Thursday, March 3, 2011
Our Last Day
This is our last day in Bangladesh for this year, and I'll talk more about that in a minute, but I also wanted to share a bit about our last day in Birisiri, which was last Sunday. Albert and I, plus Shagota, who came along to translate, rode on the back of motorcycles with three of the men from the GBC office. We travelled about 45 minutes, right to a village on the border with India where Albert preached to a Garo congregation of about 200. It was a beautiful village and the people were extremely welcoming. After church we had a wonderful lunch and then took another short ride to a Bangladesh Army Border Force station. They kindly allowed us to climb up their look-out tower where we a magnificent view of the surrounding countryside. The commander then proceeded to serve us tea! I told them I couldn't imagine the US army being so welcoming of foreigners to one of their camps. Here are a few pictures of what we saw:
Tuesday, March 1, 2011
Mission Accomplished!
Last Friday and Saturday I gave the last of the three Sunday School Teacher workshops that I came to give this year. This was quite a mixed group age-wise. I had a couple Pastors, a school teacher, an older, very experienced Sunday School teacher, and many young people who haven't started teaching yet. Once again I had a predominantly male class, 11 men and four young women.
All but two of the participants were Garo from the Garo Baptist Convention, whose development agency is a partner of CRWRC. The other two came from a town that is a couple hours away and are associated with PARI, another CRWRC partner that works in the Mymensigh area.
The workshop was in Birisiri, an area of Bangladesh is very near the Indian border which splits the Garo community between the two countries. Most of the Garo people live in India. My next blog will tell about our visit to a border village where Albert preached: stay tuned! Most of the participants came from pretty far away, so they stayed in town overnight in order to attend both days of the workshop.
Perhaps because it was the third time I had presented the workshop, but I think also because the participants were so very open, I was my most relaxed for this one. Every time we had a break - especially after they had made their own instruments- they would all start singing and accompanying themselves on the instruments. It was great!
When they presented the lessons they had designed, most showed a good grasp of the new concepts they had learned. I am confident that even those who were older and had been teaching in one way for years will use at least a few of the new ideas they learned from me and from each other. Many thanks to Shagota Chisim who once again did an excellent job translating for me and who bravely presented the parable of the Good Shepherd for the first time! Enjoy the pictures that follow:
All but two of the participants were Garo from the Garo Baptist Convention, whose development agency is a partner of CRWRC. The other two came from a town that is a couple hours away and are associated with PARI, another CRWRC partner that works in the Mymensigh area.
The workshop was in Birisiri, an area of Bangladesh is very near the Indian border which splits the Garo community between the two countries. Most of the Garo people live in India. My next blog will tell about our visit to a border village where Albert preached: stay tuned! Most of the participants came from pretty far away, so they stayed in town overnight in order to attend both days of the workshop.
Perhaps because it was the third time I had presented the workshop, but I think also because the participants were so very open, I was my most relaxed for this one. Every time we had a break - especially after they had made their own instruments- they would all start singing and accompanying themselves on the instruments. It was great!
When they presented the lessons they had designed, most showed a good grasp of the new concepts they had learned. I am confident that even those who were older and had been teaching in one way for years will use at least a few of the new ideas they learned from me and from each other. Many thanks to Shagota Chisim who once again did an excellent job translating for me and who bravely presented the parable of the Good Shepherd for the first time! Enjoy the pictures that follow:
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