Hi everyone

Firstly, apologies for the Twitter feeds that appeared on our blog, some of which contained offensive language. We're not sure how that happened but we've now blocked all twitter feeds.

So, since we last wrote we've had another women's get together, a youth group gathering, Andy's visited a group of young believers living just outside Dhaka, we've eaten our first Mince Pie and we've decorated our apartment (oh and we've done some work in between).

Women's Gathering

Another really good morning with the women from the church. There was a great turn out this month and we had a really fab time of fun, study and fellowship.

Two of the women brought their babies (1 yrs old and 9mths), who were toddling around all over the place, putting everything they could lay their hands on in their mouths and generally enjoying being fussed over by a group of very doting women. They were particularly intrigued by the bubbles I ended up having to blow all morning.

One of the sisters led a short talk about living as a woman in Christ, which seemed to go well, although not really understanding what she was saying, it was hard to tell but the rest of the women seemed to be engrossed.

We also had fun making gift boxes out of decorative card / paper. What was great about it was watching the passing on of skills. So, for some of the women, particularly those more eager I taught them how to make the boxes and then they took responsibility for teaching some of the others, who were a bit less forthcoming. It was really lovely to watch this process happen.

Victory Day Youth Gathering

On 16^th December it was a public holiday on account of it being Victory Day, so we had the young people from church round for a get together.

A missionary from Australia led a bible study on Acts, which was really interesting. He introduced us to a technique of bible marking and picking out themes through Acts, which was really helpful for getting an overview of Acts. It was particularly interesting to see how the early church grew – from 120, to 3000, to 5000, to 7000, all from that early group of believers meeting in the upstairs room in Jerusalem. Amazing what you can achieve through prayer and dedication.

After some food we had lots of fun playing the ‘Animal Game’. It was very amusing to have 27 Bangladeshi folk packed into our living room making animal noises and actions!

It was a real time of blessing to have so many young people in our house. What was particularly lovely was to have a group of young lads, who had travelled from Savar (just outside Dhaka) to join us. These lads are very inspirational – having gone through an orphan program run by one of the sisters in the church, they are now living together in a tiny house and studying at University. They are really keen bible scholars and just wonderfully amazing people. They are very gentle, very humble and so eager to learn and develop. They were so keen to come to the gathering that they set out early and arrived an hour before it started, so we were able to spend some quality time with them (and enlist their help in moving furniture!). They truly are examples of young men filled with the Spirit of Christ – we’re learning lots from them.

In the evening we attended the Christmas Do for one of the English Christian Schools in the area (Grace School) and Andy did the calling for their Barn Dance, which was lots of fun.

This weekend we dressed our apartment up in some Christmas finery, so it’s looking very festive and really getting us in the mood for Christmas. We even managed to find some appropriately tacky tinsel to put up (who would have thought – tinsel in Bangladesh).

Over the past couple of weeks we’ve also been reflecting on the message of Jesus’ birth, which, despite being set in Spring time seems appropriate to think about now, as lots of people around the world are doing so.

What has really stood out for us is the contrast between Jesus’ birth and the usual way we celebrate Christmas, which has become even more noticeable since being in Bangladesh. At Christmas time we tend to be at home with family, everything comes to a stop, we have wonderful food, lovely gifts, beautiful decorations and the like.

Jesus was born away from his home, in a feeding trough, in an animal shed, probably with chaos going on around – people shouting, talking, carrying on with their lives, blissfully ignorant that the Saviour of the world had just been born. He would only have his father and mother for company (other than a few excitable visitors); no Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles or other relatives.

Being in Bangladesh, with very few references to Christmas going on around, being away from our friends and family (albeit most of them) and certainly with no sense of the country coming to a stop we can really relate to that first ‘Christmas’.

In amongst the continuing chaos of Bangladesh, the strange smells, the different culture and religion, this lack of festivity has enabled us to recognize more clearly that, actually, over 2000 years ago a baby was born, who would live his life with the same humility as he began it and yet would become the man to free us from a life of captivity – King of the Jews, King of Men, Saviour of the World.

By the way, please don't think we're passing judgement on the way people celebrate Christmas, we're very much looking forward to a traditional English Christmas next year, we simply wanted to share with you the way in which the Nativity Story has impacted us, being in a different context to normal.

Wishing you a time of blessing this Christmas.

Love Andy and Nic x

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A short visit to Mumbai

Last week Nic had the opportunity of visiting the Oasis office in Mumbai for a series of work related meetings.

After returning from CYC camp on Sunday 29^th November, Nic left on Monday 30^th November for Mumbai via a very busy and run down Kolkata airport.

When you set foot in India, it’s almost instantly noticeable how different it is to Bangladesh. Even just sitting in Kolkata airport you notice the difference; there are more people speaking English as their first language, more Western clothing around and a lot more foreigners.

I landed in Mumbai at about midnight and then took a CNG (Auto rickshaw, or just ‘Rickshaw’ using Indian terminology) to Laura and Katherine’s apartment. This was a much easier process than in Dhaka because you simply walk up to the Rickshaw stand, hop in and tell them where you want to go – they put it straight on the meter, without even so much as an attempt at haggling. I’m told that in Mumbai it’s one of the only Indian cities where they are obliged by law to go on the meter.

The following day we went to an English Medium school while Laura and an Indian colleague gave an introduction to the STOP THE TRAFFIK campaign, Start Freedom (a global initiative to raise awareness amongst young people aged 11-18 and to engage them in helping to prevent human trafficking) – for more details see www.startfreedom.org.

In the afternoon we visited one of our partner organisations, the International Justice Mission, to discuss some cases we’re working on with them and to try to make the repatriation process even more efficient. At the moment what tends to happen is an organisation like Oasis, or IJM will rescue someone from their exploitative situation (usually a brothel) and then they get placed in a government home. From here we will work with the Indian organisation to collect the information we need in order to do a home study of the survivor, so that we can confirm she is Bangladeshi. We pass this information to the Bangladeshi government, who use it to put together the relevant documentation for repatriation.

We also work with these organisations to plan the survivor’s aftercare but often the survivor gets moved between 2 – 4 different shelter homes after being rescued, so each time a new set of aftercare is begun, in accordance with the home’s own internal systems but very rarely is this continued from their last shelter home, or even coordinated, so this can set the survivor back several weeks in her aftercare. We’re trying to work to make the approach to aftercare more cohesive, which was one of the main outcomes of this meeting.

On Wednesday Laura and I travelled by train to Pune, which is a city 3 hours south of Mumbai. The train ride was very beautiful as we meandered through the mountains and particularly so as the doors are always left open, so we get a good view of the landscape.

Travelling by train is always a unique experience, with ‘Chai Wallers’ going up and down the train throughout the journey selling hot cups of tea, the occasional beggar coming through asking for money, the Western toilets with holes leading right down to the tracks, people sitting on the roof, people hanging out the door. Thankfully on the Indian trains there’s far less staring than on the Bangladesh trains, so we were able to enjoy a bit of privacy.

When we arrived in Pune I was pleasantly surprised by the wide leafy roads, the British architecture and the lovely atmosphere of the place – it was a really nice place to visit. After taking lunch Laura and I went to meet another of our partner organisations, Freedom Firm.

After a meeting with them we went to one of the government homes where some of the Bangladeshi girls we are working with are staying.

The home is divided into 2 – a major home and a minor home. We have girls / women in both.

The homes are run by a government-appointed superintendants, who are notorious for being dragons and this particular superintendant was no exception. When we arrived she was sat in her office bellowing at some poor soul. We sat waiting patiently until she had calmed down before going to speak to her for permission to go into the home. Whilst we were waiting the girls came up to the open window and peered through the bars at us. We were able to go and whisper to them, without causing too much of a raucous so as not to attract attention.

After much sweet-talking and pleading the superintendant eventually gave us permission to speak to the 3 Bangladeshi girls that we are working with. Sadly she had taken up a lot of our time before she gave permission, so we only had 30 mins left before we had to go. This was just enough time to speak with the girls and get the details needed to be able to conduct a home study.

When previous attempts have been made to get the girls’ addresses it has been done with a non-Bangla speaker, so the addresses we received were not accurate, or not even identifiable.

By God’s grace, the details the girls gave me were all places I recognised and the girls were able to speak with sufficient clarity and accuracy that they could more or less direct me to the door. Even this simple task is difficult for some survivors, who either can’t remember where they lived, or never knew in the first place or are too traumatised to say.

It was so amazing to finally meet these girls and they seemed happy to be able to jabber away in Bangla, even if I was only able to catch a small portion of what they said. But it was very distressing, especially knowing their stories. One girl hobbled in on broken crutches having tried to escape following her rescue from a brothel. She was rescued from a brothel just before she was exploited but was so distressed by the government home that she was placed in that she tried to escape by jumping out a first story window. Sadly she fractured a hip in the process, so is in a lot of pain and needs a further operation. She was quite teary towards the end of our conversation and was desperate to know when she can go home.

Another girl I met unfortunately had been exploited, despite her many efforts to escape her captors, which resulted in severe beatings. She was about 17 years and was lovely. She told me shyly about her boyfriend in Bangladesh and about her school and her parents. She also became quite teary as we were winding up our conversation and clearly just wanted some form of communication with home.

After my visit with these girls we caught a reasonably crowded train back to Mumbai, munching on lovely warm dosas contemplating all we had seen and heard.

At Mumbai we got around the city by local trains, which is kind of like a metro system. The trains are big and wide but absolutely rammed full. We got to stand in the women’s carriage but they tended to be so full that we could barely breathe at some points. When we wanted to get out we had to position ourselves near the door 2 stops ahead of time and then when the time came to get off we got swept in a tide of women also getting down.

The following day I spent in the Oasis office meeting some of the staff and visiting the half way home we have there, which is for women who are coming out of the brothels. One of the young ladies I met was quite remarkable, she had a real aptitude for learning and was studying to become an accountant.

On Friday I travelled home after a frantic but rewarded visit to India’s second largest city, with a population of 50 million and having the biggest red light area in the world!

The Mumbai experience is hard to capture in words, even after only a short visit. For many, like our trafficking survivors, it’s a place of shattered dreams, a place where all innocence and childhood is lost forever and is traded for a much darker reality. But for some it’s a place where hope in a broken world becomes restored, where God is touching lives and where beauty is found in brokenness.

I guess to understand what I really mean – you just have to experience it for yourselves!

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A crown of beauty instead of ashes

Following on from Andy's blog, I thought I would share what else has been happening for us.

Birthday Party

On 5th November one of the lads from church turned 16, so we went to his house for the weekly bible study and we were spoilt with lots of lovely birthday food that his wonderful mother had made, including a big yummy slab of birthday cake and ice cream! Sadly he had to get up early the next day for a Bangla exam, which put a bit of a dampener on the celebrations.

Vanity

Over the weekend one of the girls staying with us became ill, so we stayed to keep her company on Friday and then when she was feeling better on Saturday we took her out for a couple of hours. We discovered an American Diner which had a very authentic-looking juke box and which even sold Root Beer! Andy could hardly contain his excitement! In the afternoon the girls and I went to a beauty parlour for a leg wax and eye brow threading! An extremely painful experience and definitely not one to be repeated in a hurry!

The people here take their appearance very seriously, so beauty treatments are a big business. Even the men are ultra concerned about their appearance - only yesterday I was passing by a barber's shop and witnessed a man with a face mask on, having his ear's massaged, whilst waiting for the tangerine colour on his hair to set! It's a very bizarre sight. I'm not sure whether we've mentioned in the past about the whole 'orange hair' phenomenon but if not perhaps I should explain. Basically the men here go in for dying their hair (including facial hair) a tangerine colour. I'm not quite sure why but apparently they think it's attractive (I would tend to disagree). All I can think of when I see a particularly shocking array of orange is Tango adverts - "You know when you've been tangoed"

Trafficking on our doorstep

On 5th November a partner organisation contacted me about 9 women / girls who had been trafficked to India from Bangladesh; 3 of whom were from an area very near to where our office is, which brought it all home - this terrible crime really is on our doorstep! Most of the girls were deceived into travelling to India by being made offers of false jobs, or marriages and most were trafficked by people they knew and trusted.

However, one 17 year old girl was basically kidnapped. She was on a school trip, out walking with her classmates. She got a thorn in her leg, so stopped to pull it out, getting left behind the rest of the group. Whilst doing so someone approached behind her, put a poison-soaked cloth over her mouth and then took her at knife point on a bus to Kolkata. They sold her to someone in Kolkata, who in turn sold her to a brothel in Pune (an area 3 hours from Mumbai). She tried to escape on several occasions but was badly beaten. She was rescued on 15th September and her wounds were still visible.

We are now trying to bring her and the other 8 girls back to Bangladesh. As you can imagine they are very traumatised and shaken up and aren't really speaking much sense at the moment. we would very much appreciate your prayers for their protection and speedy repatriation. Please also pray for their families - that they will accept their girls back willingly and openly and will give the support that is needed upon their return.

I'll keep you updated of their progress but if you want to know more please email.

As I'm reading over what I've written I'm reminded (as I so often am) of Isaiah 61 and can't help feeling a sense of despair that over 2500 years after these words were written, there are still captives waiting to be freed and there are still 'prisoners' that need releasing from darkness. Perhaps my prayer for these women and girls is that they would be crowned with beauty instead of ashes and be anointed with the oil of gladness, instead of mourning.

Business as usual

The remainder of the week was business as usual. We had a nice bible study on Tuesday night looking at Paul's time in prison and reflecting on the way in which God's plans work themselves out - thinking particularly of how Paul made it to Rome (despite a series of events that suggested he would never make it there), which then enabled the gospel to be spread. Pretty amazing and comforting to know that God has it all in hand.

As you will have read, Andy was up in Nilphamari, so it was just me and the girls at home.

Murder at the TV Awards

On Friday we had a birthday party to celebrate one of the girls' 21st birthday. So, we organised a murder mystery with a few of her friends here. We had a great time trying to suss out who possibly could have murdered Sugar Doll whilst gorging ourselves on a 3 course dinner and lovely chocolate birthday cake.

On Saturday our house helper continued her cooking lessons and this week they mastered lasagne (with home made lasagne sheets) and the best cup cakes ever! We were very impressed and never expected to be eating such wonderful food in Bangladesh. The lady who's teaching Halima is a lady from church, who is an amazing cook and so keen to learn new things. It's a bit of a challenge for Halima to remember the recipes, particularly since she's illiterate, so can't check a recipe book but with practice she'll get there. Thankfully we're not particularly fussy eaters, so we're quite tolerant of dried, overcooked chicken, or mushy over-cooked veg (ha ha)!

Having spent some time with the cooking team I joined the girls for more birthday antics in the afternoon before coming home and getting on with some more planning for the church youth camp in a couple of weeks time.

Think that's about our lot for the time being.

Thanks, as always to you all for being interested in what we're doing - it's so encouraging to know we're supported and that people are sharing the experience with us.

Much love

Andy and Nic

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Early morniing in Nilphamari

Hi all,
On Tues last week I visited our factory in Nilphamari for two days. When we visit the factory we take an overnight bus trip from Dhaka to a place called Saidpur. The trip takes about 8 hours and is usually fairly comfortable.To get from the Bus station to the factory we take an hour long early morning Rickshaw and this is one of our favourite trips we take in Bangladesh. So I thought I’d devote a whole blog to our trip with some of piccies for you to look at…We left the bus station sitting on our van with the luggage behind. As we travel through Saidpur most of the shops are shut as they’ve probably been open till midnight the day before. Its nice and cool, a bit foggy and most of the people are wrapped up warm (even I’m in a jumper!)


We pass the train station where a train has just pulled in causing much excitement and the possibilities for earning money if you’re a beggar, seller or rickshaw waller.We sail right on through the town, only stopping to pick up a tooth brush and toothpaste as I forgot to pack them!

Next we pass an old Muslim mosque. The mosque is about 100 years old and is in the process of being extended.

Then its out into the country side with the odd child heading off to school and a few sellers heading off to the local villages or market with their classy plastic products, or fish, or vegetables or live chickens – all balanced on their heads.

We see other rickshaw vans piled high with products and the odd single cyclist heading off to work in a field or factory somewhere.

This is one of the poorest regions in Bangladesh and industry is few and far between. Most of the land is used for farming rice (which they manage to get three harvests from each year – some of the most fertile country in the world!). Other uses include potatoes and Tobacco. We pass a large tobacco factory on the way. And see miles and miles of open rice fields. Workers are dotted around the fields harvesting or planting or organising the watering of these important plants. Bangladesh is the most populated country in the world (excluding the city states) and most people eat a big bowl of rice three times a day. It needs this crop to survive. Very little is used for export.

Occasionally you see a pair of oxen pulling a plough or people threshing the rice plant to discover the small grains of rice. Nicola always comments how it reminds her of the Story of Ruth and Boaz.

If the land is green, healthy and peaceful then the roads are completely the opposite! Even up here there are many buses and Lorries who think they own the road. Travelling down the narrow stretches at high speeds thundering their horns at any thing that even remotely looks like getting in its way. If you should happen to be in the way when two of these giants pass each other its normally best to dive off the road onto the verge for safety!

Banana trees and bamboo clumps litter the side of the road and the bamboo clumps can be seen in the fields stretching high into the sky above the very flat and low lying land. All of the roads are built up on embankment so that they are still useable when the floods and rains come for 4 months each year.

We pass more cyclists and people walking and also breeze through small villages and towns. The road side shops offer anything from DVD’s, rice and DIY equipment through to bicycle repairs and pharmacies. All single room shops with roller shutter doors; often coming to life in the cool of the evening.

As I said before the whole journey takes about and hour and is a truly relaxing and stress free start to the day (if you can cope with the buses!). Being up here is how you imagine England to be before the turn of the industrial revolution. And is a million miles away from the business of Dhaka.

Love to all, Andy (and Nic) x

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Still here...honest...

We're so sorry there's been such a long delay between postings; we really will try to get on top of this over the upcoming few weeks.

So, our activities over the last couple of weeks:

Church

Ladies Get-together
We had the first of our ladies get together at our house a few weeks ago for the women at church. It was a really good morning as we spent time talking, sharing, studying and eating lovely fruit and cake.

For a lot of the women in this culture, they spend so much of their time working to earn money, looking after the house, cooking and raising their children that their own needs come pretty low on the list of priorities. Some are currently feeling a bit lost and a bit trapped in their lives; particularly those younger women who are of 'marrying age' and whose father's are currently looking for a suitable husband. For them it's an extremely anxious time, not knowing what type of husband they will get, whether he will be respectful of their beliefs and whether he will give them the space and freedom to be the beautiful, creative, ambitious women that God created them to be.

With that in mind we spent some time being encouraged by one of God's beautiful, creative, ambitious, trapped daughters in the bible, namely Esther. The time of prayer and study was wonderful. There's something special about the way women come together to worship God.

We were also entertained by the 3 babies of 3 mothers that came, 1 one of whom found a deep fascination with bird watching over our balcony (a budding David Belamy maybe?!)

Sunday School Picnic
On Friday we went on the annual Sunday School picnic to a place called Savar, about 1.5 hours outside of Dhaka, which is home to the national war memorial commemorating the 1971 Liberation War. The 3 main Sunday Schools all got together for a time of games, singing and bible study in the grounds of the war memorial park, followed by some lunch on a shady bit of grass, which consisted of a cardboard box filled with rice, some chicken and a hard boiled egg.

All the kids had a fantastic time, particularly playing the games and they were still full of enthusiasm during Sunday School on Saturday evening - in fact it was the first thing they all talked to me about. There were about 30 kids in total together with a few of their Sunday School teachers.

The actual was quite interesting in itself. There were a lot of people working there, including young children, who probably lived in the park or the local streets. They worked picking up litter, climbing the trees to get peanuts, which they then cracked open and sold, or sweeping leaves from the ground. Word seemed to get round pretty quickly that we were there, so before we knew it a large group of these kids were surrounding our game of Duck Duck Goose as they took eager delight in watching what we were doing.

Work
For the anti-trafficking work, the majority of Nic's time has been spent in putting together materials for Start Freedom, which is an initiative being run by STOP THE TRAFFIK to engage school children on the issue of trafficking. We are running this project in as many English Medium Schools as possible in Bangladesh.

Nic has also been spending time working on the aftercare for the survivor we mentioned in the last blog. It's so encouraging to see how keen she is to develop and progress her life. She's really focusing on the future and doesn't seem to be too help back by the experiences she's encountered through being trafficked. Actually, she was one of the more fortunate trafficking victims, as she was rescued before being sold to a brothel but that's not to detract from the severity of the trafficking process; it simply means that she hasn't got the added trauma of being sexually exploited. Anyway, she is due to be attending work experience in a local clinic to see whether she would be interested in doing a training course to become a medical assistant and we are also trying to arrange some work experience for her at a beauty parlour, where she can be trained to be a beautician.

Andy's been taking over the project management of our bamboo manufacturing and has been doing some project development work using our 'bamboo frame' concept. He is now also working on some graphics work and maintaining a link with two Oasis academies in the UK.

Personal
Well we still have our 2 lovely house guests staying with us, who are lots of fun to have round, especially when they emerge from their room first thing in the morning - we now remember what it's like being a teenager (ha ha). One of the girls' dad stayed with us for a few day to see what his daughter was up to and to spend time with her seeing the sights, which was really special.

We have arranged for our house helper to have some more cooking training from a lady at church. Last week she cooked roast chicken with Veg and Nan bread - yum! She is a very keen learner and the lady from church is a great teacher. The biggest challenge for our house helper is remembering the recipes when she is completely illiterate but nothing a bit of practice won't sort out.

Last Saturday we went to a craft fair at the local mission school, which was great because there were lots of amazing projects there displaying the items that the people they are supporting had made. Most of the stalls were fair trade and there were lots of Christmassy things on display (so two big thumbs up for me). We find it really worthwhile supporting these types of projects because it's a way of keeping people away from begging on the streets and they're actually doing meaningful, sustainable jobs, which give them ongoing training and support and mean they have an opportunity for a fulfilling life. A lot of the projects are working with destitute women, or people formerly on the streets, or the most marginalised in society...so much need but what a great way of addressing it. It's so comforting to know exactly where your money's going and who it's benefiting!

Anyway, think that's about all our news.

Hope you all have (have had) a great bonfire night. We'd love to hear of your bonfire antics if you fancy dropping us an email, as long as you promise not to gloat too much about how many hot dogs and toasted marshmallows you ate.

Lots of love as always

Nic and Andy x

P.S. PHOTOS HAVE BEEN UPDATED - even added comments because we were feeling so guilty!

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Welcome Home

Hi all

It's been an exciting couple of weeks on all fronts (and in no particular order):

1. It was Nic's birthday last weekend, so we had a fantastic party on the roof of our building;

2. We made a big breakthrough with our product - with our first one being sold and used and 2 big orders being made.

3. One of our trafficking survivors returned to Bangladesh.

Time for some elaboration

Birthday
On Saturday was Nic's birthday, so we had a party to celebrate that and also to celebrate the arrival of some new members of our team and as a belated housewarming.It was very exciting - all of the Oasis staff attended and Andy had arranged to use the roof on our apartment block and he had also arranged to have it decorated with lots of lovely fairy lights - very beautiful.

What came as a surprise (to both of us) was when one of our colleagues turned up with 4 of his mates, who then turned out to be a Hindi dance troop. Towards the end of the evening they started performing some Hindi dancing to us all, which obviously we had to join in with!

Product
So a big week for our product. Not only has our first one been sold and used in the UK but we also secured 2 big contracts in Europe and Australia - WAHOO! So, whilst being extremely happy to have these new orders coming through, we're currently wondering about how on earth we're going to meet them. However, looking at the way in which God enabled us to overcome the mountain of our first production run, we have absolute confidence that He will enable us to conquer this mountain. It's amazing to think that 12 months ago we had no idea what product we would be producing, no factory to produce it in, no workforce and no supplier. Now we have 3 suppliers, a factory, a product, customers and most importantly people employed who desperately need the jobs! Clearly, God's hand has been with us and continues to go with us in the work Oasis is doing.

Survivor
On Wednesday Nic took a trip to the south of the country to meet one of the survivors we have helped repatriate from India (for the purpose of this blog we will refer to her as Rahima).

This is quite an amazing story and another one where it couldn't have come about without God's divine intervention.

Rahima was trafficked from her village in June with her friend by a local policeman. she was sold to another trafficker in India, who took her to Mumbai. On his way to taking her to a brothel to be sold she escaped and managed to contact an organisation in Bangladesh that we work with. They contacted us and we alerted our team in Mumbai. They then worked with a partner organisation to rescue Rahima. Thankfully they managed to rescue her and take her to Oasis' half way home in Mumbai.

Rahima was then transferred to Kolkata whilst awaiting the official documentation from the government that allows her to return home. Normally it takes 6 - 12 months for the paperwork to be processed by the 2 governments but in this case it came through in a matter of weeks; totally amazing!

So, on Wednesday 7th October we received a phone call to say that Rahima's travel documentation had come through and she would be returning to Bangladesh the following day.

She travelled by bus from Kolkata to the Bangladesh border. She was met by our partner organisation and after filling in some official documentation at the police station she was taken to a shelter home in the area that she comes from.

On Wednesday Nic and a couple of colleagues met with her and the shelter home team to discuss her aftercare and options for the future.

She is quite a remarkable young lady - very well adjusted, with a good education, a wonderfully caring heart and a real ambition to get a good career that would bring honour to her family as well as to complete her education. She is very motivated to achieve and grow and to live a life of independence. Unfortunately she doesn't seem to have any idea about how talented she is and how much potential she has. In fact all she aspires to at the moment is to be a hospital domestic assistant but from meeting her it seems she is capable of so much more.

Before she was trafficked she was living in a village with her family, who could barely afford to feed the four children. She had been married but her husband left her and is living in the same village with his new wife and children. There is a lot of hurt surrounding the separation from her husband and it was very sad to hear her talking about it.

Our prayer for Rahima is that she would be encouraged to dream big dreams and that she would receive the support she needs to achieve some of those dreams. We also pray that God would heal the hurt she feels at the breakdown of her marriage and that this situation would create an opportunity for a new life filled with blessings and hope.

In terms of our other activities over the past couple of weeks, we've spent time with the young people at church helping them to arrange their youth "camp" (retreat) for the end of November. They're all extremely excited about the prospect of spending time away in the presence of God and loving friends and also for the opportunity to see a part of the country that many of them will not have seen before.

We have also been on a youth group trip to the park today, which was really fun. Andy led a short study and there was the obligatory games that had to be played (what youth group would be complete without a few games?!)

Tomorrow the women from church are coming round to spend the morning together with some worship, some bible study and hopefully a good deal of fellowship. Nic's very much looking forward to it and is hoping that positive relationships will be forged and that there will be enough cake to go round :-)

So, that pretty much sums up the highlights from the last couple of weeks. We still have the two girls from the UK staying with us, who are working with Oasis, which is lovely. They've started to get more settled now and are just about getting to grips with the transport and using their Bangla. In addition, we have started to perfect the art of cramming 5 passengers in a small taxi (parents if you're reading this look away now......................)

Which basically involves the two girls in the back with Andy. Nic then sits on Andy's knee with her head out the window, apparently there are certain similarities to a Labrador! The locals think it's hilarious and just when we thought we couldn't attract any more attention than we already do simply by being foreigners!

Anyhow, I'm pleased to say we don't have to travel in that manner too often.

Just to end the posting, we wanted to share one last thought with you. Today at church we were thinking about how big and amazing our God is and we reflected on Job 38 v 4 - 7 "Where were you when I laid the earth's foundations? Tell me if you understand. Who marked off its dimensions? Surely you know! Who stretched a measuring line across it? On what were its footings set, or who laid its cornerstone - while the morning stars sang together and all the angels shouted for joy?"

As all the events described above have unfolded we've really had a sense of how awesome and amazing God is - so awesome that He would pick 35 people out of abject poverty and provide lasting jobs for them, so awesome that He would intervene to prevent a beautiful young woman from being sold to a brothel and that's only a drop in the ocean (so to speak).

May we all feel the presence of this awesome God as we go about our lives these coming days.

Andy and Nic x

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Finishing off.........

Hi everyone,

Its been another busy 2 weeks in Bangladesh and we can't believe we've been here for a month already!

It's two weeks so let me update you all a week at a time:
Week 1)
This was mainly taking up by Bible Camp. We had a great time with lots of study and praise and worship. Most of the church here managed to attend the 5 day event. We were all bussed out of town on the Sunday evening and were taken to conference centre about an hour out of Dhaka.

It was a nice place close to the first city of Bangladesh and, as always, nice to be out of the hustle and bustle of Dhaka city. We had a full five days of study, worship, eating and good fellowship with everyone. The church was joined by a some field workers from Australia including Ron Hicks who originally set up the church when he came here with the world bank 10 years ago. Unfortunately we had to leave a day early because we needed to be back at work on the Thursday.

On Friday Andy led the class at Banani and we said goodbye to Ken, a long term field worker from Canada who has had to leave his wife and 8 month year old baby and return to Canada for work. He'll be coming back in the New year to pick up his family and take them to Canada.

Week 2)
Last week we had a slow start with one day at the office and then a day off for the Hindu Holiday of Durga Pooja. This gave Nicola and I some time to sort a few jobs at the house including getting a cheap dinning table. On Monday night we had some people over from church for a meal (on our new table) and had chance to give some feedback on the products they had given us to take back to the UK. It was good to spend time with them and organise how we can take their ideas for their business further.

After they had left Andy packed his bag and headed up to Nilphamari on the overnight bus with his boss. He was due to stay for one day and catch the train home but due to the end of both the Muslim and Hindu holiday all the tickets were booked. So Andy was stranded up at the factory for another day!

This gave plenty of time to oversee the packaging of products ready to ship in our container and also plan for production over the next few weeks and months. The following day Andy and boss got the last two tickets on a squashed non-ac bus back to Dhaka. The seats were right at the back with no leg room for two big guys and we were bounced around for 7 hours all the way back to Dhaka! We even had to stop at a rest stop for 40 mins whilst they jacked up the bus and hit the wheel with a metal pole whilst we were all sitting on board!!

Meanwhile, back in Dhaka, Nicola was runnign here and there busy organising things for two short term Oasis workers who are staying at our home for the next month. Getting beds, sheets, extra cups and bowls, setting up internet and welcome packs, and schedules.... all bus busy stuff.

So by the time Andy got back on Thursday morning we were both feeling exhausted!! But, no rest for the wicked, we got up early friday morning to meet our new guests at the airport at 4.15am! They're in Bangladesh for 2 months and will be mainly working on Stop the Traffik and in the community school.

So far so good, both girls are lovely and seem to be enjoying life in this crazy town!! Hopefully this we'll manage to get some time in the office to get organised with all the work that's piling up for us both.

So one month in, and we're both loving every minute! We're still happy to have visitors so if anyone wants to come and share some of the experience then please let us know!

God Bless,
Andy and Nic

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Its Quality mate!!

Hi everyone, Hope you are all well...

We've been having a usual busy time of it, but enjoying every moment!

It's been two weeks since our last posting and quite a bit has happened. Firstly, we managed to secure a brand new flat in the an ideal location, close to where we used to live. We've also managed to move into the flat as well which is even more remarkable considering that its been coming to the end of Ramadam and Eid (which is a big celebration in the Muslim calendar) starts tomorrow.

This means everyone is busy preparing, buying presents etc (Kind of like Christmas back home is!). Also means the cost of everything goes up too!

But we're in and feel a little settled but in the need of some furniture so we can eat a meal at a table!

Nicola has been slowly catching up with the Stop the Traffik work by having a few meetings and solidly replying to emails.

The last working week we spent up in Nilphamari at our new Coffin factory. Andy volunteered to go up there to help with some quality checking as production comes to a close. Nicola also went up and we both basically ended up working 9hr days in the factory checking quality and making suitable alterations. Rest assured (no pun intended) that no serious work was needed just some touching up on the details!

Nicola returned back to work in Dhaka on Thurs leaving Andy up at the Factory until Fri morning. This meant a 13 hour working day at the factory for Andy on the Thurs!!

But spending time up there was really amazing as we got to know some of the workers better, building up some good relations and starting to understand how a secure job can make a world of difference to the lives of some of these people. One truly amazing story came out when one of the workers told of how she was abused at home by her husband but was so happy to be earning her own income and described work as a place of refuge for her in an otherwise despairing life.

The past weekend has been spent working on some Delph talks and Sunday school lessons as we leave for Bible Camp today (20th). We're heading an hour out of Dhaka with all the Bro's and Sis's for a 4 day residential.

We also managed to get to the Mirpur church last night where Andy spoke on Luke 11. It was great to see everyone again and to discover that they're growing together in size love and fellowship... most of the usual crowd were there and everyone was really pleased to see us.

We'll fill you in on details of the bible camp when we get back. Love to all!
Andy and Nic x

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We're Back

Greetings, once again, from Dhaka.

As you can tell we’ve arrived safely back in Bangladesh. We landed on Monday 31st August on a very crowded Emirates flight from Dubai; crammed full of Bangladeshi men returning from the United Emirates. The volume of people wouldn’t have been so bad if those people hadn’t been accompanied by bags and bags of duty free; so much so that they had to start piling it in the hold and when that was full people had to put it under their seats, on their knees and in the aisles!

After we arrived in Dhaka we went to a colleague’s house to freshen up and then went off to the Oasis Bangladesh annual staff conference in Savar, about 1.5 hours north of Dhaka.

The staff conference lasted 3 days and was great for catching up on what we’d missed and for getting to know our colleagues a bit better. It was also very inspirational and motivating.

Over the course of the conference we did some leadership training, thought about our aspirations and hopes and learnt what was going on in all the different Oasis Bangladesh projects.

Highlight
Riding on some rickety old waltzers at the amusement park with our Bangladeshi colleagues, who were laughing uncontrollably the whole time.
Memorable Quote:
“It is great to have your life used for something bigger than yourself”
Memorable Verse:
(When God called Moses and Moses felt overwhelmed by the task to which he was being called) “[The Lord said to Moses] What is that in your hand?”

After getting back late on Wednesday night we then moved into our friends’ vacant flat for a temporary stay whilst we look for a new place to live. So, on Thursday morning we commenced our search around the area where we used to live. Despite searching for over 6 hours there was very little to choose from. Eventually we’ve got it down to 2, which we’re now choosing between, so watch this space.

On Friday we went to the Bagha club to catch up on some emails and then to church for lunch and memorial service (sermon + communion). It was great to catch up with everyone again and to meet some new faces and it was wonderful to be so warmly welcomed.

It seems that a common question is what the weather’s like here, so to summarise: it’s still monsoon season but we’re coming to the end of it. When we arrived the ground seemed pretty water logged but nowhere near as bad as we were expecting. It’s rained on and off since we arrived, which has been lovely for cooling the air down (although the humidity very quickly kicks in when the sun comes out).

It’s also Ramadan here, so the majority of the population are fasting during the day and then they break their fast at around 7.20. That means they aren’t allowed to consume anything – not even water – during daylight hours. It’s amazing to see the peoples’ devotion to this religious practice, particularly when they have to work so hard in such difficult conditions.

So, almost a week in and it feels like we’ve never been away; the Bangla we spoke (limited as it is) has pretty much all come back; the roads are still as decrepit as ever and the people are still as lovely as ever. We have been amazed by how excited we were about coming back and how warmly welcomed we were by everyone here – our work colleagues and church community alike. It truly feels like God has blessed us in bringing us back and we are praying that this blessing may continue.

Just before we sign off - a huge thanks to all have supported us and continue to support us in coming back; whether it be financially, prayerfully or emotionally - it has made the transition, once again, very manageable.

Love Nic and Andy

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Bangladesh Evening 13th June

Before I get into the events of the past week or so, just wanted to stop you and encourage to go and grab your diaries, calendars, PDAs, or whatever you use to store dates (gents - run and tell your wives / girlfriends).

Go on.....

SATURDAY 13TH JUNE - An evening to experience Bangladesh

Here's the poster




Unfortunately the poster I managed to upload doesn't have the text on so I'll tell you what it says:

"If you've never experienced the sights and sounds of Bangladesh, now's your opportunity. Come and journey with us through the streets of Dhaka and through the bamboo gardens of Nilphamari for an evening of fun, food and entertainment as we share our experiences of Bangladesh. The evening will be held at the Westleigh Christadelphian Hall, Westleigh Road, Leicester LE3 0HH, on Saturday 13th June at 6.30pm"

Basically we're having an interactive evening to share with you what it's like to live and work in Bangladesh. We would love your company and please feel free to bring along friends and family - the more the merrier as far as we're concerned.

If you want more information please drop us an email. Also, it would be useful for us if you could let us know whether you're intending on coming, so we can have an indication of numbers.

We look forward to seeing you there.

Much love

Andy and Nic

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A bit of News

Before we get into the general ins and outs of what we've been up to we thought we should let you all know that after much thinking, praying and talking we've decided to stay in Bangladesh for a further 12 months as of August this year.

We're planning on returning to the UK at the beginning of June for 2 months and then we'll be coming back to Bangladesh again in August, God willing. We'll be coming back to work with Oasis again but our roles within Oasis might change slightly.

We're also planning on having a Bangladesh evening in the middle of June where you can share in the experience we've been having (hopefully bringing this blog a bit more to life). When we've confirmed the date and finalised the details we'll publish a new posting.

So, now on to what we've been up to over the past couple of weeks. It's been back to business as usual. Again, Andy's been putting in some late nights and a bit of weekend work as he and the team desperately try and get the product finished within the next 2 weeks ready for our boss to take back to the UK (sorry can't disclose details about the product, we're trying to keep it under wraps for the time being).

Nic's been doing some contract drafting for the business and on the anti-trafficking front we're currently working on 13 cases of girls who have been trafficked to India that we're now trying to bring back. All of them were sold into the sex industry and have been severely exploited, either in the brothels, or by pimps and almost all of them have now been arrested and are residing in a government home in India.

In case you thought you mis-read that, you didn't - those girls really have been arrested. Some of them have been arrested for commercial sex work, or for illegally residing in India (clearly if you're trafficked, your not going to be able to bring identification documentation with you, even if you have it in the first place).

Anyway, we're now working with partners in India to get a repatriation order from the Indian government to bring the girls back across the border and then work to reintegrate them back into society.

No doubt when we're back in the UK we'll enlighten you as to the experiences of some of these girls but for now it makes pretty harrowing reading, so probably best left off the blog for the time being.

We've also been pretty involved in church over the past couple of weeks. Last week there was a women's day at church, which Nic supported and which was really great. It was so refreshing to see the women sharing their problems and supporting one another.

Nic also helped teach at a slum sunday school that the church runs. It has now moved to a Saturday, which is great cause it's now something we can support. It was most amusing because the kids, who probably ranged from age 2 - 10 had the attention span of knats but we did some drama and some activities, which they loved. It was great fun to see them engaging and enjoying themselves, safe and secure from their ordinarily fairly troubled lives.

We've also been in the middle of a heat wave here. Apparently temperatures peaked last Sunday at 44C. That has meant very frequent power cuts and even water shortages. At the church flat they were without water for 3 days! At our place we've lost water a bit in the evenings but nothing too drastic. We're into a good bucket-filling routine now.

The rise in temperatures has caused a massive increase in diseases in the city. Loads of people are coming down with fevers, flus and chronic diarrhoea. The government hospitals are full to bursting and a lot of people can't afford the treatment in any event. Not a pretty sight!

Thankfully this weekend the rains came, which has brought the temperatures right down and has reduced the power cuts and water cuts (phew).

You may recall that our house-helper's house and rest of the slum got destroyed in a fire a few weeks ago. They are slowly managing to rebuild their houses and help is filtering down. It's still not ideal as they're still sleeping under plastic sheets but hopefully it will only be a couple of weeks before the houses get rebuilt.

All the house owners are having to rebuild their own homes, so the speed at which they can build is slightly affected by the rate at which they can buy materials but little by little help is coming.

I think that's about all from our end.

Hope you're all well and enjoy the Bank Holiday

Love Andy and Nic x

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For He's a Jolly Good Fellow

This is the second part of the catching up blog postings.

After getting back from our holiday on an overnight bus on Easter Sunday (12th April)and arriving back in Dhaka on Monday morning we then took a trip to Old Dhaka with Lucy (a must see for anyone visiting Bangladesh!).

Given that the streets were fairly crowded and the sun was pretty toasty we decided to take our tour by rickshaw, rather than on foot. After travelling through some of the narrow little streets and admiring the old derelect buildings we arrived by the water's edge at a small port, which I think is better described as a landing station. It was good to see all the hussle and bustle around the landing station as people were transporting vegetables on large baskets on and off small boats, other boats were waiting to take passengers across to the other side of the river, people were working by the side of the river and people just crowded in to see these strange Bideshi (foreigner) faces.

After an exciting trip round Old Dhaka we went to Computer City (a large shopping complex full of computer related stores).

In the afternoon we relaxed, unpacked and then Lucy got ready for her early morning departure. We then all stumbled out of bed at 3.00am and took a taxi to the airport. After a sad goodbye to Lucy Andy and I sleepily got back into bed for a further few hours kip.

On Tuesday it was New Year's Day here. So, that meant a national holiday and the streets were full of people celebrating. The traditional colours to wear on New Year's Day is red and white, so there were lots of ladies looking beautiful in their red and white Sari's or Salwa Kamiz's and the ben were wearing red and white punjabi suits.

On that day our work colleague was getting married, so we set off to a village in Gazipur, which is about 1 hour outside the city.

The wedding was due to start at 11.30, or so we understood. So 5 of us from the office dutifully arrived at the starting time and as expected we were the first to arrive. Even the groom hadn't arrived by then and was still sat in the barber's.

We made our way down the narrow, dusty road to a small village where the bride's family were from and where the wedding was due to take place. The houses in the village were all made of tin and were closely packed together. The houses were kind of arranged in clusters of 5 - 6, with each cluster sharing a toilet and well. At the entrance to the village was a large sort of entrance made out of brightly coloured cloth, which is always put up when there's a wedding.

In the middle of this village was a larger tin building, which normally served as a school but on this day it was to be the church hall.

After some time looking round the village and meeting the residents we were escorted into the church hall where we were given some very welcomme drinks and snacks.

After that there was a bit more standing around and talking, by which time we were absolutely cooking! There were 2 small fans in the church building but not that helpful in 40C heat when you're in a tin shack. I think it's fair to say that neither of us have ever sweated as much as we did that day (sorry...maybe too much information for a blog?!). However, I'm told that the sauna-like conditions are very good for our skin, so that's a bonus!

Anyway, after that we managed to watch one of the pre-marriage rituals, which was a ceremonial washing. The bride and groom were both dressed in yellow and then the bride's family gave the couple a "turmeric shower", where they tipped turmeric and water all over the bride and groom. From an outsider's perspective it looked like the bride's family were enjoying it a lot more than the "Happy couple".

After this ritual the couple then had to get cleaned up and but their glad rags on for the ceremony. Whilst we were waiting to appear we were given seats under the shade of one of the houses and after a few minutes we were surrounded by a crowd of around 50 kids staring at us. To try and remove some of the awkwardness our boss and Andy started doing some "magic tricks" to entertain the masses whilst we waited.

At about 1.30 the ceremony started. The bride looked beautiful in her red sari overlayed with lots of gold. She also fulfilled her role very well of looking completely miserable for the entire ceremony and even shed a few tears. It's the bride's job to look sad at a wedding because she is leaving her family home.

After the ceremony we stayed for the meal provided by the bride's family. They were very kind to us and gave us proper chips and battered chicken - just like a homemade KFC; it was yum!

At about 3.45 we then travelled back to Dhaka, by now completely covered in sweat but nonetheless very happy that we were able to share in such an exciting Bangaldeshi experience.

As we travelled back home the streets were lined with people celebrating the new year and enjoying the fact that for the vast majority of people they were with their family and didn't have to go to work.

The rest of the week was spent at work. Andy has been really busy with some key design challenges, so has had a few meetings to thrash it out.

It's getting pretty hot now as well and the humidity has been turned up a few notches. This means that there are more and more power cuts and we seem to spend our days looking out for the "AC moments" or the nearest cold shower (although in this heat the shower isn't even that cold). Whilst it may sound a little unbearable, we're actually coping fine - God has really blessed us with the ability to adapt to the heat and we have plenty of "cool moments" to fill our day.

If we catch ourselves moaning about the heat we have a very immediate reminder of how blessed we are when we think of our house helper sheltering under nothing more than a plastic sheet on the wreck of her former house, or the street children on the roads outside having to beg in the sweltering heat day after day. Sometimes it's easy to lose sight of the great many blessings we have and we thank God for those gentle reminders in our life.

Until next time...

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Easter Break

I think it's been a little over a week since we last wrote, so there's a bit of catching up to do.

Over the Easter weekend the office was closed on Easter Sunday, so we took the opportunity to take a trip out of Dhaka to show Lucy the real Bangladesh.

We travelled overnight on a coach down to the South West of the country in an area called Cox's Bazaar. This area is popular with the locals and is apparently famed for having the world's longest beach.

We were actually staying in a mission guest house about 60km north of the beach in a hospital compound (there seems to be a running theme of where we take our guests on holiday!).

The bus trip down was good. It's a 10 hr journey to Cox's but about 9 for us because we got down before the bus reached the final destination. Since it was such a long journey we treated ourselves to Executive seats, which was a new experience for us - lovely wide seats, which apparenly had a massage setting on them but none of us could get working and they reclined almost horizontally - ahhh bliss! It's going to be tough reverting back to our standard means of travel.

We arrived at about 7.30am on Friday morning, just in time for breakfast.

The guest house was beautiful; very peaceful and relaxing nestled away on a slight hill amongst lots of lovely shady trees. Our rooms were very nice and typically twee and we were even fortunate to have Western food cooked for us, which was a real privilege. There was even a pool on the compound, which was great for taking a dunk after a hard afternoon of reading!

We were the only Brits staying at the guest house, the rest were American Christians either working at the hospital, or visiting from a nearby area.

On Friday we spent the day relaxing as we were still pretty sleepy after the bus trip. Andy was very excited to spot a full sized basketball court and even more excited when there were people to play with. So, Andy and a few Americans who either worked on the compound, or were visiting formed a team and had a good run around in the blazing heat! Sadly the game came to an early end when Andy got a whopper of a blister on is left foot, so couldn't carry on. A bit disappointing since he could hardly walk, so was out for the following 2 days.

In the evening we joined in with the church service they have at the guest house. This is mainly for the expats who live and work on the compound but those staying at the guest house are invited to stay.

On Saturday we hired a car to take us down to Cox's Bazaar. We spent the morning looking round a Buddhist Temple, which was really interesting, followed by some browsing around the Burmese Market. This area of the country is very close to Myanmar (Burmer) and in fact used to be part of Burmer, so there are a lot of Burmese living in that area and there is quite a high Buddhist population.

After that we had a leisurely lunch in one of the hotels by the side of the beach, whilst we waited for the temperatures to cool down a bit. The restaurant was alongside the hotel's pool, so there was a large glass screen overlooking the pool. This kept us very entertained during our lunch as we watched the locals "swimming" in the pool fully clothed. When we say swimming what we mean is some cross between doggy paddle and a pretend drowning manoeuvre - very amusing! Just to add to the entertainment there were some young men who obliged us with their "diving" acrobatics, which as you may have already guessed were perfectly formed belly flops! Needless to say the Bangladeshis aren't renowned for their swimming prowess.

After tearing ourselves away from the poolside entertainment we wandered across to the beach. The beach was vast and not too crowded - not like European beaches!

There were some sun loungers strewn across the beach in a single line, which we hired for a couple of hours. The sun lounger experience is not quite like in Europe - there's a distinct lack of scantily clad people trying their best to frizzle and instead people sit on them fully clothed and simply chat to their friends, or on their mobile phone.

We of course followed etiquette and sat fully clothed - Andy pushed the boundaries a bit and sat in shorts and t-shirt but Nic of course sat in her full Salwa Kamiz (although minus the scarf bit!)

The sand was beautiful. Not really the pure white sands of the Indian Ocean but instead lovely warm golden sands - the kind you would see in the Med.

The sea was also wonderful. Some really good sized waves to play in and soooo warm! I can't even begin to describe how warm the sea was; just like a bath. So, we spent a good deal of time playing around in the waves admiring the ocean. It was a little restrictive trying to jump the waves in a full Salwa Kamiz (trousers and dress) but I made do!

It was really fun to see lots of Bangladeshi families enjoying themselves in the sea and to watch groups of fishermen hauling their nets through the waters. It's so amazing that there is somewhere so beautiful that people can go and forget the cares of life - no matter whether your rich or poor.

As always we attracted a lot of attention being the only white folk on the beach. So, we got the usual street children come up to us asking for money, or trying to sell us things. There was one lad who was going round with his older brother and friend, who couldn't have been older than 6 or 7. His brother was making him sit on the end of peoples' sun loungers and sing songs to get some money. That was really upsetting - it seemed so degrading to have to sing pityfully to people to get money, particularly when the locals were kind of giggling in a very patronising sort of a way.

Anyway, the kid was very cute, so we sat and chatted to him and his brother for a bit, which was fun.

After our day at the beach we spent the next day at the guest house just lazing around the compound. As it was Easter Sunday they had prepared a special Easter meal, which was yummy and there was an Easter service, which we were able to partly join in with before our bus back to Dhaka.

All in all a very relaxing break and a really good opportunity for Lucy to see the beauty of Bangladesh - away from the big smoke of Dhaka.

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Lucy, Rain and Fire

Hi Everyone!

Things have been busy again here over the past week and a half with big product deadlines and the arrival of a special visitor.

Lucy arrived in the wee small hours of 31st.. we both met her at the aiport and got stuck straight into Bangladesh life with a walk around the local Bazar and a trip to the Orphanage we sometimes visit. She's settled in really well and seems to be enjoying her time here so far. She's proven to be very adventurous and keen to explore some parts of Dhaka herself.

We took her to church on Fri and had some friends from work round in the evening to have an evening of Pit! On Saturday Nicola and Lucy went back to the Hair salon run by the Orphanage to get their hair cut! The Salon has been set up as away of making money for the orphanage and offering training to some of the girls - which we think is a great example of some sustainable and wholistic development work!

The week at work as been a little bit hectic. Lucys visited a few times to help set up a database for the anti-trafficking team. Nicola has been having lots of meetings with a lady who's working for Stop the Traffik in India.

Andy's been in the office all hours trying to finish the Bamboo product for a Design Freeze at the end of March. He was involved in a big meeting on Monday (yesterday) to look at all aspects of the design with the rest of the team... so its had a thorough going over and some changes will need to be made!

The weather has also take an exciting turn with the humidity arriving rapidly leading to lots of storms. On Sunday last week (29th) we had hailstones the size of Golf balls!! Andy and Nicole were stranded at work until 7 and then it took them 2 hours to get home! We ended up walking down the central reservation with the water knee deep either side of us!

Yesterday(Mon 6th)disaster struck when a fire broke out in one of the local slums. The slum houses our house-helper(Halima)Jo's house-helper, works cook (Shuli) and one of our workshops guys (Massum - the zoo song guy!). Halima, Massum and Jo's house-helpers 'houses' were all completely destroyed... The rooms were made of bamboo and tin and were burnt to the grounds with them all loosing everything. Amazingly no-one died in the incident but the devastation it has caused is hard to take in. Their basic homes were literally gone.

We visited the slum this morning to try and offer our love, assistance and some food/clothing. These families had lost everything. All of the few possessions they owned. It was truly heart breaking to meet with them and see the devastation. We spoke to them for a while and was amazed to see the level of hope and positive attiude they carried around with them - even asking how the product deadline at work had gone!

I've been thinking a lot at the moment about all the 'stuff' that we often have. The computers, the TV's, all our clothes, gadjets, cooking appliances, books, dvd's etc etc... what drives us to need all these things in our lives... is my life any better for it? Am I just addicted to owning stuff - thinking that its going to make things easier, better, make me feel more secure?

And then you visit a family who only had a few pairs of clothes, a TV and some food living in a room 8ft square - and in half an hour they lose all of that - they literally have no 'stuff' whatsoever! Yet, they can still manage a smile and still want to know how you are, they're still grateful..... Kinda humbles you beyond belief and makes you think long and very hard...

Sorry for the waffle... please pray for Halima and our work colleagues in this very difficult time.

Love and Gods blessings to you all.
Andy and Nic

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April Showers (In March)

I was just reflecting on what we've done this week, since I last updated the blog and actually I'm not sure there's much to report but I'll give you a brief summary of our activities anyway.

On the work front it's been all systems go in the office and workshop as we're desperately trying to get the designs finalised by our end of March deadline. This week a new toy (I mean very important and essential power tool) arrived, which Andy and his design colleague have been playing with this week. I'm told that's it's actually a really important piece of kit and a massive help in producing a quality finish to the products in a relatively short space of time. It's quite a sight to behold when you go into the workshop though and see it in action. Initially you can't see anything because of the thick cloud of sawdust surrounding the machine (our cleaner is less that impressed with this new acquisition!). Then there's Andy and his colleague stood opposite each other, operating different parts of the machine - both wearing safety googles, gloves, aprons and backwards caps - covered in a thin layer of dust. Very entertaining for us onlookers.

We've also been spending time playing with eggs, milk and beeswax as we concoct various different natural dye and paint recipes - not as easy as you might think!

On the anti-trafficking front we've been trying to locate a girl who was trafficked from a garment factory in Dhaka at the age of about 11 into a brothel in Kolkata. She was rescued by an organisation in Kolkata and then brought back to Bangladesh. She was received by her father and is now married (aged about 16) and working back in the garment industry. We were asked to try and locate her to check on her safety and also to help her get back to Kolkata for a trial against her traffickers. I'm pleased to say that this week we managed to make contact with her and she appears to be safe at least but we are continuing to try to make contact. This week we hope to go and visit her as there's only so much you can get from speaking to someone on the phone. We suspect there's probably a lot she's not telling us about her current home situation, so hopefully we'll get a fuller picture by meeting with her.

Generally work in the office has been a bit hard going because of the really oppressive heat and quantity of power cuts. I think I've explained before about load shedding - how there's not enough power to go round, so the government distribute it to different parts of the city during the day. Where our office is located is classed as a lower priority power area, which means more power cuts for us. We have an IPS system (Like a generator) but it doesn't have a very high capacity and doesn't get enough time to re-charge between power cuts, which means that when we get a power cut we're running on no fans, definitely no AC, no lights etc. So, it can be a bit tough going, especially in the early part of the afternoon. Thankfully, as soon as we get home we can jump straight in the nice cool shower, which is wonderful after a sweaty day in the office!

This week was Independence Day in Bangladesh as the country remembers it's freedom from the control of Pakistan. So, Thursday 26th marked the 39th anniversary of the war of Independence. So, it was a national holiday and a definite feel of celebration in the air. As we walked down the street there was national flags hanging from balconies, people waving flags and wearing headbands with the flag on it. This was an important day for the local people - they are very proud of their independence and of course since it happened relatively recently it is still remembered by many people. When you talk to people you really sense their pride in their country - they are very keen to know what we think of their country and even more delighted when we respond with positive opinions of Bangladesh.

Unfortuantely, like any war, certain wounds have been slow to heal. There is still a deep feeling of hostility towards Pakistan (and for that matter any other country that is seen to support Pakistan). In addition, prior to the war there were Urdu-speaking Pakistanis who settled in Bangladesh. Following the war those that were unable to escape back to their own country got stranded and ended up living in camps across the country. Even today these camps still exist and there is one very close to our office. Because these communities (known as Bihari communities) are not technically Bangladesh nationals they have been denied the basic rights of a Bangladeshi - like education, health care, jobs and are very excluded from society. Over 30 years on they have technically been given citizenship but are still treated as an excluded community. This is one of the sadest oucomes of the 1971 war.

Anyway, since we got a bonus extra day of holiday we took the opportunity to have some people round from the church we go to on Saturday evening. We had the family round, whose house we use for the Saturday church and also the leader of the church we go to on Friday and his wife. As you can imagine, cooking for Bangladeshi's I was a little nervous. After much deliberation we chose to give them a taste of England and cooked the classic Spaghetti Bolognase with roast vegetables and banoffi pie for pudding.

Entertaining in Bangladesh is very strange because all the socialising happens before eating and then everyone leaves as soon as dinner is over - none of this sitting around over a cup of coffe and an After Eight. So, generally the woman spends the whole evening in the kitchen, serves the food, waits until everyone has eaten and then she eats when everyone's left. I fulfilled most of this etiquette but gave up when it came to serving out and waiting til later to eat (my appetite didn't hold out that long!).

We had a very nice evening chatting and playing with the two kids. We were also blessed to only have 1 power cut, rather than the usual 3 that we've been having of late. I think the food went down mostly okay although there was definite uncertainty to begin with - especially when we handed forks around to eat with!

Anyway, today saw the first rains of the season. We were told to expect storms in April, so today we got a taster. It all started yesterday with some very welcome high winds and then early this morning the winds were howling and there was a heavy downpour. Sadly it didn't last very long but it was lovely to have a refreshing breeze blowing through.

We're very much looking forward to some more of that kind of weather because this last week has been pretty toasty that's for sure.

So, I better sign off as it's time for church.

Have a great week and please keep us updated with your news - we love to hear what's going on back home.

Oh, just before I go, thanks to those of you who have requested a password - unfortunately we've had a bif of difficulty putting a password on but as soon as we figure out how to overcome the glitches we'll drop you an email.

Love Nic and Andy

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Hi everyone,

Things are continuing to progress well both at work and at church. We’re having a busy month so far with lots going on with finalising products for OTL and many meetings and planning for Stop the Traffik. Last week there were some visitors from an organisation in India, who are involved in anti human trafficking work in India, so wanted to meet organisations doing similar work in Bangladesh. Nic was busy sorting out their schedule for their trip and attending various meetings with these visitors. Whilst it was pretty chaotic (especially trying to communicate with local drivers over the phone using a very limited amount of Bangla) the meetings all went well and we managed to form some good relationships.

The other big news on the STOP THE TRAFFIK front is that Cadburys have announced that as of the summer their Dairy Milk range will be "Fairtrade" and therefore "traffik free". This is great news and a wonderful testimony to all the people around the world who have been involved (at whatever level) in getting the big chocolate companies to change their practices. It's so exciting to know that there will be a few less children been exploited in awful conditions on the cocoa farms and a few more people being employed, working in good conditions, being paid enough to feed their families.

Since the last blog posting Andy took a trip up to our factory site in Nilphamari with his design colleague and Ben, the latest addition to the team who is basically the business manager in Nilphamari. He had a great time briefing the new workers, planning production, testing out some new tools and safety equipment (and watching the odd Hindi movie).

On Tuesday 10th March it was a national holiday here, which meant the day off for us. So, in the morning Andy arrived back from Nilphamari having travelled on the overnight train.After a morning coffee with our neighbour we went to meet some young people from church for lunch, including a fieldworker from Australia, whose birthday it was and who was due to leave 2 days later. We then went to play basketball with some of these young people (not so easy in flip flops, 34 C and a Shalwa Kamiz!) After that we went to see a couple from the church, who have recently had a baby - good opportunity for a cuddle with the new arrival.

At the weekend we were privileged to be able to take a trip to Khulna in the south of the country with one of the church members. We went to visit some of his family, old friends and people who are keen to know more about the bible. We left late on Thursday evening, taking the overnight green line bus to the southern city.

Having had some poor bus experiences previously we decided to travel in ‘luxury’ using a slightly posher bus service than we're used to. The bus came complete with air conditioning, blankets, water and no-one being sick! (which Nicola was most relieved about).

We got to a town near Kulna at about 6.45am and were met off the bus by a very excited young lad who had come to receive us. We travelled back to his house on a rickshaw van and were looked after by his family and relatives.

We arrived at this lovely little village nestled away amongst some trees and gardens. This village was actually quite large and kind of divided into little clusters - with one cluster being Christian, one being Hindu and one being Muslim. We were taken to this lad's house, which was also next door to two other houses belonging to his relatives. The house we went to was a relatively large concrete house with a tin lid. The other two were smallr, one room bamboo huts.

The village shared a cow where they got their milk from (enough for 6 families) and there was a shared well where they got their water from. There was also a small vegetable plot where they shared some local produce.

After freshning up we were served a large breakfast of Ruti (Chapati), fried egg, some kind of shredded vegetable curry and fruit as well as a lovely cup of tea, containing very fresh milk.

We were then taken on a tour of the village where we were invited into numerous peoples' houses. By 9.30am we had been to 3 peoples' houses - all of which gave us snacks and tea! As you can imagine we were feeling very full and slightly apprehensive about how our guts would respond to all this different food. As you may have picked up from previous blog postings, food really is the language of love here. People are so hospitable and show their love for you in welcoming you into their homes and feeding you. It was such a privilege to be welcomed by so many peope and to see inside their humble houses.

After our stroll we then had a bit of a rest and went to spend some time with the chap from the church we had travelled down with and his family; in particular his niece, who is suffeirng a lot of personal difficulties with her husband (a very heart wrenching story!). Whilst not wanting to go into too much detail, it is suffice to say that her husband is treating her and her 2 children very badly and due to the nature of this culture it is very difficult for this young lady to see any way out. Hopefully God will show us some way of helping her; there are a couple of doors that have opened already, so we'll push them and see what happens.

We then had a huge lunch (yes, more food!). Following that we had a bit of a rest and then later in the afternoon Andy did a bible talk to a group of young Christians in the local baptist church. It was hugely encouraging to see their enthusiasm and just their desire to know God and understand the scriptures. Some had even travelled over 15km to get there by local transport at their own cost. I'm sure this enthusiasm is largely due to having far less distractions in their lives than we do in the West.

After the bible study we went back for afternoon tea, consisting of warm milk, biscuits, fruit and this kind of home made jelly thing (which was more like really thick jam than jelly). The fresh milk was a real treat, having never drank fresh milk before - we could definitely get used to it and will certainly be looking at the possibility of getting a cow back in the UK.

During the course of the afternoon and evening we met more people and spent time with our church member's family, which was lovely. We shared some dinner with them and then left at about 9.30pm for the night bus, which was due to leave at 10pm.

Before we left we heard on the news that there was a big fire at a large shopping mall in Dhaka. Fortunately there weren't too many casualties because the fire struck the upper floors, which were all offices and being a Friday most of the offices would have been shut. Nonetheless it was pretty frightning for those concerned and pretty much brought the city to a stand still, particularly since it took over 5 hours to put out the blaze.

After a very uneventful journey back we arrived in Dhaka at 6.00am on Saturday morning. We then spent the day doing a bit of shopping, relaixing at the Club and then attending the recently established church in the evvening, which Andy was speaking at. As usual it was bible study by candle light because of the power cuts but very lovely all the same - it made for a very nice atmosphere (even if we had to slightly strain to see our bibles).

The week so far has been fairly quiet at work. The most eventful thing that we've done is to sort out our visas. It was a very strange experience, as experiences go, which involved going to the visa office and speaking to the deputy director there to get clarification on the visa application process. We were most surprised when she informed us that our current visa, despite expiring on 21st March, allows us to stay up to a further 6 months.

Not content with this answer we then took a trip to the Immigration Office at the airport. After speaking to numerous police officers of varying ranks it seemed that the position is as set out by the Deputy Director. So, looks like we're all set for the next few months and have saved ourselves the hastle and expense of re-applying. The only downside is that we can't leave and re-enter the country without applying for a new visa but that's a small price to pay.

We're still somewhat sceptical and probably will be until we board the plane in June but then it's in God's hands, now so really nothing to worry about. Whatever happens it will all work out.

Hope all's well in the UK and the soft light of spring is beginning to dawn. We hear that the first lambs have started to appear in the fields, which are undoubtedly very cute.

We'll write soon.

Love Nic and Andy x

P.S. We'll soon be passwording our blog so please email us asap at the address at the top if you want the password.

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