Better Than Seven Sons

Hoping is messy. Kathy and La process the election results and honestly share their disappointments and hopes for the future.

We're back to chat about politics. We're just everyday people trying to learn and be better neighbors. We share our journey of civic engagement and how we persist with our conflicted feelings as Hmong Christian women around tough subjects like abortion.

La wrote a book! In this episode, Kathy and Ashley speak with La about co-authoring the book Learning Our Names: Asian Americans on Identity, Relationships, and Vocation. La shares her writing journey as a Hmong American woman and discusses what she hopes the Hmong community might gain from the book. Learning Our Names: Asian Americans on Identity, Relationships, and Vocation is written by Sabrina...

In the last episode of season three, we face the tension we experience with 1 Peter 3:1-6 about the submission of women to their husbands. We express concerns about how misinterpretation of this passage can cause harm to Hmong American women while we remain open to what God has for us from this passage. Join our conversation and let us know what you think on our Instagram @btsspodcast. --- Somethi...

As Hmong daughters, we were formed to become caretakers. But as caretakers, how do we choose to care for ourselves? In this episode, Kathy, Ashley, and La look to the story of the bleeding woman (Matt 9:18-26; Mark 5:21-43; Luke 8:40-56) as a model of someone choosing herself. Something we've been doing on this podcast is connecting our story and experiences with our faith. For season three, we ar...

We recently discovered the book of Ecclesiastes can be a catharsis of sorts for releasing some of our inner thoughts and emotions about life right now. In this episode, we discuss our readings and reflect on the teacher's advice on enjoyment in the midst of survival and uncertainty. Something we've been doing on this podcast is connecting our story and experiences with our faith. For season three,...

Ashley, Kathy, and La attempt to make sense of survival in their lives during a season of uncertainty and how it fits into the Hmong American narrative. Something we've been doing on this podcast is connecting our story and experiences with our faith. For season three, we are going deeper and we invite Hmong American Christians to come along this journey with us.

For us, home is hospitality and we cannot talk about one without the other. As we define what home means for us, we discuss hospitality in the Hmong context and how it creates relationships through a process that transforms us from host to guest and guest to host.  Something we've been doing on this podcast is connecting our story and experiences with our faith. For season three, we are going...

Season 3 is here! Something we've been doing on this podcast is connecting our story and experiences with our faith. This season we want to go deeper and invite Hmong American Christians to come along this journey with us. In our first episode, La, Kathy, and Ashley discuss migration and displacement in Acts 7 and share what it means to them as Hmong Americans.

In this Q&A episode, we answer questions from our listeners. We answer some personal questions, share our honest thoughts about Raya, talk about healing, the Hmong church, and more.  

In this episode, Ashley asks Kathy and La about their thoughts on singleness.

We may or may not have some good dating advice. In this mini-episode, we discuss the dating advice we've received and offer our thoughts on dating. In between regular episodes, we are releasing mini-episodes where we share more stories and reflections from our experiences. Light-hearted and sometimes deep, we discuss a variety of topics that have come up in our conversations together.

2021 is a tough year. We never planned to do an episode on grief, but with everything that happened this year, we've been thinking a lot about it. In this episode, we discuss what we understand about grief and share how we are grieving this season.

We're back with another episode on biblical women we should know about. Lately the three of us have been discussing the ways we were taught about women in church. We decided that we needed a part two of our Better Than Proverbs 31 episode. In this episode, we share about three more women from scripture that we admire. Though they are all named, they only take up a few verses and are often forgotte...

This season, we have been focusing on sharing our story. In this episode, we talk about what that means for us and why we believe centering our story is important, especially when we are calling for more awareness of the diverse experiences of Asian Americans.   Ashley mentions a book called Mixed Blessing written by our friend, Chandra Crane. Read Ashley's review for the book here .

Do you speak HMoob? In this mini episode, we discuss what our language means to our identity.  In between regular episodes, we are releasing mini-episodes where we share more stories and reflections from our experiences. Light-hearted and sometimes deep, we discuss a variety of topics that have come up in our conversations together.

Besides recording podcast episodes, we had a couple of virtual watch parties together since the pandemic started. We watched some Hmong movies and we noticed some things. In this mini-episode, we discussed the tropes and overused storylines we continue to see in Hmong movies. We also offer some average to slightly above average story ideas we would like to see in future Hmong movies. In between re...

Knowing our story is so important to us as we grow in understanding who we are as Hmong American women. This week, we discuss Hmong history and the lack of information to form a narrative that goes beyond being refugees from the Secret War. We ask questions and wonder about our ancestors as we cope with what is lost to history. Where do we come from and why does that matter to us?

In this mini-episode, Kathy, La, and Ashely share stories of their parents' and grandparents' resourcefulness.  In between regular episodes, we are releasing mini-episodes where we share more stories and reflections from our experiences. Light-hearted and sometimes deep, we discuss a variety of topics that have come up in our conversations together. 

In this episode, we process how the insurrection at the U.S. Capitol on January 6, 2021, impacted us. As Hmong American and Christian women, where is our place in the ongoing conversations about the social, political, and racial realities revealed from this event? We discuss where we are as a Christian community and how we hope to see the Hmong American church speak up on these issues. We referenc...

In between regular episodes, we are releasing mini-episodes where we share more stories and reflections from our experiences. Light-hearted and sometimes deep, we discuss a variety of topics that have come up in our conversations together.  In this episode, Ashley asks La and Kathy about their coming-of-age stories as poj laib. Poj laib is a Hmong term to describe a woman whose image or actio...

Welcome to a new season of BTSS! We're starting off with some reflections on how the rest of our 2020 is going since our last episode. We discuss how we're processing through the elections and the impact of the pandemic on our lives.  

Better than never starting. Better than our insecurities. Better than we can imagine. In this final episode, we reflect on our journey in making the BTSS podcast during a difficult season for many of us. We're going on a break while we continue to process what we learned and gained from this experience. We're not done yet. There is so much more to talk about. We'll be back with new episodes soon!

How are we maintaining and building our friendships as adults? In this episode, we share how we're learning to be better friends and what we hope for in our adult friendships. 

We discuss leadership: our beginnings, our formation, and we revisit some disappointing moments in our journey. Most of our leadership happened in Christian ministry but we hope the lessons and the advice we share will be applicable for our Hmong sisters in any leadership role.