Easter Day

Theres something I learned here from my co-worker a muslim friend, mentioned that the Friday 21st of March, in their calendar year this year is their special day. The day when their prophet Isa (the shorter version) was borned and after 40 years on the same date he died. To the muslims, its the day of Eid-e-miladunnabi. We as christains also have celebrated in remembrance of our Lord Jesus Christ's dead on the cross, the same date. Both religions celebrated the day together but with a different meaning. To the muslims, this is their fourth prophet who came 40 years ago and died, and dead forever, but for the christains Lord Jesus died and he rose up the third day. He is living today and forver more and soon coming to judge the living and the death. During our sunny rise service on Sunday it was a double blessing for me, a blessing to celebrate the ressurection of our Lord Jesus and celebrating with a good number of christains where you would think very less or few hundreds. To me it seemed alot especially when it is a muslim dominated country, figuratively speaking christain population is .4%.

New Place

I have moved to my new working area, Sirajganj. It takes about three and a half hours bus ride from the main city Dhaka, however, mostly traffic jam so most likely takes four to five hours. I am currently living with one of my another co-worker. She is nice and wonderful so I am comfortble to leave with her for few months before I get my own house. I still have few more months to complete my language class and I feel like I am slowly saying the words. Someone just talked with me this morning and mentioned that to start learning new things has to start from the body parts, then to food and then to household staff. this is what she is doing to her baby, so just to say that I am starting from the beginning, like a baby. But sometimes being a baby is frustrating because you dont get to say what you what to say. Anywhere, my work right now is reading alot of reports and ofcourse studying my Bangla which offen doesnt happened. I am so thankful that I have such a wonderful individuals and groups out there in the world praying for me. God Bless you in this Great Easter.

Ants in the Sugarbowl

So send I you:

• to ants in the sugar bowl
• to things that fly, creep and crawl into the house
• to uncertain water, sporadic electricity
• to long hours, sweltering heat, exhausting days
• to uncomfortable vehicles, crowded jeeps, smelly buses
• to noisy, early, Early mornings
• to rice, rice, and more rice
• to poverty you didnt believe existed
• to masses of people like you have never seen
• to know and work with people who have never know comfort

So send I you, and I expect you to adjust.

So send I you:

• to people who will give to you from their poverty
• to friends that will embarrass you with their generosity
• to pastors that will entertain you from their lack, with bounty
• to hungry, receptive, questioning people who want to know God
• to study, to teach, to learn from your study and teaching
• to probe your own motives, values, and beliefs
• to learn about yourself and the culture that has reared you

So send I you.

Are you going? I'll go with you all the way.

-Elizabeth Givens

Retreat to Bandarban

It was around 11pm on the 26th of February we left Dhaka for Bandarban a tribal area around in Bangladesh. I am not really good at travelling in a public bus in the night for more than 5 hours but I knew that the best was waiting for me, so me with my great images of this foreign place we started our road ride. In deed I was preparing for this retreat few days a head early. Anywhere, we reached the border area and there we were held for 20 minutes of filling necessary informations before crossing the border. Once we entered the guest house, I was ready for nasta(breakfast). We all haulded at the dining hall for breakfast before settling into our rooms. Not long breakfast was served and I ordered porota and vegetables and omelet, mmm...and that was great. To make it short we were there for three days and we have seen some of Bangladeshes great views especially mountains, rivers and nice people and that has refreshed my mind of these bad images that I have been storing for the past six weeks. I really enjoyed the site seeing, hiking, walking and visiting the villages. The meals were great too. The three days there was really refreshing from all those site seeing but also from the morning part of meditation. My great thank you to those of you that are praying for us who are doing serve work, God bless you all.