’s one thing these last nine months have taught me, it’s that living brave is such a daily choice that transcends culture. Our stories are littered with the big and little decisions to live brave, but they are just that—decisions. 

This week, Kristy and I decided to show up and be seen. We shared our dreams, our hearts, and our vision uncertain of how they would be received. We decided to live brave. 

And tomorrow and next week and the week after, we will show up and be seen again. We will share our dreams, our hearts, our vision without knowing the outcome. 

We will choose to live brave. 

What does it look like for you to live brave today? 

The post What it Actually Means to Live Brave appeared first on Kate Berkey.