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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