Happy New Year

Happy New Year everyone.

Hope you all had a great Christmas and enjoyed all the New Year celebrations. For our part we've got loads to tell you, so I suppose I ought to begin.

Since the last blog our Christmas plans altered slightly. Andy got ill, so unfortunately we couldn't leave for bible school with the rest of the party and ended up travelling up by public bus on Christmas Day with another chap from the church to allow time for Andy to finish his antibiotics and recover.

Prior to going we managed to squueze another Christmas dinner in on Christmas Eve at the Bagha club - -ummm! The club was empty because lots of people had gone home for Christmas but we happened to bump into a couple of British lads who were hitch hiking their way from London to Malaysia and had got stuck in Bangladesh whilst waiting to cross into Burma. They left in July and travelled all the way without using planes or trains and without spending a single penny on transport. As you can imagine they had a few good stories to tell. We spent the afternoon with them and they accompanied us to the orphanage we visited a few weeks ago, where we spent some time playing with the kids.

So Christmas morning off we set ipod stocked with Christmas tunes, festive squashed tuna sandwiches in hand and some sweets for the journey. Well we were only 5 minutes in when a lady in front of us started being sick out the window. She was shortly joined by her daughter. This persisted consistantly for the entire 5 hour journey! As you can imagine we were put right off our squashed tuna sarnies, althoughI must admit this poor family in front had a much worse time of the journey than we did.

Anyway we made it safe and sound and we very much enjoyed the next 3 days spent with members of the church and their families. Andy ended up doing a couple of bible schools and I (Nic) did one Sunday school lesson. We had great fun learning Bangla Sunday school songs, visiting a tea garden, playing Badminton at midnight and dancing to Bangla tunes on the coach journey home. It was so lovely to get to know the local church members better and especially spending time with all the young people. A very different Christmas I'm sure you'll agree. We very much missed our lovely English Christmas with all of you but doing something so different made up for it.

The day after we returned it was election day and Andy's birthday. We were advised to stay in doors because the local law enforcers were expecting rioting and protests, so we stayed with a work colleague but as the morning progressed it was all very quiet, so we went for a wander round and ended up going into a polling station. It was all very peaceful and actually quite a fun family atmosphere. Andy was wearing his birthday lungi, so attracted quite a crowd and even got his photo taken by one of the local newspapers and did and interview about his Bangla attire. We were most shocked to find that his photo and story actually made it into the paper the following day.

The day after the election we went to work, which was pretty sparse as most of the office are still on Christmas holidays but it was a good opportunity to catch up on a few of those jobs that we had been putting off. In the evening we went to a church study group on the other side of town, which was really good.

On New Year's Eve we went to work during the day and then in the evening we didn't do anything elaborate, we just went for a lovely meal locally and then back for an early night and a film - very dull but just what we needed. It didn't feel like New Year's eve at all, especially with no fireworks or fancy dress parties to attend. Over here they don't make a big deal of this New Year - their new year happens in April, so that's when all the festivities take place. Although, there was a fair amount of frevolity taking place.

Today (New Year's day) we had a group of young people round from church for lunch and a few games - it's so funny seeing Bangladeshis play the animal game and spoons (if you don't know those games let us know - they're hilarious); amazing how those games transcend all language barriers!

In case you're wondering we haven't really made any New Year's resolutions this year - we usually end up getting very depressed in 2 months time when we realise that we've broken nearly all of them.

However, our hope and prayer for 2009 is that: God would continue to bless us throughout the year as He has through 2008; that we would be able to see hope in the hopeless and find a shining light wherever in the world we are and above all; that more people would be blessed by the great love of God.

May you be blessed throughout 2009.

Andy and Nic x

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