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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