Bangladesh Update #7

This past week was an amazing week in Golpalgonj. Traveling went well, only a short 2-3 hour trip. When we arrived we thought we were either staying in a hotel or a house in the main more cityish area because YWAM has no contacts or roots there yet. Much to our surprise and delight we were not staying in a hotel, but in a small village. To get there we had to cross a river (where my leader Victoria met a nice man who asked if she was married and said he liked her) and take a 15 minute walk with all our stuff along a path (that sometimes wasn't actually there). When we got to our destination we were thrilled to see that we were going to experience real village life. We had electricity most of the time (it would sometimes go out for hours in a day), all our meals were cooked over a fire, we lived in tin houses (where you could hear the rats crawling around and squeaking above us every night), we had no running water (you want water you pump it from the well, but drinking water was bottled and all safe), we had bucket showers, and our bathroom consisted of one squatty. It was so much fun! The family we were staying with has their ministry called YES-Youth Evangelical Services. The eldest brother, who actually lives in Dhaka but came down to translate for us, is YWAM staff in the outskirts of Dhaka. The younger brother who runs YES is considering joining YWAM staff so then more teams could come to that area. Altogether the while family is amazing! They sacrificed so much so we could stay with them, their own beds, their time, etc. We soon found out that Golpalgonj and more specifically the area where we were staying has a huge Christian population! Which is incredible but at the same time that meant for ministry we had to travel anywhere from 20-40 minutes. Since we only had a short time there we tried to cram alot into each day in between them feeding us so much food (we would have 3 meals a day and in between meals we would have tea and snacks). Unfortunately I again got sick on Monday, trust me I was fine with the squatty till I got sick. But I bounced back and was only out for half a day. A lot of our ministry was prayer walks, children's ministry, and evangelizing. It was amazing to see the community that this family has built around their home. They have a lot of children's programs and their yard/house is the main area the local kids come to hang out and play. So everyday when the kids weren't in school we could always hear laughter and games. Us girls became very attached to one little girl who was constantly with us. Her mom was our cook and she was 6 so she didn't always have school. Her name is Labony and she spoke no English, but she always knew who to get her point across to us. Whether she was sitting in our bed as we talked and read or was accompanying us on ministry, she had the final say and would often speak to us in Bangla expecting us to understand. She learnt to say our names and she knew "twinkle twinkle little star" but the rest was Bangla and giggles. We started to repeat things she would say to us in Bangla which became a running joke till we found out on the last day that the one phrase she would always say meant silence or be quiet. The youth (ages 14-20+) also came and hung out with us a few evenings. It would start out as hanging out talking and would always turn into a dance party. I've decided that anyone who isn't white has the natural ability to dance, because they were good! They taught (or tried to teach) us some of their dances which was lots of fun. Then we taught them a line dance and played some American music and danced. What we didn't realize at first was that their dances have each have a general dance to them that everyone knows, so when we free styled to American music they tried to follow us step for step which turned out to be hilarious. And don't worry we have videos. We ended up having 3 dance parties in 5 days. My favorite ministry moment I think was Thursday afternoon. The youth from the community came and us students gave a short teaching on what biblical relationships look like. It was so much fun to spend our last day with the youth. We have now made it safely back to Dhaka where we will spend our remaining 4 weeks doing ministry. Prayers requests would be health as I am still battling some health issues(runny nose, sore throat, cough), safety as we have mainly been sharing with Hindus but Dhaka is mainly Muslim, strength and endurance for this last portion, and spiritual discernment with ministry. Thank you all for your love and support. And I love reading the replies I have received over this trip, I apologize for not being able to respond as things as crazy here, but u love reading about what's going on in your lives back home. Love Melissa